Actor Network Theory Approach and its Application in Investigating Agricultural Climate Information System

Abstract

Actor network theory as a qualitative approach to study complex social factors and process of socio-technical interaction provides new concepts and ideas to understand socio-technical nature of information systems. From the actor network theory viewpoint, agricultural climate information system is a network consisting of actors, actions and information related processes (production, transformation, storage, retrieval, integration, diffusion and utilization, control and management), and system mechanisms (interfaces and networks). Analysis of such systemsembody the identification of basic components and structure of the system (nodes) –thedifferent sources of information production, extension, and users, and the understanding of how successfully the system works (interaction and links) – in order to promote climate knowledge content and improve system performance to reach agricultural development. The present research attempted to introduce actor network theory as research framework based on network view of agricultural climate information system.

Keywords

• actor network theory
• information system
• agriculture