The Social Shaping of Digital Research
International Journal of Social Research Methods, Forthcoming
Presented at Social Science and Digital Research: Interdisciplinary Insights, March 2012
21 Pages Posted: 11 Mar 2012 Last revised: 2 Dec 2015
Date Written: March 11, 2012
Abstract
The social shaping of technology has become a broad umbrella term to cover a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives in the social sciences. It has also defined a set of funded projects in the UK focused on a particular technical initiative around e-social science – digital social research. It is increasingly understood that social science research and work on the social shaping of technology, in particular, should be applied to the study of innovations in digital research and their implications for the sciences and humanities. This overview is designed to help introduce the diversity of perspectives that the social sciences can bring to bear, such as under the social shaping umbrella, and explain why this set of perspectives is of value to policy and practice in this field. The continuing advance and diffusion of digital research make it ever more important to strengthen the role of the social sciences in this area of multi-disciplinary research, policy and practice.
Keywords: digital social research, methods, social science, Internet
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