The Evolution from Horse to Automobile: A Comparative Internation ...

If technological diffusion for Latour requires black-box status, technological change becomes a matter of negotiation among human actors. Latour describes technological change as a “process of negotiations between the innovator and potential users” and the manner in which “the results of such negotiations are translated into technological form.”⁵⁰ These negotiations may be facilitated by what actor-network theorists call “mediators.”

According to Akrich, “if we are to describe technical objects, we need mediators to create the links between technical content and user.”⁵¹ Unlike in the SCOT model, in which social groups by virtue of their relevancy directly influence an artifact, Akrich describes a mediator who intercedes for users. The same basic idea echoes in the notion of “boundary shifters” described in Trevor Pinch and Frank Trocco’s Analog Days.⁵² Salespeople, for instance, are boundary shifters by virtue of their direct access to both manufacturers and users.⁵³

Boundary shifters, according to Pinch, are people who “move from one world to the other,” and “apply the knowledge, skill, and experience gained in one world to transform the other.”⁵⁴ Salespeople bring lessons learned from users back to manufacturers, who in turn modify a particular artifact based on user feedback. Salespeople as mediators are sometimes users themselves, as exemplified by Pinch’s story of David van Koevering, who sold synthesizers to rock and roll musicians by capitalizing on his own experience as a player of the synthesizer.

Thus an important point shared by SCOT and actor-network theorists is that users must have some means to transmit their ideas to designers. Mediators provide a communication channel through which social groups can negotiate without altering an artifact themselves. But if such a channel indeed exists and is effectively used, why would the utility of many nascent artifacts not be immediately evident and beneficial to all potential users?