ABSTRACT
During the last five chapters we have explored how constellations of human and nonhuman actors are enfolded together in the production of news. We have used Actor Network Theory (ANT) as the means with which to study these microprocesses of news production, to reveal how the news product is constructed by a myriad of actor translations that occur as a result of the complex alliances between humans and machines. We have argued that because of this ‘reality’ is not definable within traditional epistemic distinctions. For Latour, truth and reality are and always have been conditions that must be specifically produced and continually maintained through networks of practical social activity (Ward, 1994, p.88). Our own research has also demonstrated how news facts are constructed just like the scientific facts analysed by Latour and Woolgar in the Salk Laboratory by means of establishing strong associative actor bonds to sustain effective translations that in turn may or may not create sealed black boxes
over which controversy becomes silenced. The stronger and more encompassing the network, the stronger the truth claim becomes. ANT’s aim is to
. . . avoid the twin pitfalls of sociologism and technologism. We are never faced with objects or social relations, we are faced with chains which are associations of humans . . . and non-humans. No one has ever seen a social relation by itself . . . nor a technical relation.
