Digital methods conference session – CfP

Dear Colleagues,

please consider submitting an English-language abstract for the session “Digital Methods” hosted by the Research Committee on “Logic and Methodology in Sociology” (RC33) at the IVth ISA Forum of Sociology on “Challenges of the 21st Century: Democracy, Environment, Inequalities, Intersectionality” (14.-18.07.2020, Porto Alegre, Brazil).

The session addresses advances both in qualitative and quantitative digital methods, including challenges of big data analysis and computational social sciences.

Papers should address one of the questions below either at a more general methodological level or using a concrete example in a specific research project:

1. What methodological innovations concerning digital methods can be observed? Where is the highest need for developing methodological approaches for integrating digital methods into empirical social research?
2. Which social phenomena are captured adequately by digital data, which are not? Which qualitative and/or quantitative digital methods are best suited for which kind of theoretical problems?
3. How can fields and populations be defined when using digital methods? What are appropriate sampling procedures? How can biases be corrected and how can results be generalized?
4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of specific digital data and how can their quality be assessed? When are traditional, non-digital methods better suited than digital methods? When are digital data better suited?
5. How can digital data be analyzed? When are assumptions of traditional methods of analysis violated and what are more appropriate ways of analysis?
6. When, why and how should methods be mixed?

For further information on the conference, see: https://www.isa-sociology.org/en/conferences/forum/porto-alegre-2020

If you are interested in giving a presentation, please submit an English-language abstract by 30.09.3019 via Confex: https://isaconf.confex.com/isaconf/forum2020/webprogrampreliminary/Session12615.html

Best wishes,

Nina Baur, Lilli Braunisch, Peter Graeff and Malte Schweia

(Session Organizers)