3250 - Social Theory and Social Data

Session Submission Type: Paper Session 100min

Description

Social theory has a productive but uneasy relationship with the data sources of its time. Theorists often of necessity go "beyond the data" as they make their arguments, but fruitful periods of theoretical innovation tend to coincide with the development of new tools for collecting and analyzing data. This session will explore the practical relationship between theory and data, with a focus on the challenges and opportunities facing social theory in an era often characterized by the scale, scope, and social character of data.

Sub Unit

• Theory Section / Social Theory and Social Data

Session Organizer

• Kieran Healy, Duke University

Presider

• Kieran Healy, Duke University

Individual Presentations

• Data (and) Science(s): The Double Movement of Continuity and Experimentation in Knowledge Production - Philipp Soeren Brandt, University of Mannheim

• Sociometry and Group Dynamics: Early Visions for the Quantification of Social Structure - Vincent Yung, Northwestern University

• The Great Equalizer Reproduces Inequality: How the Digital Divide is a Class Power Divide - Jen Schradie, Sciences Po - Paris

• Theorizing Data: A Typology of Effects - Angele Christin, Stanford University

Discussant

• Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra, University of California, San Diego