Sociology Resources on Twitter
At Applied Worldwide our mission is to, “build a bridge between the discipline of sociology and everyday life to improve the well-being of society.” Part of our strategy to achieve our lofty mission is to “use social media to bring sociology to the public with a marketing strategy designed to put knowledge in the hands of those who can create social change.” You can read more about our story, mission, and philosophy on our “About” page. Part of that process includes staying up-to-date on social media, including knowing sociologists on Twitter.
Our company has a social media presence on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram, but I would like to use this space to talk about Twitter. There are over 300 million active users on Twitter worldwide and we use the platform to connect with both individuals and other organizations. Twitter is about communities, but it is also about the rapid consumption of information. In this way, sociology accounts on Twitter can be a great way to relay information about the discipline.
The sociology communit on Twitter is growing. This community consists of many great sociologists, but we want to highlight some of the purely informative accounts that keep folks updated on what is going on in the discipline. We want to provide readers with some sociology Twitter accounts to help you get into the sociology Twitter community.
While this list is not intended to be exhaustive, it should serve as a good starting place for those new to the sociology Twitter community.
Professional Organizations on Twitter
In our database we have record of over 60 Twitter accounts operated by professional organizations. Here are the Twitter handles for the major professional organizations in sociology.
@ASAnews
The American Sociological Association has the largest following amongst professional organizations with over 44,000 followers. ASA posts new journal publications, recent trends in the field, and regularly retweets sociological content from around the web.
@ISA_Sociology
The International Sociological Association has around 26,000 followers making the next largest sociology account managed by a professional organization. Updates about new journal articles makes up the majority of ISA’s Twitter content, but they also occasionally highlight individual sociologists. Similar to ASA, ISA tends to post to Twitter daily.
@britsoci
This account is managed by the British Sociological Association and has over 22,000 followers. If you follow BSA on Twitter you can expect to learn about recent publications coming from the organization and its subsections. BSA also has its own blog called Everyday Society, so that content is shared as well. Other than that, BSA posts updates to different conference events, symposia, and speakers.
@AustSoc
This account is managed by The Australian Sociological Association. While this account only has around 4,000 followers, they do post sociological content on a daily basis. Similarly to the other accounts listed, TASA posts new journal articles, conference events, speakers and more.
@ESA_Sociology
This account is managed by the European Sociological Association. Like TASA, the ESA has around 4,000 followers and they post at least a few times per week. Followers of this account can expect to find new journal articles, conference updates, and book reviews.
Public Sociologists on Twitter
Each of the professional organizations listed above use Twitter to broadly share new sociological research and events, but there are several accounts on Twitter that are specifically designed to engage the public with sociological content.
@TheSocietyPages
The Society Pages is an open-access social science project posting blogs, articles, and podcasts with nearly 13,000 Twitter followers . Posts from this account include translations of academic research, discussions of news from a sociological perspective, and sociological information produced by partnering organizations.
@SocImages
Sociological Images has a blog where they publish timely discussions around imagery to encourage the use of our sociological imaginations. They are also a partner of The Society Pages. This account has around 26,000 followers and posts several times per week. Sociological Images often retweets posts from other sociologists and journal articles in addition to posting their original content.
@SociologyTheory
You can read more about @SociologyTheory here, but this is an account that we have created as a platform for students to engage with the discipline as they take sociology classes in college. With over 16,000 followers, a majority of the content we post are retweets of college students who are Tweeting as a part of their college course.
@SociologyLens
The final account we would like to bring to your attention is Sociology Lens, which describes itself as an active community website that brings together news, opinion, reviews, and sociology resources. With over 31,000 followers, Sociology Lens posts their own original content, articles from Wiley journals, and other updates about sociology publications.
Professors Looking to Use Twitter in their Curriculum
If you are a professor or instructor who is looking to use Twitter in their classroom or curriculum, Applied Worldwide uses the Twitter handle @SociologyTheory as a teaching tool. Anyone is free to use this account simply by asking students to tag @SociologyTheory in their class posts. We will share the posts with our thousands of followers.
The following resources are examples and reviews of how @SociologyTheory has been used to teach sociology in the college classroom:
The Story of @SociologyTheory: Origins and Initial Reviews
The Story of @SociologyTheory: Sociology Twitter Assignments
