Course summary

UK's top ranked sociology department Our sociology department is the UK’s top-ranked department for sociological research. The MSc in Digital Sociology directly responds to a growing need for graduates to be able to study and analyse a world that continues to undergo rapid digital transformation. Digital and computational sociology courses provide a vital theoretical foundation for understanding and analysing how digital technologies and data are shaping our social institutions, social relations, and everyday life. Our courses will enable you to conduct sociological research through new forms of social data, such as social media data and other types of 'digital trace' data that are so central to modern social science data. This programme is intended for any student who wants to understand, as well as learn to study and critique, digital technologies and the complex ways in which they shape society, social institutions, and culture. While a sociological background is not strictly required, familiarity with the social sciences will be helpful for incoming students. What will I learn? This programme will provide you with a rigorous introduction to sociological research in the digital age. The programme combines training in 'traditional approaches' to sociology with new theory and methods for understanding the digital world. We will study, for example, foundational questions in inequality, demography, and labour research with an emphasis on how the digital transformation has shifted our understandings. On this programme, you may take up the following specialised topics, including (but not limited to):

• work and labour

• inequality

• mobility

• relationships

• government and law

• technology