The emerging field of digital sociology affords students opportunities to ask fundamental questions about the social impacts of information technology while learning cutting-edge digital social research skills. Digital sociology thus serves as a bridge between the social sciences on the one side, and data science and computer science on the other. The ranks of social scientists working in technology and related sectors is growing, and social scientists with training in technology and business are in especially high demand. This trend was described recently in a Medium article by Matthew Rafalow of Google.
Digital sociology courses are offered by the Department of Sociology at UNT-Denton and the Interdisciplinary Studies Program at UNT-Frisco. The digital sociology certificate is part of the UNT Digital Social Science initiative. Topics covered include:
- Basic and advanced digital research methods
- Text mining and web scraping
- Online surveys
- Digital ethnography
- Social media and human performance analytics
- Social simulations
- Theories of information society
- Various sociological topics, including social movements, criminology, immigration, and gender
The four-course Digital Sociology Graduate Certificate provides a cutting-edge combination of social science theory and methods with the foundations of data science. The knowledge and skills acquired in this program position students to work in fields that value combinations of social science and data science skills. The certificate is a stand-alone program, and the courses taken for this certificate count toward the Sociology MA and MS degrees.
View the UNT Digital Sociology Alumni Network here!
Applications to the UNT Digital Sociology Certificate Program can be submitted online at the Graduate School website, under Graduate Academic Certificate.
Current UNT graduate students can submit applications to the UNT Digital Sociology Certificate Program at the Graduate School website, under Concurrent Admission.
Required courses (6 credit hours):
- INSD 5200 Digital Social Science
- INSD 5210 Theories of the Information Society
OR
- INSD 5220 Digital Research Methods
Statistics and Methods required courses (3 credit hours):
- SOCI 5200 Research Methods and Design
- SOCI 5210 Introduction to Social Statistics
- SOCI 6201 Quantitative Research Methods and Design
- SOCI 5202/6202 Qualitative Research Methods and Design
- SOCI 5204/6204 Qualitative Data Analysis
- SOCI 5203/6203 Social Science Text Mining
- SOCI 6301 Intermediate Statistics: Multiple Regression Analysis and Related Methods in Sociology
- SOCI 6302 Advanced Statistics in Sociology
- INSD 5220 Digital Research Methods
Substantive required courses (3 credit hours):
- 3 credit hours from any graduate sociology elective excluding those courses listed in the Statistics and Methods requirement.
See the Course Description page and the Digital Social Science Program page for additional information. View profiles of some of our alumni and instructors here!