SOCI 238 - Data and Society

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

(Same as STS 238) Modern society is awash with data. Almost everything we do generates new qualitative and quantitative data, while the deployment of data, in turn, increasingly shapes society, transforming governance, industry practices, the distribution of opportunities to individuals, and even how we understand our own identities. To employ an overused adage, data has become the new oil—functioning as an essential input driving social change, an invaluable resource to those who lay claim to it, and a source of risk. This course introduces the critical study of data through theory, case studies, and application. Readings draw on the academic literature in science and technology studies, sociology, political science, and other fields across the curriculum to demonstrate the functions data play in research, politics, business, and beyond. In addition, students engage with the popular press to see how data interpretations occur outside of the academy. Students also use available data sets and analysis programs—including spreadsheet tools and visualization software—to conduct data manipulation exercises thematically tied to the topics under discussion. Students gain a multidisciplinary analytical understanding of how data are shaping—and are shaped by—the world around us and experience the challenges and possibilities of data analysis. Abigail Coplin.

Prerequisite(s): Not open to first-year students.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS