THE EMERGENCE OF COMPUTATIONAL SOCIOLOGY.

The world of science has undergone a major transformation by virtue of technological innovations in computing and information processing. Sociology is one site in which this change is being played out. Our basic aim is to set out a revised image of any modern science, within which we can conceptualize and discuss the role of a newly emergent subfield we term computational sociology. Specifically, we expand the familiar two-component model of a science, featuring a theoretical and an empirical side, to include a computational component. We show how the three components interrelate in a triangular system in which empirical data analysis, theoretical explanation and computer simulation link the three components. We close our paper with a brief discussion of how one new development in computation relates to concepts of sociology, an instance of the hybrid character of computational sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]