Narrative in Social Research: Between Tradition and Innovation

The interest of sociologists in narratives has become more profound in the last few decades due to the growing awareness that narratives are an inherent part of everyday life and are directly linked with the construction of our identity. Narrative takes on an even more significant role when contextualized in a contemporary society in which technologies are increasingly ubiquitous and are embedded in our everyday life. In this article, after having carried out a theoretical overview of the role of narrative in sociological analysis, we focus on the techniques of social research that adopt the narrative approach in the understanding of contemporary society. On this point, the main characteristics and the similarities and differences between traditional and emerging digital empirical techniques, are examined. In particular, the so-called digital methods and the subsequent changes in the implementation of social research are explored, taking into account the sociological need to identify a narrative dimension capable of making connections between the complex set of digital traces, information and data.