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easy - An easy insight into the world of social sciences

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easy_social_sciences is an interdisciplinary transfer journal that addresses the social sciences in their entire breadth. The journal’s focus is on empirical social research. We publish only digitally and open access, with each quality-checked article giving our readers, a quick and easy-to-understand insight into relevant research on societal issues.

About easy

Current issue: easy (69). Neue Daten und Methoden in der Sozialforschung: digital & transformativ

“Data is the new oil” – this illustrative quote from the advertising industry underlines the boom in the analysis and use of digital data in recent decades. Commercial providers use this data to collect increasingly detailed information about their users and customers in order to develop and personalize their products and services. But digital data cannot only be used to maximize profits. (Social) scientific research is also making increasing use of such data and investigating behavior in a digital context. However, digital research data, just like the proverbial “oil”, comes not only with enormous potentials but also great challenges. This issue continues what was started in easy's last issue (no. 68): We here provide an overview of the diverse disciplinary, methodological, and substantuve approaches to research with and about digital data. In doing do, we  aim to underline how these kinds of data can be used to exploit new research opportunities.

Please note: there are three articles in English in this issue. For the other contributions you will find English abstracts in the issue.

Digitale Gesellschaft(en). Neue Forschungsansätze zur Digitalen Transformation (2.39 MB)

Digitalization research is an exciting and dynamic field that explores the social, political, economic, cultural and technical implications of digitalization. This issue of easy_social_sciences presents four articles that deal with different aspects of digitization research, from the conception of relevant research questions to the communication of scientific results. This issue highlights the challenges and opportunities that digitalization brings to research, including the organization of research and the handling of new types of data.

Die Bundestagswahl 2021: Perspektiven und Daten aus der deutschen Wahlstudie (4,99 MB)

To what extent do issues such as climate change or place of residence influence voting decisions and attitudes? How do candidates present themselves on Twitter and to what extent do they represent the electorate both in terms of content and socio-demographics? The upcoming issue of easy is dedicated to the 2021 German federal election. Eight articles deal with research questions from the field of electoral research, with a particular focus on data from the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES).

This issue was published in German.

Inhalt trifft auf Struktur - Soziale Netzwerk­perspektiven (7,55 MB)

People are embedded in social networks. Who they know (network content) and how the people they know are connected to each other (network structure) influences their identifications, opinions, and behaviors. Bringing together different disciplines, levels of analysis, and data types to explore social networks helps to understand and substantially advance the knowledge on the dynamics and complexity of social interaction. ⇒ Table of Contents, articles (OA)

This issue was also published in German.