While the CelebYouth team didn’t set out thinking we were ‘digital sociologists’, the project was designed to engage with people online through the project website, Twitter and Facebook. In this second blog post on our contribution to the recent digital sociology seminar, Laura explores some of the tensions, opportunities and challenges facing the CelebYouth team in communicating about their research online.
In this, the final of three blog posts covering the team’s report of their contribution to the first ever Digital Sociology event, Heather discusses her concerns over the close fit between online communication and current audit demands for research to make a measurable impact.
On the 16th July, Kim, Heather and Laura spoke at the inaugural event of a new British Sociological Association study group – Digital Sociology. The event – titled ‘What is Digital Sociology?’ – was organised by the group’s co-convenors, Mark Carrigan and Emma Head. As Mark and Emma set out in their ambitions and rationale for this new study group, the form, practice and distinctive features of ‘digital sociology’ remain vague and undefined. This study group – and the first event – are attempts to address this, bringing together ‘a diverse range
of speakers who, in a variety of ways, work within the nascent field of digital sociology’ into ‘an open and
informal exploration of a broad range of exciting work being undertaken by sociologists
in the UK which could, in the broadest sense of the term, be characterised as ‘digital’’. In this post we reflect on how we came to be there. In three other posts, we share versions of the presentations that we gave. Kim discusses some of the challenges we have encountered in using digital methods in the project. Laura talks about our collective approach to ‘digital engagement’ and some of the tensions involved. Heather problematises the alignment between online impact and neoliberal academia.
In this first of three blog posts covering the team’s report of their contribution to the BSA first ever Digital Sociology event, Kim discusses some of the ways in which the project has engaged with the digital within the data collection, and the challenges inherent in this as a feminist scholar encountering celebrity e-bile – violent and sexualised comments directed at female celebrities.
