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Building on faults: How to represent controversies with digital methods
1Médialab, France.
Public Understanding of Science (Bristol, England)
|July 9, 2013
Summary
This study presents the controversy-website, a digital tool for visualizing complex social debates. It builds upon Actor-Network Theory to represent techno-scientific controversies effectively.
Area of Science:
- Science and Technology Studies
- Digital Humanities
- Sociology of Science
Background:
- Actor-Network Theory provides a framework for understanding techno-scientific controversies.
- Previous work introduced Bruno Latour's cartography of controversies, focusing on observation methods.
- Representing the complexity of social debates remains a challenge.
Purpose of the Study:
- To present a novel visualization device, the controversy-website, for representing complex social debates.
- To build upon Actor-Network Theory for tracing and aggregating information on public debates.
- To make techno-scientific controversies more legible through digital tools.
Main Methods:
- Development of a controversy-website as a multilayered toolkit.
- Utilizing digital technologies for information aggregation and tracing.
- Application of Bruno Latour's cartography of controversies principles.
Main Results:
- The controversy-website serves as an original visualization device.
- It offers a legible form for representing the complexity of social debates.
- The toolkit effectively traces and aggregates information on public debates.
Conclusions:
- The controversy-website is a valuable tool for understanding and visualizing complex social debates.
- Digital technologies can enhance the representation of techno-scientific controversies.
- This approach contributes to the legible representation of collective existence in public discourse.
Keywords:
actor-network theorycartography of controversiesdigital methodsinformation visualizationpublic understanding of sciencerepresentations of sciencescientific controversiesweb cartographyMore Related Videos
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