• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.145-183
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• 2012

Science reporting is easier to lead to failure than other news reporting because it needs higher professionalism. According to Actor-Network Theory(ANT), not only research results(artifacts) of scientists but also science articles are hybrid networks. Namely, they are connected by human actors(scientist, reporter, etc.) and nonhuman actors(press releases etc.). When the process of science reporting is examined on the view of ANT, it is the process that scientists' results translate the media via press releases as intermediaries and expand their network to the public. This study aims at making an ANT analysis of how research results of Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute(ETRI) scientist Hyun-Tak Kim were reported by lots of media, focusing on the rhetoric of ETRI's press release. It can reveal the reason for the science reporting's failure and hint at the better science journalism.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.81-111
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• 2017

In this paper, I focus on the performativity thesis introduced and developed by Science and Technology Studies (STS) scholars such as Callon, MacKenzie, etc. since the mid 1990s. The performativity thesis was discussed in economic sociology by STS scholars has been pervaded to other research areas including general economics, accounting, finance and so on. The main idea of the thesis is that economic theories perform, shape, and format economy rather than just describe economy. I show that the thesis is based on the traditional STS ideas such as performativity derived from Merton's self-fulfilling prophecy and the actor-network theory. Although the thesis has been criticised by various researchers from both inside and outside STS, it has provided meaningful implications for understanding economic phenomenon from a viewpoint of STS. Furthermore, reflexive researches for performativity of STS theories can be discussed in the next stage.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.631-648
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• 2020

As an attempt to consider what to pay attention to in science learning, this study was conducted with the aim of discussing the meaning of science learning as a heterogeneous network. As a result of theoretical investigation, the characteristics of the heterogeneous network were described in three aspects: heterogeneous composition, existence by relations, and construction and change by translation. And it was discussed that science learning also has these characteristics of heterogeneous network. Relating to what to pay attention to in science learning, it was also discussed that science learning as a heterogeneous network requires us to pay attention to the elevation of things, the concept as a punctualized heterogeneous network, and the construction and expansion of heterogeneous network with neonadeuri of 'unripe' and 'ripe'. Finally, several suggestions for the science learning were given.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2017

This paper is to consider conceptually a formation of food-networks and border-crossing of transnational marriage migrant households on the basis of actor-network theory, and to analyze empirical data on the issues collected by interview with marriage migrant women living around Daegu, S.Korea. Some research results can be argued as follows: First, food can be seen, not as a single material object, but as a multiple and hybrid network of human and nonhuman (material and institutional) actors, in which activities of food cooking and eating are regulated by and (re)construct social relations and placeness of households. Secondly, food-networks in marriage migrant households implement relationships of micro-power (and attachment) in the process of its (re)formation, and hence the food-network, it can be argued, is a field of power in which conflicts and compromising around food cooking and eating are intersecting each others. Thirdly, food-networks in marriage migrant households in both their origin country and in the Korean home are not only affected by macro natural and social environments but also by micro placeness of the households, both of which constitute the food-networks and operate in relations with other actors in the netwroks. Finally, food-networks in marriage migrant households reflect multiple and multi-scalar spatial mobility and placeness of transnational food culture, through which they express topologically 'fluid space' and 'absent presence', in which marriage migrant women can (or cannot) conduct social and cultural border-crossing.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.245-264
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• 2006

According to many conceptual researches and discourses, development of information-communication technology(ICT) has made great influences upon activities on time and space. But some empirical studies have shown that its influence in the real world is not so great as we may expect In order to avoid these two oppositional views, this paper wants to put interests on socio-spatial relationships or networks, rather than individual phenomena or consciousness, which have been transformed under the influence of ICT. The development of ICT presupposes a creation of information network, and hence the term 'etwork social space' can be used to see its spatial influence, which would be further understood with the theory of actor-network. This paper also suggests that network social space has three strata, that is, 'nstant' 'unctional 'and 'aterial' and that network social space can be emphasized not only as newly emerging social space but also as reconstruction of subjects' identity through his/her participation into information network as its node.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.1 no.1 s.1
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• pp.201-234
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• 2001

Sociology(or social science in general) is often diagnosed as in the state of 'crisis' after the collapse of socialism and the erosion of national societies because of rapid globalization. This paper introduces some recent work within science and technology studies(STS) and discusses its potentials to reinvigorate sociology. Although sociologists have rarely regarded STS as contributing to 'mainstream' issues in sociology, an increasing number of STS writers and sociologists have recently started to notice such possibilities. One main reason of this recent change is that STS is no longer merely concerned to convey substantive findings about science and technology, but instead attempts to reconstruct key notions of sociology such as 'social', 'society' and 'agency'. It is in this respect that the discussion below aims to introduce, discuss, and assess the potential contribution of some recent work of STS to sociology. In particular, it is 'actor-network theory'(ANT) that explicitly attempts to examine and suggest the ways in which STS ran help innovate sociology. One major characteristics of ANT is to impute 'agency' to things(nonhumans) unlike traditional sociology. ANT argues that if sociology studies heterogeneous relationships between humans and nonhumans instead of human relations only, it can become once again a vigorous discipline which is able to provide alternative worlds central to the basis of sociology. So this paper focuses on, not the diverse approaches of STS, the characteristics of ANT and its potential contribution to sociology. The author concludes that ANT can not only rejuvenate sociology by implicating new forms of alternative worlds but also open the possibility to contribute to the democratic reformulation of human-nonhuman relationships.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.67-90
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• 2007

