ABSTRACT

This paper explores Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as a framework for understanding interactive documentary. It examines Adrian Miles’s work in this area, where he uses ANT as a way of conceptualising interactive documentary as socio-technical media assemblages and consequently to question the relationship between human and non-human agency as understood within the field. After introducing ANT and reviewing Miles’s position, the paper engages in a detailed discussion of ANT’s key concepts in the context of specific interactive documentaries showing how these concepts operate and examining the insights they provide. This discussion supports and extends Miles’s position while also broadening and deepening interactive documentary’s engagement with ANT through a more detailed and systematic engagement with its concepts than has been attempted previously. The paper concludes by raising issues concerning the adaption of ANT’s concepts to the field, including the question of whether they offer a complete theoretical framework for understanding interactive documentary and by suggesting future lines of enquiry to address these issues.

摘要

本文探讨了演员网络理论 (ANT) 作为理解交互式纪录片的框架。它考察了 Adrian Miles 在该领域的工作，他使用 ANT 作为将交互式纪录片概念化为社会技术媒体组合的一种方式，并因此质疑该领域内所理解的人类和非人类代理之间的关系。在介绍了 ANT 并回顾了 Miles 的立场之后，本文在特定的交互式纪录片的背景下详细讨论了 ANT 的关键概念，展示了这些概念如何运作并检查了它们提供的见解。本次讨论支持并扩展了迈尔斯的立场，同时还通过比以前尝试更详细和系统地参与其概念来扩大和深化互动纪录片与 ANT 的参与。