数字化与社会学的时代之变

Digitalization and Epochal Changes of Sociology

数字化的核心要义是一切皆可数字化,也因此将人类带入了数字社会。数字社会给社会学带来了两项关键挑战,一项是社会学是否有能力刻画和解释数字社会,另一项是,如果不能,社会学是否还有存在的必要。几十年来社会学不断在开展对数字社会的探索,不过,现实格局是,研究主题还相对零散、研究方法还有待革新,距离文科智能还有较远路程。在需要刻画和解释的社会现象、可以运用的研究素材等发生历史性变革的时代,社会学自身面临方法和理论变革。在由“实体人群×数字人群X机器智能”构成的数字社会,社会学生产知识和服务社会的方式更面临颠覆性变革。

The essence of digitalization lies in the principle that everything can be digitized,which implies humanity may eventually become a digital society.This shift presents sociology with two critical challenges:whether sociology can accurately depict and interpret digital society,and if it cannot,whether it retains any value as a discipline.For decades,sociology has been continuously exploring the digital society,yet research topics remain fragmented,and methodologies require innovation,indicating a significant gap from achieving digital humanities and social sciences intelligence.In an era marked by historic changes in both phenomena requiring characterization and explanation and the research materials available,sociology itself faces a pressing need for methodological and theoretical transformation.In a digital society composed of physical populations,digital populations,and machine intelligence,the means by which sociology generates knowledge and serves society are undergoing disruptive reform.