The Public and Their Platforms: Public Sociology in an Era of Social Media

Product Description
As social media is increasingly becoming a standard feature of sociological practice, this timely book rethinks the role of these mediums in public sociology and what they can contribute to the discipline in the post-COVID world. It reconsiders the history and current conceptualizations of what sociology is, and analyzes what kinds of social life emerge in and through the interactions between ‘intellectuals’, ‘publics’ and ‘platforms’ of communication. Cutting across multiple disciplines, this pioneering work envisions a new kind of public sociology that brings together the digital and the physical to create public spaces where critical scholarship and active civic engagement can meet in a mutually reinforcing way.
Review
“Published in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, this timely book argues that contemporary interactions between sociology, publics and social media platforms demand a new understanding of public sociology.” LSE Review of Books

“If sociology is to survive the dual pandemics, the thousands of academics with the skills to tell the human stories of statistical data must face the inevitable and cliched ‘pivot’ to online. Carrigan and Fatsis’ essays unpack why that is necessary and how it can be done, leaving no definition uninterrogated.” Postdigital Science and Education
Review
"The authors set out a well-tempered sociology to negotiate the new spaces and media of public discussion. The book is both exhortation and manual, a platform for a new public sociology." John Holmwood, University of Nottingham
About the Author
Mark Carrigan is a Research Associate of the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge.

Lambros Fatsis is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Brighton. His research fuses Cultural Criminology with Black radical thought, focusing on police racism and the criminalisation of Black music subcultures. His co-authored book with Mark Carrigan, The Public and Their Platforms Public Sociology in an Era of Social Media is published by Bristol University Press.