Could STS throw another-colored light on the Hwang's Affair, the scientific fraud committed by Hwang Woo-Suk and his research team in Korea? And could analytic tools of STS unfold another meanings which have been overlooked in most of the traditionally social-sciences-oriented analyses? In this essay, I try to answer these questions by analyzing the Hwang's Affair in the view of STS, especially by using some concepts of actor-network theory(ANT): movement, translation and displacement. I want to say that the Hwang's Affair seems to be a part of normal scientific activity, not an abnormal phenomenon, and as an evidence, focus on the similarities of their life styles between "pure/real scientist" Louis Pasteur and "impure/political scientist" Hwang Woo-Suk. I try to mobilize some concepts of ANT, especially movement, and find out why scientists came to move toward the opposed direction on the pure/real-impure/political line. I suggest that there exists "laboratory politics" as the key factor in this bifurcation. My tentative conclusion is that Pasteur can take a position to make his great world, so-called the Pasteurian world, owing to the success of "double movement" in which he treated his laboratory as a fulcrum to lift up the world, but Hwang degrades himself to "ugly scientific politician" due to the loss of the momentum of his movement; Hwang treated his laboratory only as the symbolic resources and in turn failed to solidify material entities, his real political resources, even though he knew the importance of laboratory.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.79
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• pp.70-103
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• 2016

In the face of crisis in the news media industry, many people prospect that new technology can save it. But there is no discussion about how new technology works and what is its limitations and which direction of development is needed. In view of media, this article analyzed 'news chatbot' as new technology. Firstly, this article defined bot and discussed bot's agency based on actor network theory. Secondly, it analysed bots which are acting as media and discussed features of the messenger platform as a communication tool. Thirdly, it presents examples of news chatbot and analyzed how they work. Finally, it predicts the future of news chatbot and discussed the possibility of journalism.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.181-232
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• 2018

To explore the history of Korean engineers, one must navigate the field answering to the question of who engineers are. This is not an easy task because, behind the English expression of engineer, there are various names and even histories pertaining to technology related actors in East Asian countries including South Korea, and the meaning and status of these names are different from one another. Thus, the process and method of answering to the question of who engineers are becomes the path to understanding the history of Korean engineers. This study, therefore, attempts to suggest research questions that should be raised to study Korean engineers and to find research methodology suited for addressing those questions. Until now, not enough efforts have been made to create and expand interdisciplinary discussions and contacts for this area of study. This study has some theoretical difficulties of having to combine concepts with different problematique. Nevertheless, it aims to discuss how to conduct research, what questions should be posed to analyze the construction of Korean engineers and what research methodologies are suitable for such research, based on previous researches conducted in the field of social science. Answers to the quest are sought through genealogy, conceptual history, actor-network theory, and the notion of techno-national formation.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.613-632
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• 2016

The recent diagnosis of the Anthropocene challenges public understanding of nature as a pure and singular entity removed from society, as the diagnosis confirms the earth-changing force of humans. In geography, the nature-society divide has been critically interrogated long before the diagnosis of the Anthropocene, developing several ways of theorizing nature-society relations. This paper introduces a new frontier for such theoretical endeavors: more-than-human geography. Inspired by the material and performative turn in geography and the social sciences around the 2000s, more-than-human geographers have sought to re-engage with the livingness of the world in the study of nature-society relations. Drawing on actor-network theory, non-representational theory (NRT) and vitalism, they have developed innovative ways of thinking about and relating to nature through the key concepts of 'nonhuman agency' and 'affect'. While more-than-human geography has been extensively debated and developed in recent Euro-American scholarship on cultural and economic geography, it has so far received limited attention in Korean geographical studies on nature. This paper aims to address this gap by discussing the key concepts and seminal work of more-than-human geography. I first outline four theoretical strands through which nature-society relations are perceived in geography. I then offer an overview of more-than-human geography, discussing its theoretical foundations and considering ontologies, epistemologies, politics and ethics associated with nature-society relations. Then, I compare more-than-human geography with political ecology, which is the mainstream critical approach in contemporary environmental social sciences. I would argue that more-than-human geography further challenges and develops political ecology through its heightened attention to the affective capacity of nonhumans and the methodological ethos of doing a careful political ecology. I conclude by reflecting on the implications of more-than-human geography for Korean studies on nature-society relations.