New Trends in Digital Social Research

As it is continually under progressive and whirling change, digital society is a research object that currently lacks a clear and shared definition in the Social Science scientific community. In terms of methodology, the digital society offers a fertile environment to create and experiment new research solutions. However, as online social behaviours continue to grow and new ways to structure individual online activities into data emerge, knowledge derived from the web is constantly ambiguous, revisable, and at high risk of obsolescence. Social Science attempted to address these issues in two different ways: by adapting existing research methods to new digital contexts or by developing new research methods. Both have proven to be fruitful for the study of the Digital Society.
Presentations can cover a broad range of topics related to recent methodological trends in studying the Digital environment. The focus will be specifically on three main topics:

1) epistemological and methodological reflections on the benefits and the limitations of introducing AI and ML into the social research toolbox and practice;

2) digital scenario as a field to explore and to implement innovative and unconventional social research practices on borderline and boundary phenomena;

3) the digital society as a field to unleash the potential of unconventional methodological solutions, from the new development of digital mixed methods applications to the creative power of the art-based research methods.