My goodness this reading used a lot of long words.

I pulled up multiple Wikipedia pages and blog posts in an effort to understand, and luckily Memphis had an attached video which cleared some things up and made my brain hurt a little less.

So to begin with, Actor- Netowrks may not have strategically placed nodes and paths, it is not concerned with social networks only related to humans, rather the nature of societies and natures in general, and networks do not have spheres, categories or politics, they are fibrous and capillary-like. In short, Actor Network Theory acknowledges both the technical and social aspects of networks and technologies, and suggests that they do not function independently, basically finding a middle ground in the whole technological determinism arguement.

Connections through networks are stronger than close proximity connections. I could be standing next to a stranger, but my connection to my friend who is kilometers away is stronger, so the connection of proximity is not important in ANT. I thought that was pretty interesting.

Networks cannot be ‘bigger’ than other ones like is suggested in social theory, but they can be more intensely connected.

An actant need not be human, it just must act, or be granted activity by others. So I guess the activity would be granted by the humanistic actants if they are unable to act themselves. But many human actants are unable to be actants on their own, as they require non-humanistic actants to form/ maintain a network… I think.