Methodology of digital sociological research: social system as a basic modeling tool

Abstract: The article analyzes the existing approaches to sociological research and provides assessment of some systemic gaps in the cycle of modeling sociological objects. The technique allowing modeling of complex social interactions based on the concept of «social system» is proposed. The modeling principles are de-veloped, covering the levels of interaction with the environment, content and structure. The model of the social system, having a set of internal parameters, and the algorithm of its interaction with the environment are presented. To facilitate the perception of a large number of elements extracted from the collected em-pirical data, it is proposed to display the final result of the study on a special map. The primary testing, based on messages from the social network Twitter, allowed us to identify the elements of complex social systems and show the nature of their interac-tion. It is concluded that the methodology is applicable as a tool to monitor and to forecast complex social interactions.

Keywords: social system, interaction of complex societal actors, digital sociology, general systems theory, data analysis, extremism, social networks