Areas of Application
As a middle-range theoretical platform, social complexity can be applied to any research in which social interaction or the outcomes of such interactions can be observed, but particularly where they can be measured and expressed as continuous or discrete data points. One common criticism often cited regarding the usefulness of complexity science in sociology is the difficulty of obtaining adequate data. Nonetheless, application of the concept of social complexity and the analysis of such complexity has begun and continues to be an ongoing field of inquiry in sociology. From childhood friendships and teen pregnancy to criminology and counter-terrorism, theories of social complexity are being applied in almost all areas of sociological research.
In the area of communications research and informetrics, the concept of self-organizing systems appears in mid-1990s research related to scientific communications. Scientometrics and bibliometrics are areas of research in which discrete data are available, as are several other areas of social communications research such as sociolinguistics. Social complexity is also a concept used in semiotics.
In the first decade of the 21st century, the diversity of areas of application has grown as more sophisticated methods have developed. Social complexity theory is applied in studies of social cooperation and public goods;altruism; education; collective action and social movements; social inequality; workforce and unemployment; policy analysis; health care systems; and innovation and social change, to name a few.
Read more about this topic: Social Complexity
Famous quotes containing the words areas of, areas and/or application:
“The discovery of the North Pole is one of those realities which could not be avoided. It is the wages which human perseverance pays itself when it thinks that something is taking too long. The world needed a discoverer of the North Pole, and in all areas of social activity, merit was less important here than opportunity.”
—Karl Kraus (1874–1936)
“Helping children at a level of genuine intellectual inquiry takes imagination on the part of the adult. Even more, it takes the courage to become a resource in unfamiliar areas of knowledge and in ones for which one has no taste. But parents, no less than teachers, must respect a child’s mind and not exploit it for their own vanity or ambition, or to soothe their own anxiety.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)
““Five o’clock tea” is a phrase our “rude forefathers,” even of the last generation, would scarcely have understood, so completely is it a thing of to-day; and yet, so rapid is the March of the Mind, it has already risen into a national institution, and rivals, in its universal application to all ranks and ages, and as a specific for “all the ills that flesh is heir to,” the glorious Magna Charta.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)