The baffling concept of technical mediation in Bruno Latour

Abstract

This article seeks to contribute to the discussion of Bruno Latour’s and others’ actornetwork theory (ANT), in the hope that it will shed new light on theories of the social, theories of networks, and to interdisciplinary studies, especially regarding technique and its relation to communication and culture. For this, the concept of technical mediation will be explained in its relation with the notions of translation, actant, flat anthology, and sociotechnical assemblage. Thus a theoretical construct is developed which is antagonistic to the old dichotomies that radiate from a laggard Cartesianism which even today remain under the most varied, often unrecognized forms

Keywords

• Technical mediation
• translation
• actant
• flat ontology
• sociotechnical assemblage