There are two terminologies that relate to each other: Social Science Computing and Computational Social Science . In literature, CSS is referred to the field of social science that uses the computational approaches in studying the social phenomena. On the other hand, SSC is the field in which computational methodologies are created to assist in explanations of social phenomena. Computational social science revolutionizes both fundamental legs of the scientific method: empirical research, especially through big data, by analyzing the digital footprint left behind through social online activities; and scientific theory, especially through computer simulationmodel building through social simulation. It is a multi-disciplinary and integrated approach to social survey focusing on information processing by means of advanced information technology. The computational tasks include the analysis of social networks, social geographic systems, social media content and traditional media content. Computational social science work increasingly relies on the greater availability of large databases, currently constructed and maintained by a number of interdisciplinary projects, including:
The Seshat: Global History Databank, which systematically collects state-of-the-art accounts of the political and social organization of human groups and how societies have evolved through time into an authoritative . Seshat is affiliated also with the Evolution Institute, a non-profit think-tank that "uses evolutionary science to solve real-world problems."
: the Database of Places, Languages, Culture and Environment, which provides data on over 1,400 human social formations
, an archaeological database created by Peter N. Peregrine
, a multidisciplinary collaborative endeavor hosted by the University of Pittsburgh with the goal of archiving historical information and linking data as well as academic/research institutions around the globe
, which collects data on the global social history of labour relations, workers, and labour
The analysis of vast quantities of historical newspaper and book content have been pioneered in 2017, while other studies on similar data showed how periodic structures can be automatically discovered in historical newspapers. A similar analysis was performed on social media, again revealing strongly periodic structures.
