Actor-network theory and the adoption of mobile communications

This article examines the process by which mobile communication technologies are adopted within different countries and seeks to explain the phenomenon using concepts drawn from actor-network, theory (ANT). Patterns of mobile technology adoption are clearly affected by geographical factors, both human and physical. Government policy, current physical infrastructure, technology availability and ease of use, economic models and culture all affect the spread of mobile phones, for example. ANT provides a framework of ideas for describing the process of technology adoption and developing stories which explain technology take-up. ANT suggests that technology is as much a product of social construction as of technical innovation. Technology adoption results from the build up of fluid networks of heterogeneous associations between actors (both human and non-human). ANT does not differentiate between the social and the technical and attacks the division between large-scale and small-scale phenomena. Actor networks which support mobile communication adoption are established as the interests of different actors are aligned. This requires the creation of inscriptions which attach particular meanings and benefits to the technology, and enrolment of actors into the actor network. As mobile communications become an essential part of the life of human actors, irreversibility is established where the technology is embedded in the physical and social landscape, and it is impossible to undo the standard technical infrastructure or go back to a society in which that technology is not used. This article considers the descriptive use of ANT in describing the process of mobile communication adoption. It concludes by suggesting possible ways of using ANT prescriptively to encourage the embedding of mobile communications within geographies.