Digital sociology

Digital sociology is a sub-discipline of the academic field of sociology. It focuses on the use of digital media as part of everyday life and how these various media contribute to social relations and concepts of the self.

In general, sociologists have been slow to take up research involving social media and to personally engage in using social media for professional practice, such as blogging and Twitter.^[1] This is despite the fact that digital devices are now central to the mediation and configuration of institutions and social relationships and therefore to the very nature of sociological inquiry and research.^[2] Indeed digital technologies are beginning to have a major impact on university education, as in other educational settings and workplaces, and it is argued that academics need to engage and become familiar with their affordances, transforming themselves into 'digital scholars'.^[3]

The first scholarly article to use the term 'digital sociology' in its title appeared in 2009.^[4] The author reflected on the ways in which digital technologies may influence both sociological research and teaching. In 2010, 'digital sociology' was described in terms of bridging the growing academic focus with the increasing interest from global business through the publication of the book, 'Expanding Sentience: Introducing Digital Sociology for moving beyond Buzz Metrics in a World of Growing Online Socialization'. ^[5] It was not until 2013 that the first purely academic book with the title 'digital sociology' was published: an edited collection of review chapters that addressed a range of topics, including concepts and experiences of space, community, intimacy, the role played by gender and social inequalities in people's use of digital technologies and the impact of these technologies in education, health, finance and war reporting.^[6] The first sole-authored book entitled Digital Sociology was published in 2015.^[7]

Although the term ‘digital sociology’ has not yet fully entered the cultural lexicon, sociologists have engaged in research related to the internet since its inception. These sociologists have addressed many social issues relating to online communities, cyberspace and cyber-identities. This and similar research has attracted many different names such as 'cybersociology', 'the sociology of the internet', 'the sociology of online communities', 'the sociology of social media', 'the sociology of cyberculture' or something else again.

Digital sociology differs from these terms in that it is wider in its scope, addressing not only the internet or cyberculture but also the impact of the other digital media and devices that have emerged since the first decade of the twenty-first century. Since the internet has become more pervasive and linked with everyday life, references to the ‘cyber’ in the social sciences seems now to have been replaced by the ‘digital’. 'Digital sociology' encapsulates the concerns of all of these endeavors in a descriptive term that references other sub-disciplines in the use of the term 'digital'; such as digital humanities and digital anthropology. It is beginning to supersede and incorporate the other titles above, as well as including the newest Web 2.0 digital technologies into its purview, such as wearable technology, smart objects, the Internet of Things and big data.

Aspects of digital sociology

Four aspects of digital sociology have been identified:^[8]

1. Professional digital practice: using digital media tools for professional purposes: to build networks, construct an e-profile, publicise and share research and instruct students.
2. Sociological analyses of digital use: researching the ways in which people's use of digital media configures their sense of selves, their embodiment and their social relations.
3. Digital data analysis: using digital data for social research, either quantitative or qualitative.
4. Critical digital sociology: undertaking reflexive and critical analysis of digital media informed by social and cultural theory.

Professional digital practice

Although they have been reluctant to use social and other digital media for professional academics purposes, sociologists are slowly beginning to adopt them for teaching and research.^[9] An increasing number of sociological blogs are beginning to appear and more sociologists are joining Twitter, for example. Some are writing about the best ways for sociologists to employ social media as part of academic practice (see the LSE Impact of the Social Sciences website) and the importance of self-archiving and making sociological research open access,^[10] as well as writing for Wikipedia.^[11]

Sociological analyses of digital media use

Digital sociologists have begun to write about the use of wearable technologies as part of quantifying the body ^[12] and the social dimensions of big data and the algorithms that are used to interpret these data.^[13] Others have directed attention at the role of digital technologies as part of the surveillance of people's activities, via such technologies as CCTV cameras and customer loyalty schemes.^[14]

The 'digital divide', or the differences in access to digital technologies experienced by certain social groups such as the socioeconomically disadvantaged, those of lower education levels, women and the elderly has preoccupied many researchers in the social scientific study of digital media. However several sociologists have pointed out that while it is important to acknowledge and identify the structural inequalities inherent in differentials in digital technology use, this concept is rather simplistic and fails to incorporate the complexities of access to and knowledge about digital technologies.^[15]

There is a growing interest in the ways in which social media contribute to the development of intimate relationships and concepts of the self. One of the best-known sociologists who has written about social relationships, selfhood and digital technologies is Sherry Turkle.^[16][17] In her most recent book Turkle addresses the topic of social media.^[18] She argues that relationships conducted via these platforms are not as authentic as those encounters that take place 'in real life'.

This contrast between the digital world (or 'virtual reality') and the 'real world', however, has been critiqued as 'digital dualism,' a concept similar to the 'aura of the digital.'^[19] Other sociologists have argued that relationships conducted through digital media are inextricably part of the 'real world'.^[20] The term 'augmented reality' has been used as an alternative, to denote the concept of reality as being altered in some way by the use of digital media but not replaced.

The use of social media for social activism have also provided a focus for digital sociology. For example, numerous sociological articles,^[21][22] and at least one book ^[23] have appeared on the use of such social media platforms as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook as a means of conveying messages about activist causes and organising political movements.

Digital data analysis

Digital sociologists use varied approaches to investigating people's use of digital media, both qualitative and quantitative. These include ethnographic research, interviews and surveys with users of technologies, and also the analysis of the data produced from people's interactions with technologies: for example, their posts on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter or their consuming habits on online shopping platforms. Such techniques as data scraping, social network analysis, time series analysis and textual analysis are employed to analyse both the data produced as a byproduct of users' interactions with digital media and those that they create themselves.

Critical digital sociology

This aspect of digital sociology is perhaps what makes it distinctive from other approaches to studying the digital world. In adopting a critical reflexive approach, sociologists are able to address the implications of the digital for sociological practice itself. It has been argued that digital sociology offers a way of addressing the changing relations between social relations and the analysis of these relations, putting into question what is social research, and indeed, what is sociology now that social relations and society have become in many respects mediated via digital technologies.^[24]

How should sociology respond to the emergent forms of both 'small data' and 'big data' that are collected in vast amounts as part of people's interactions with digital technologies and the development of data industries using these data to conduct their own social research? Does this suggest that a 'coming crisis in empirical sociology' might be on the horizon?^[25] How are the identities and work practices of sociologists themselves becoming implicated within and disciplined by digital technologies such as citation metrics?^[26]

These questions are central to critical digital sociology, which reflects upon the role of sociology itself in the analysis of digital technologies as well as the impact of digital technologies upon sociology.^[27]

See also

• Sociology of the Internet
• Digital anthropology
• Digital humanities
• Social web
• Software studies
• Digital addict
• Digital Phobic
• Tribe (internet)

References

External links

• BSA Digital Sociology Study Group
• Culture Digitally blog
• Cyborgology blog
• Digital Sociology storify
• MA/Msc in Digital Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London