Agency versus identity: actor‐network theory meets public relations

Abstract

This article offers an introduction to a theoretical approach which has recently begun to be used by organisational theorists to explain the distribution and exercise of power between organisations and entities within particular spheres, or “networks”. This approach, which has been labelled “actor‐network” theory, argues that focusing on questions of “identity”, particularly questions of self‐identity, depends upon accepting and reproducing a “modern” set of presuppositions. These modern presuppositions are concerned primarily with the creation of stable boundaries and hierarchies, between subject and object, and between self and other. Actor‐network theory proposes that the notion of “agency” offers an alternative “amodern” perspective from which to explore how entities, or actors, influence other actors through the process of translation. Concludes that actor‐network theory, as a meta‐theoretical position and as a methodological approach offers an alternative to existing public relations theory which cannot easily be ignored.