The Digital Space as the Symbolic Field: Computational Analysis of Online Communities’ Practices

Despite the growing tendency to rethink societies as “liquid” and “digital” and the widespread opportunities for interaction between people thanks to the development of social networks and digital forums, it is still unclear how this transformation may impact individuals and their perception of the social reality around them. This study of computational sociology moves from a constructive structuralist epistemology, adapting Pierre Bourdieu’s analytical framework to the modern digital space, in order to propose a methodology fit to address such question. Empirical results confirm the utility of such methodology, showing that a distinction between social groups in the digital space can be made on the basis of individuals’ practices of representation with respect to a predefined set of key symbols.