Methods for big data in social sciences

The diffusion of digital technologies and social networks has multiplied the forms of digital data that can be employed for social research. Digital data however require adequate methods. They do not necessary demand computational techniques, but specific skills. For example, machine learning, sentiment analysis, or social network analysis are rooted in content analysis, agent-based modeling, or network analysis

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on questo numero di Sociologia Italiana-Ais Journal of Sociology, si concretizza l’impegno dell’attuale Direttivo dell’AIS a potenziare la Rivista, per offrire un luogo di pubblicazione di alto profilo alle molteplici sensibilità della sociologia italiana, prestando particolare attenzione ai giovani ricercatori e alle iniziative dei propri associati. Lo testimoniano, da un lato, lo spazio offerto ai paper selezionati in occasione della X edizione del Forum giovani AIS ­– svoltasi presso l’Università di Napoli Federico II il 26 e 27 ottobre 2017 – e, dall’altro, la scelta di dedicare la rubrica focus a una riflessione su «Big Data, Big Challenges», che è stata oggetto di un convegno promosso dalla sezione di Metodologia, il 28 aprile 2017, all’Università di Milano-Bicocca. Va, inoltre, registrata un’importante novità nella rubrica l’intervista, che si apre a figure di prestigio del panorama internazionale, a partire da questo numero, con un’intervista al sociologo tedesco Karl-Siegbert Rehberg

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Questo numero di Sociologia Italiana-Ais Journal of Sociology si presenta ai suoi lettori con un nuovo organigramma e una nuova direzione. Conformemente, infatti, con lo Statuto della Associazione, il Direttivo Ais eletto a Verona lo scorso novembre assume le funzioni di Comitato di redazione e la nuova Presidente quella di Direttrice della rivista. Pur nel cambiamento, resta però salvaguardata la continuità, in quanto Marita Rampazi diventa co-direttrice e Davide Borrelli continua a lavorare nella Segreteria di redazione, continuità favorita dal costante impegno e dall’ottimo lavoro fin qui svolto

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Questo numero di Sociologia Italiana segna il congedo della Direzione attuale: come previsto dallo Statuto dell’AIS, infatti, la Direzione della Rivista verrà assunta dalla nuova Presidente e il Direttivo provvederà al rinnovo del Comitato di redazione. In questo caso, il cambiamento sarà più evidente perché, nel precedente passaggio di consegne, si era optato per una condivisione della Direzione, fra Presidente dell’Ais e Direttrice uscente, in modo da garantire un’indispensabile continuità nella gestione della Rivista

Critical Optimism: A Methodological Posture to Shape the Future of Digital Social Research

In this paper we focus on the concept of critical optimism, a concept that has served many authors to explain orientation about the future. It means to be neither mechanistic in our imagination of the world nor naïve about the expectations the future can hold. Recently scholars have appealed to critical optimism to explain how we should relate to the digital, since when facing technology often, also in the scientific literature, we find extreme opinions. After ten years that the debate around technology and social research has developed on these two opposite visions, we promote an active engagement in testing the different instruments of digital research. Digital methods and big data must be integrated with traditional data sources and methods already existing in social sciences, and that is the right way to effectively improve the unfolding of social phenomena. In support of this thesis, we want to bring two examples that can demonstrate how the use of digital technologies did not lead to abandoning the traditional techniques of social research, but it instead has contributed to solving some problems in the use of these techniques, which before digital were hard to solve. Here, we will illustrate just two examples, the survey and the experiment, that relate to quantitative research, although certainly there are others that can be retraced in quantitative as well as qualitative research

Epistemic Orientation for the Technological Future. Toward a Research Agenda for Dealing with Social Challenges of Internet of Things

This paper offers an epistemological and theoretical framework, and a research agenda, to face the main ethical and social pitfalls of the deployment of big data and IoT in social domains (SIoT). We rely on the concept of critical optimism to explain epistemic orientation about the technological future, paying particular attention to the social challenges. The framework drives the creation of an agenda for social researchers that aids to detect more evidence on the SIoT opportunities

Le atmosfere di Lucia Romualdi

Lucia Romualdi is an artist active since the 70s in the context of conceptual art. Since 1989 she has been working to a close dialogue with musical languages. Her oeuvreis basically focuses on the relationship between space, music and light, and so she creates performances made of optical equipments which turn on and off according to musical rhythms, that are taken not only from original sound scores, but also from old movies soundtracks and thatare mostly structured on the reading of mathematical rules of solids and voids which do inspire her extremely unusual selected locations. Golden measures, music and sea are her main topics. The sea, in particular, is the element that merges Lucia Romualdi’s artistic journeys, always symbolically marked by the numbers of harbour tides, or through the projection of minimal digital images from old movies and/or showing sea animals taken from ancient manuscripts and printed books. The real structure of the places changes, and it is perceived in a total, complete emotional immersion, measured by mathematical and musical scores, too. You just have to be dazzled by such very personal atmospheres whether in Malibu, Chicago, Antwerp, Prato, Naples, Rome or Samorin. The artist let the visitor be an active protagonist of the visual experience, and he himself is required to establish a connection, apparently indefinite, which becomes certain in that time. The performance concretely experienced by the visitor, by his own hearing and viewing, with his total physical immersion in a not tangible but special space, transcends the architectural context; and only in this way it provides him a contact, a fusion of physical awareness and sentimental emotion, which throws the visitor in a field that is ‘other’, and therefore different

Credit constraints for SMEs in the Italian Mezzogiorno: which role for Mutual Loan-Guarantee Consortia?

This paper focuses on the perspective role of Mutual Loan-Guarantee Consortia (MLGC) in mitigating credit constraints for SMEs located in the Italian Mezzogiorno. First, we argue how the functioning of MLGC fits into the theory of bank-firm relationships, also referring to the scarce empirical evidence on the issue. Second, we evaluate the weakness – in terms of size, volume of activity, patrimonial requirements and guaranteed loans – of the Southern MLGC system. We then provide insights on the impact of the novelties introduced by the New Basel Capital Accord (Basel II) on MLGC’s activity. Finally, we conclude for the need of public support to MLGC in the Mezzogiorno in order to enhance their function of facilitating the matching of demand and supply in the credit market.Consorzi Fidi, razionamento del credito, Mezzogiorno, rapporto banca-impresa

Divari territoriali e limiti nell’accesso al credito per le PMI meridionali: quale ruolo per i Confidi?

This paper focuses on the perspective role of Mutual Loan-Guarantee Consortia (MLGC) in mitigating credit constraints for SMEs located in the Italian Mezzogiorno. First, we argue how the functioning of MLGC fits into the theory of bank-firm relationships, also referring to the scarce empirical evidence on the issue. Second, we evaluate the weakness – in terms of size, volume of activity, patrimonial requirements and guaranteed loans – of the Southern MLGC system. We then provide insights on the impact of the novelties introduced by the New Basel Capital Accord (Basel II) on MLGC’s activity. Finally, we conclude for the need of public support to MLGC in the Mezzogiorno in order to enhance their function of facilitating the matching of demand and supply in the credit market