Navigating the World of Digital Data: The Challenges of Social Research Methods

Navigating the World of Digital Data: The Challenges of Social Research Methods is a timely text that explores the emerging challenges and opportunities posed by digitalization in social research.

This book brings together foundational methodological concepts with a reflective openness to innovation. It examines how the spread of digital technologies has generated an unprecedented flow of data, opening up new opportunities to investigate social phenomena. The book explores the main features and challenges of digital data and shows how they reshape crucial aspects of social research. Rather than treating data as neutral, it highlights their cognitive, social, and technological construction processes and the interpretative work required to use them effectively. Classic methodological concerns are reaffirmed as highly relevant and are examined alongside the mediating role of platforms, infrastructures, and algorithms, offering readers a conceptual framework for critically engaging with digital data while preserving scientific rigor.

It is aimed at researchers, academics, and university students in sociology and the social sciences, as well as scholars in digital humanities and data studies. It encourages readers to cultivate methodological awareness and critical reflection when working with digital data in social research.

Maria Carmela Catone is a Researcher in Sociology at the University of Salerno, Italy, where she teaches Methodology and Techniques of Social Research and Digital Methods for Social Research. Her research interests include methodological issues, the challenges of conducting social research in the digital age, and the teaching and learning processes of social research methods in higher education.