Vital Signs: Plenary session - Les Back
Thursday 11th September 2008, 2pm, Cordingley Theatre
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Les Back is professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Social research and its futures
While it is a cliché say that digital technologies and new media impact profoundly on our everyday lives, little attention has been paid to opportunities that digital photography, mobile sound technologies, CD Roms and on-line publishing opportunities might offer the social researcher and the practice of research itself. It is still the case that most social scientists view the research encounter as an interface between an observer and the observed producing either quantitative or qualitative data. Equally, the dissemination of research findings are confined to conventional paper forms of publishing and research excellence is measured and audited through such forms, be it in monographs or academic journals.
It remains the case that in social science the inclusion of audio or visual material in the context of ethnographic social research has been little more than ‘eye candy’ or ‘background listening’ to the main event on the page. The relatively inexpensive nature of these easy-to-use media offers researchers a new opportunity to develop innovative approaches to how we conduct and present social research. However, the potential for innovation is taking place in the context of the audit culture within Higher Education which it is argued privileges conventional modes of writing and representation. The lecture seeks to explore the opportunities to enhance the scope, depth and rigour of qualitative research offered by the use of new media in social research include:
- the development of new techniques to collect, analyse, archive, curate and exploit the many kinds of data employed in social research;
- the potential to use many media – sound, image and transcript - in the production of sociological texts;
- the potential to bring sociology ‘alive’ and represent the vitality of social life.
The lecture will explore this challenge through drawing on a variety of examples and also speculate on the shape social research might take in the future.
