As social media is increasingly becoming a standard feature of sociological practice, this timely book rethinks the role of these mediums in public sociology and what they can contribute to the discipline in the post-COVID world. It reconsiders the history and current conceptualizations of what sociology is, and analyzes what kinds of social life emerge in and through the interactions between 'intellectuals', 'publics' and 'platforms' of communication. Cutting across multiple disciplines, this pioneering work envisions a new kind of public sociology that brings together the digital and the physical to create public spaces where critical scholarship and active civic engagement can meet in a mutually reinforcing way.

Portrait

Mark Carrigan is a Lecturer in Education at the University of Manchester where he is programme director for the MA Digital Technologies, Communication and Education (DTCE) and co-lead of the DTCE Research and Scholarship group. Trained as a philosopher and sociologist, his research aims to bridge fundamental questions of social ontology with practical and policy interventions to support the effective use of emerging technologies within education. He has written or edited eight books, including Social Media for Academics, published by Sage and now in its second edition.
He is a convenor for the British Sociological Association's Digital Sociology group which he co-founded in 2012. He jointly coordinates the Critical Realism Network while being active in the Centre for Social Ontology and a trustee of the Centre for Critical Realism. He is a board member for a range of publications, including Civic Sociology, the Journal of Digital Social Research and Globalisation, Societies and Education.