A pdf version is also available – digitalsociology

Digital Sociology 

We are a @BritSoci study group

In spite of the increasing prominence of the Digital Humanities within the academic landscape, the form and practice which might come to be implied by the moniker ‘Digital Sociology’ remains strikingly inarticulate. While recent developments in computational social science and online research methods are certainly to be welcomed, it is our contention that the nascent ‘digital turn’ being witnessed in the academy has broader significance for the future of sociology than such specialisms can account for. Lupton (2012) identifies four major areas to the nascent field of digital sociology: professional use of digital tools by sociologists, sociological analyses of digital media use, sociological analysis of digital data and critical analysis of digital media and their attendant circuits of capital and power. Our proposed group would seek to represent each of these areas, drawing out the commonalities between them while taking care not to obliterate the differences. We hope to use the notion of ‘digital sociology’ as an umbrella term under which to bring what have too often been disparate and fragmented strands of research and practice concerning the ‘digital’ into a productive dialogue, orientated towards the novelty of our present circumstances but grounded in the longer standing intellectual traditions of sociology.

Aims of the Group

• To identify and disseminate best practice in the use of digital tools by sociologists.
• To develop and promote specifically sociological modes of inquiry into digital media use.
• To develop and promote specifically sociological responses to ‘big data’, in terms of both secondary analysis and the broader methodological questions posed by this transformation in the information systems of late capitalist society.
• To develop and promote specifically sociological analyses of the broader personal, cultural and structural changes involved in the digital turn within social life.
• To provide an open forum for exploration of what the digital turn entails for sociological practice, professional identity and the future of the discipline.

Contact the Convenors

Mark Carrigan

University of Warwick

Emma Head

Keele University

Huw Davies 

University of Southampton

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https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=BSADIGITALSOCIOLOGY