Di­git­al So­ci­ology

Course content

As contemporary society is increasingly relying on digital devices, apps, platforms, infrastructures, and AI algorithms, there is hardly a domain of organizational and societal living that is not impacted by digitalization.

Digital technology is shaped by commercial, political, and cultural conditions that give rise to novel forms of interaction, agency, and organization. At the same time, existing societal and corporate power structures and divides may be reproduced or overturned.

In this course, students will critically engage with digitalization as a sociological phenomenon. Sociological concepts are applied to enable the investigation, management, and transformation of digital society with business. For this purpose, in the course, we will discuss important challenges of digitalization for sociological inquiry and organisational practice within the context of key social domains, including social roles and gender, organization and platform strategy, surveillance capitalism and public discourse, to name but only a few examples.