RESEARCH FIELDS of DEPT. COMP. SOC. BFI

Computational Sociology is the way to do sociology with computations; on theories, data, and models. However, referring to the understanding on the sociology itself - the science that study the social life - the field of researches in computational sociology may be much bigger than the classical or the conventional one.

In Bandung Fe Institute, the research fields conducted, i.e.:

1. Development of Artificial Societies and Social Simulations in order to capture the social processes and phenomena. These can be done uniquely by using conventional and qualitative tools and build appropriate algorithms to be analyzed as the structure of the social phenomena. Some examples of research themes are agent-based model of the stock market, social conflict analysis in certain places, cultural studies by using memetics, spreading of rumors, the emergence of norms, epidemiology, et cetera.

2. Analyses of macro-micro linkages in social process. These are done by theoretical explorations on social processes linked to the individual behaviors that emerging the social. The studies of macro-micro linkages are done by doing some verifications and validations of the existing social theories to be approached by the real structural forms of social process locally.

3. Models validations. There are a lot of new models proposed to represent certain social phenomena contemporarily, e.g.: Snzajd model, Galam Model, automatons, scale-free networks, etc. to be cross-analyzed with the conventional social theories or any social surveys.

4. Econophysics and Sociophysics. We must acknowledge that the advancement of physics recently opened many windows to newly social and economic analysis. The discoveries around power-law distributions, self-organized criticallity of the nature, phase transitions, etc., may enrich our social discourses.