THE CROSS OF CHALLENGES FOR SOCIAL SCIENCE

Abstract

Social Science is considered to be a domain of analysis and methods that attempts to explain the dynamics between humans, cultures, systems and societies. The goal of this research is to emphasize the main challenges for Social Science at the beginning of the digital era in the 21st century, when human and physical systems rely more and more on the online environment and thus on the internet. There are, from our perspectives, 4 main challenges that we consider to be important in understanding how social science can evolve not only for the scientific community but also for the real communities themselves. The first challenge is represented by the competition with other sciences, more precisely with natural and exact sciences, the second challenge is represented by the attempt to solve societal problems, the third challenge is represented by the use of creativity in order to deliver comprehensive theoretical models and practical solutions. The fourth challenge is represented by the production system of social science, in other words, what products are released by this particular field of science. With the rise of the growing digital platforms and the importance of the online environment for all societies, social scientists will have to double their efforts for discovering the true dynamics of such a complex global society.