Abstract
What is Computational Social Science (CSS)? What are the main areas of this new, emerging field? What are the main assumptions and potential contributions of CSS? How does CSS differ from traditional social science disciplines? How does it differ from computer science? This chapter introduces the reader to the field of CSS, defined as the interdisciplinary conduct of social science research through an information-processing and complex adaptive systems paradigm, using computation as the key enabling scientific methodology. After exploring the definition of CSS and the computational paradigm of society, the chapter provides examples of CSS investigations in basic and applied domains across the social sciences and areas of policy analysis. The concept of a complex adaptive system is introduced in the context of Herbert A. Simon's fundamental theory of artifacts, especially in terms of explaining the origin and development of social complexity and civilization—both ancient and contemporary. An overview of the main areas of CSS is provided, including computational content analysis, social networks, social complexity, and social simulation models. Each area of CSS is detailed in subsequent chapters. The chapter concludes with a historical overview of CSS to explain the scientific roots and main trends of the field.
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Notes
- 1.
Big Data refers to large quantities of social raw data that have recently become available through media such as mobile phone calls, text messaging, and other “social media,” remote sensing, video, and audio. Chapter 3 examines CSS approaches relevant to Big Data.
- 2.
Number theory actually has very concrete application in cryptology, a highly applied field in national security and internet commerce.
- 3.
The example of a cybernetic system as a CAS is not by chance. In fact, the Greek etymology of the term government, or γυβϵρνη′της (kybernētēs), means the rudder or steering mechanism in a ship. It's the same in Italian (governo), Spanish (gobierno), French (government), and in other languages.
- 4.
The wording here is intentionally and necessarily cautious and precise. The paradigm being presented here separates humans from the rest of nature, based on the human ability to build artifacts, some of which are used to build other artifacts, especially intelligent, autonomous artifacts, using mental, cognitive, and information-processing abilities that are far more complex than those found in any other natural living organism. Ants might build colonies, corals build reefs, bees build hives, beavers build dams, but none of these or other examples of “animal-made artifacts” compares to human artifacts.
- 5.
This idea prompted Simon to suggest—in The Sciences of the Artificial—that social scientists, lawyers, and engineers should undergo university-level training of a similar kind, perhaps under a common College of the Artificial Sciences.
- 6.
Herbert A. Simon's work in the social sciences is widely known for its contributions to the study of organizations and bureaucracy. In computer science his work is equally well known for contributions to artificial intelligence and related areas. His theory of social complexity grew out of an interdisciplinary interest across these domains.
- 7.
The Club of Rome is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1968 and dedicated to scientific analysis of the future and sustainable development.
- 8.
The computer science terminology for these models is multi-agent systems, or MAS.
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Cioffi-Revilla, C. (2014). Introduction. In: Introduction to Computational Social Science. Texts in Computer Science. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5661-1_1
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