Making sense of digitally mediated disruptions: a mission for the sociology of media and communication technologies

Abstract

ABSTRACT This special issue of Information, Communication, and Society is edited by the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology (CITAMS) section of the American Sociological Association (ASA) and includes papers that were first presented at either the 2022 or 2023 ASA meetings or Media Sociology Symposia. In this introduction, the editors of the special issue aim to connect the articles appearing here to the oldest, most fundamental mission of the discipline of sociology. We suggest that modern society is once again experiencing the kinds of disruption and havoc that our foundational thinkers grappled with many years ago, and that increasingly this tends to play out in and through ‘the media’ or ‘the digital.’ In other words, we want to suggest that sociologists who study communication, information technologies, and media are uniquely well-positioned to help the discipline as a whole understand the tremendous amount of upheaval facing the world today.