Sociology Between Research and the Society of Data

This paper focuses on how big data guide the construction of the interpretative schemata we use to understand the world and act in it. To this end, the essay describes the most significant new research elements and frontiers that sociology is obliged to address at present. While the prevailing literature advocates the need to promote data literacy, the idea we wish to advance is that it is necessary to foster the comprehension of data along with an understanding of the role and the responsibility which sociology has intrepidly assumed since its foundation, that is, the study and explication of the complexity of the relationships characterising social life always and everywhere. Our intent is to make a proactive contribution to the study of the digitality to bring to light perverse, unexpected and/or unwanted effects associated with naive use of big data for research purposes.

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