Presentation at The Australian Sociological Conference (TASA) 2013, 27 November 2013.

1. @DALupton
DIGITAL SOCIOLOGY:
BEYOND THE DIGITAL TO THE
SOCIOLOGICAL
Deborah Lupton
Department of Sociology and Social Policy,
University of Sydney
Twitter: @DALupton
Blog: This Sociological Life

2. @DALupton
Before digital sociology …
• Cybersociology
• E-sociology
• Sociology of cyberspace
• Sociology of ICTs
• Sociology of online communities
• Internet studies
• New media studies
• Sociology of the internet
Digital sociology is all this and more!

3. @DALupton
Why ‘digital sociology’?
• Acknowledges recent focus away from ‘the cyber’ to ‘the
digital’
• Responds to terminology of other sub-disciplines: digital
humanities, digital anthropology, digital cultures, digital
geography
• Incorporates all things digital
• Signals focus on ‘Web 2.0’ and ‘Web 3.0’ technologies

4. @DALupton
Beyond the digital to the sociological…
• Life is digital → social life is digital → ‘the social’ is digital
• Digital use/non-use involves all the usual suspects:
gender, age, class, income, education, race/ethnicity,
culture, geographical location
• Digital tech now imbricated into all social institutions: the
economy, the mass media, the workplace, education, the
family, the healthcare system

5. @DALupton
Beyond the digital to the sociological
• Digital tech contribute to concepts of selfhood, identity and
embodiment
• Digital tech involved in new forms of power relations
• Digital tech offer new and inventive ways of practising and
teaching sociology and disseminating research
• Academics are now ‘digitised’, whether we like it or not!
We now cannot practice as sociologists without using,
theorising and researching digital technologies

6. @DALupton

7. @DALupton
The four dimensions of digital sociology
• Professional digital practice: using digital media tools
for sociological work
• Sociological analyses of digital media use: researching
how and why people use digital tech
• Digital data analysis: using digital data for social
research, either quantitative or qualitative; and
• Critical digital sociology: undertaking reflexive and
critical analysis of digital media tech.

8. @DALupton
Final thoughts …
• Digital sociology offers valuable insights to and on our
thoroughly digitised world
• Can provide a counter-foil and complement to reductionist
tendencies of big data and data science
• A critical, reflexive and complex stance on the digital is
sorely needed – we can provide it
• Helps us move from ‘dead sociology’ to ‘live sociology’