The importance of open content and the degree of openness

As I've tried to explain in some of the previous entries, the notion of open content is an important element in the utilization of the actor-network theory and methodology to explain and elaborate how various actors in a given topology inscribe their congruent properties and attributes onto other actors. Indeed, the 'open content' as a property of an actor is itself inscribable onto other actors.

Without the possibility of open content it becomes impossible to talk about the inscription and translation process. For example, if the content of an actor (the content manifests itself as different 'thing' to different actors) exhibits characteristics of openness, it means it is modifiable as a result of outside factors (i.e. other actors) that act upon it via the many links to which it is connected. A totally closed content would be defined as a content that is not modifiable by the other actors even though they are linked to it.

A totally open content becomes as troublesome to explain and elaborate as the totally closed content. A totally open content could mean modifiability by all actors without much control and process and that might not be a desirable scenario in most instances.

Instead, most open content is subject to degrees of openness resulting from the surrounding actors linked to the actor via the links that are also subject to degrees of openness in their ability to communicate the translation and inscription properties and attributes.

The factor 'openness'