'All the World's a Stage' and Sociologists Its Storytellers: Contemporary Sociology and the Art of Telling a Good Story

Sociologists have become "storytellers." This chapter aims to explore the importance of writing in the ways of telling about society. Departing from two iconic books – The Sociological Imagination (Mills, 1959) and Storytelling Sociology (Berger and Quinney, 2004), issues related to "words," "voice," and "audience" emerge as key elements of the story writing/storytelling sociology craft's toolbox. At present, the pressures imposed by fast science and writing in highly competitive teaching and research environments, the growing technological development applied to research, and the expansion of hyper and social media represent new challenges for storytelling sociology. At the end, the chapter argues for the enduring importance of writing in the ways of telling about society, while recognizing the value of time in research: time to listen, write, and tell

Encountering new risks in educating children in the contemporary society: The risk of cyberbullying

This chapter assesses the phenomenon of cyberbullying as a risk involved in educating children in the contemporary world. While online technologies become a vital part of teenagers' worlds, cyberbullying is becoming a significant problem. In this chapter, cyberbullying is regarded as a social issue that builds on the existing social structures and hierarchies inherent in societies. A sociological perspective is used in analyzing bullying and cyberbullying in relation to power, various forms of capital, and the gender order. The discussion also takes a critical stance and focus on technology as a social construct. Cyberbullying studies conducted in Turkey, which is defined as a 'lower use, some risk' country for children and prevention strategies against cyberbullying will also be subject to analysis in this chapter. This discussion proposes that a sociological analysis of the underlying mechanisms will be useful in establishing a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of cyberbullying as a social issue. © 2020 by IGI Global. All rights reserved

The Diffusion of Ignorance in On-Line Communities

This article aims to investigate how information-sharing mechanisms in online communities favor activities of ignorance distribution on their platforms, such as fake data, biased beliefs, and inaccurate statements. In brief, the authors claim that online communities provide more ways to connect the users to one another rather than to control the quality of the data they share and receive. This, in turn, diminishes the value of fact-checking mechanisms in online news-consumption. The authors contend that while digital environments can stimulate the interest of groups of students and amateurs in scientific and political topics, the diffusion of false, poor, and un-validated data through digital media contributes to the formation of bubbles of shallow understanding in the digitally informed public. In brief, the present article is a philosophical research that applies the virtual niche construction theory to the cognitive behavior of internet users, as it is described by the current psychological, sociological, and anthropological literature