ABSTRACT
Chapter 7 summarizes the book’s main arguments that Critical Information Theory, and perhaps by extension social theory, does not have much to offer the sociology of the digital or digital sociology; that the Forensic Social Science movement holds great promise as a research design framework in which theory, computational methods and big data can be brought into conversation; and that the theoretical apparatus and research tools developed by Pierre Bourdieu and refined and extended over the last few decades provide a viable, proven foundation for the sociology of the digital and for digital sociology. Chapter 7 also argues for a revised understanding of the history of postwar academic sociology that de-emphasizes grand theory and recognizes the contrasts and complementarities between the various contemporary approaches to sociological research and theory. The chapter also considers new ways to teach sociological theory at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and the use of reflexive sociological theory in interdisciplinary digital social science research projects.
