1. Degree:
   Master’s degree (graduate; Magister)
2. Mode:
   Full-time
3. Language of instruction:
   English
4. Duration of study:
   2 years (4 semesters)
5. Field of study:
   Sociology

The specialization is a four-semester master’s degree program under the Sociology major. It combines sociology with knowledge of the digital world. It targets students interested in the internet, social media, new technologies, algorithms, artificial intelligence, and how they impact our society.

Sociology has a long history of studying the relationship between people and technology. It grew out of consideration of the social transformations during the Industrial Age. The success of digital solutions relates to understanding the needs of users.

Today, sociology studies not only how digital technologies affect users but also how users shape technologies. Social phenomena are too complex to be studied by a single method, and sociology, due to its legacy, is an ideal field for combining different procedures. By intercepting the diverse aspects of the phenomena under study and integrating various research methods, we can better understand individuals and groups functioning in a digital society.

In the era of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI), we also need Thick Data, as both data types have unique characteristics that complement each other. Quantitative data can help identify trends, and qualitative data help understand human behaviour, needs, and motivations. Triangulation, the combination of studies mentioned above, allows for a comprehensive and multidimensional picture of reality, a better understanding of complex phenomena, and the reduction of the impact of errors resulting from relying on a single method. As such, it can translate into better-informed decision-making in the digital world, including business and strategic decisions. In a digital society, sociology links the social and the digital. Using quantitative and qualitative data, Big Data, and Thick Data, it combines broad insights with sociological depth, becoming the future of analysis, including identifying new trends from digital footprints.

You will learn about advanced qualitative and quantitative research methods in your studies. By carrying out your research projects, you will learn how to design research to understand the digital society and innovation better, identify people’s needs, and make data-based decisions. You will develop sensitivity to how the world around you is changing. By delving into sociological theories, research, and specific case studies, you will find that projects’ success relies on combining digital knowledge with knowledge of contemporary society and its needs. You will gain experience in creating social research on the digital, whether you want to pursue academic or commercial research.

You will learn how to plan communication and work in cross-cultural, international, and remote teams. You will learn about how innovation spreads, the relevant social processes and issues involved, and trends in management and working methods in the digital environment. You will use terms typical of sociology as well as the digital world. You will understand the architecture of programming languages and the world of artificial intelligence.

The modern world, also due to digital technologies, is changing fast, and sociology allows you to understand these changes and their impact on the lives of individuals and society. It also helps discover the mechanisms driving social relations and technology, identify social problems, and seek solutions. Sociology shows how algorithms influence us and how we can influence the shape of the digital world and digital well-being. It shows what opportunities and threats exist in a digital society and people’s needs and expectations. It demonstrates how innovations affect how we learn, work, and interact, how they change the culture and how it is distributed, how they ease access to many solutions, and how they affect social stratification, the spread of fake news, and manipulation.

By choosing the specialization, you will gain competencies valued in the labour market. The competencies will allow you to connect the social world with the digital world, work in international and diverse teams, and create digital tools and innovations. You will also broaden your digital competencies to navigate the world of new technologies.

Many topics are studied from a beginner’s level, so there is no need to cover program differences. Subjects related to new technologies, cognitive science, virtual reality, and programming do not need prior experience. Besides the mandatory classes, you will have a choice of electives that allow you to develop your interests as a student, both related to your chosen field of study and broaden your general knowledge.

The labour market needs a workforce that can combine knowledge of digital technologies with knowledge of how the modern world works, understand social processes and communication and adapt solutions to different groups’ needs. Such individuals are not only aware participants in digital society but also contributors to it, whether in science, the IT industry, research companies, or NGOs. You can use your broad knowledge and competencies in almost every sector, which gives you excellent opportunities to develop and shape your career.

The main thematic areas of the program are:

• Technical tools: creative practices and methodologies, innovative social networks. Students can navigate the world of digital communication and innovation. The future and the digital solutions available to us depend on data. Yet, how much would we want companies, institutions, and governments to know about us? Can we manage data so that it becomes part of a fair and sustainable world? We will focus on the legal, social, and ethical complexity of decisions made in the digital world.
• New technologies and intelligent processes, and automation. You will examine the issues societies, science, and businesses face and how to solve them. The focus is on the impact of technology on productivity, competitiveness, and communication.
• Communication and transformation in science and business. This part of the study focuses on the most critical problems of digital society and future projections. We will seek answers to questions such as: how are algorithms and artificial intelligence changing our everyday life, including how we communicate and work? How and where can we exploit the synergy of our capabilities with those of digital solutions, and how can we design innovations so that they become part of development rather than crisis?
• Research in the digital society. It provides an overview of the impact of existing research on technological revolutions and new tools for studying digital culture. As a result, you will learn about the qualitative and quantitative research methodologies on the internet, research conducted online, Design Thinking, human-computer interaction research, and the ethics of social research.

During your studies, you will learn the following:

• Managing IT, social, and scientific projects for new technologies and human-computer interaction.
• How to organize research and work on digital innovations.
• How to organize teams’ work, including in international, intercultural, and remote teams.
• How to use new technologies and digital research in science and business.
• How to create new solutions, identify user needs, and build relationships with audiences and business partners.
• How to test solutions and provide users with the best possible experience of using new ones.
• How to build a brand for an innovative product and company.

Contact:
Collegium Civitas Admissions Office
phone: +48 508 929 652
email: admissions@civitas.edu.pl
room 1210, Palace of Culture and Science, 12th floor
1 Defilad Square, 00-901 Warsaw, Poland