Digital Sociology in the XXI Century: the Core Issues

Society has been changing rapidly and complicatedly due to the impact of digital technology. At the end of the first decade of the XXI century, digital sociology was officially appeared, gradually contributing to the awareness, grasping of the rules and improvement of the current state of social life in the digital era. Through the synthesis and analysis from many different international academic sources, published from 2012 to the present, this article explains in depth the important issues of digital sociology such as the real science and the sub-discipline of sociology. The article focuses on analyzing: i) Short history; ii) Research object; iii) Research subject; iv) Thematic and conceptual system; v) Research method; and vi) Prospects and challenges of digital sociology. Thanks to these, the research also contributes to a systematic and up-to-date introduction of the universal knowledge of digital sociology, attracting the attention of the sociologists and suggesting in-depth research direction of this science in digital transformation at present and in the future. Keywords: Digital transformation, digital technologies, digital era, digital sociology.