Study our MSc Digital Sociology at the UK's top-ranked department for sociological research, and graduate equipped to join the field of knowledge production and practice sitting at the intersection of digital life and the social world.
The world and our societies are changing fast, and Digital is at the centre of this whirlwind.
As founders of the Edinburgh MSc Digital Sociology programme, faculty members Kate Orton-Johnson and Nick Prior noted in their foundational volume on Digital Sociology, “few spheres of social enquiry are insulated from some form of digital”.
Indeed, as Edinburgh’s Head of Sociology Karen Gregory, writing with MacArthur Fellow Tressie McMillan Cottom and esteemed Professor Jessie Daniels, put it in their own pioneering exposition of Digital Sociologies: “The transformations and challenges of digital technologies offer a chance to reinvigorate the sociological imagination.”
Digital Sociology is a rethinking of our assumptions about society as sociologists that centres digital mediation in new social understandings.
As Digital Sociologists, we ask questions about how technologies are changing lifeworlds while simultaneously using the most creative and advanced digital and computational research methods to answer those questions.
Many students in our programme focus on using traditional qualitative methods in interviews adapted to the digital context to advance cutting edge understandings of questions related to the social and the digital.
Others of our students use advanced computational methods to come with new perspectives on classic deep questions of sociology.
Some combine both in the innovative pluralistic approach that represents a unique strength of Edinburgh Sociology.
You can learn more about some of the questions our faculty are researching:
A UK 2:1 honours degree or its international equivalent, in a relevant discipline.
We welcome applications from students with a strong background in the social sciences as well as those coming from a background in statistics, data science, and computer science. Applicants who do not have this relevant background will receive consideration on the merits of their personal statement and other relevant experience.
To find international equivalent qualifications, select where you studied from the country or region list.