The growing governance and authority of algorithms and the rapid emergence of the ‘Internet of Things’, has intensified attention to the relationship between humans and machines, and to the ethics of everyday life with technologies. This raises a lot of questions: How should we live with technologies? Can humans make decisions? The question on the authority of humans is clearly debatable. In this paper I discuss the underlying premises for the ethical standpoint of Actor Network Theory (ANT) and explore other existing alternatives. I begin by looking into the basic premises of ANT, and the assumptions of ‘the human’ and of ethics it comprises. I then explore the notion of a ‘disclosive’ ethics and continue by penetrating the relation between agency and ethics in ANT. Following from this I discuss various different approaches to ethics, and how we can still keep a human notion of ethics in an algorithmic culture.

The growing governance of algorithms and the rapid emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the ‘Internet of Things’, has intensified discussions about the relationship between humans and machines, and the ethics of everyday life with technologies. It raises questions such as: How should we live with technologies? Can humans still make decisions? The earlier taken for granted authority of humans is clearly debatable, and sometimes also dismissed, particularly within Actor Network Theory (ANT). In this paper, I look into the basic premises of the ethics of ANT, explore suggested ethical perspectives within ANT such as ‘disclosive’ ethics, and continue by penetrating the relation between agency and ethics, as well as between morality and ethics in ANT. ANT is further discussed as on the one hand a sociological perspective and on the other hand an ethical approach. Based on this analysis I propose the anthropological perspective of an ‘ethics of the ordinary’ as a possible way to learn from the basic premises of ANT while maintaining a human notion of ethics in a technology‐conflated culture.

This article proposes and explores the notion of “media micro-generations”. Based on a survey of values and norms in relation to media-related behaviour in Sweden, we identify statistically significant media micro-generations. Through an analysis of the technologies that were introduced during the formative years of different media micro-generations, we propose that media micro-generations are formed with the introduction of new media technologies. Thus, the existence of media micro-generations illustrates how rapid trans- formations of media technologies can shape the moral notions of narrow age groups. It also explains why many earlier studies have detected a rather large span of years (1970-1985, in between the TV generation and the internet generation) during which no generational identity seems to have been formed.

Media usage has always included aspects of commodification. The media audience has been targeted as a recipient of advertising when watching (commercial) TV or reading newspapers. The advent of the Internet has further developed this commodification of the media audience. In many ways, everyday space is becoming more commercial in its organisation, citizens are being transformed into consumers and, in the long run, free speech conducted online is not free as it will be tracked, saved and used for commercial purposes. This chapter draws on a Swedish national representative survey asking re- spondents about their views on different aspects of commodification of their life online. The results indicate a rather sceptical view towards different forms of commodification related to Internet use among Swedish citizens. However, younger respondents, those with liberal market values and frequent Internet users embrace a more permissive view of a more commodified media environment. Two avenues are suggested for resisting such developments, targeting media producers and users.