This paper explores the development of computational social science (CSS) in China via the model of contested field formation. This model highlights that Chinese CSS emerges amid tensions between institutionalization-driven structural forces and entrenched epistemological traditions, defying both the Western diffusion and the top-down dominance models. The model highlights that three external structural pressures fuel CSS's expansion in Chinese universities: the state's New Liberal Arts (xinwenke) policy, a central-government’s higher education reform that pushes humanities and social sciences toward interdisciplinary, digital, and now AI+ transformation; a graduate labor market crisis that renders CSS training a career credential for humanities and social sciences students; and growing platform data and computational infrastructure enabling innovative research designs. These pressures face two internal constraints: a faculty shortage hindering effective New Liberal Arts implementation on the one hand and, on the other, the epistemological pushback from indigenization-oriented and autonomous-knowledge-system discussions that pivot on whether CSS can generate signature Chinese concepts or merely import universalist categories.

Over the past few decades, sociology has experienced significant thematic and structural changes due to the rapid advancement of technology, growing social inequality, and changing forms of mobility and governance. The period 2010–2024 offers a significant window, spanning post-2008 economic restructuring, platform capitalism, COVID-19, and shifts in digital data infrastructures. Using bibliometric data and transformer-based topic modeling analysis, this study examines authorship patterns, institutional concentration, and thematic developments in 101,005 sociology articles published between 2010 and 2024. Our findings reveal that the University of Oxford leads in publication output (910 papers), while Ethnic and Racial Studies is the most prolific journal (3,214 papers). Gender distribution among authors is nearly balanced (50.4% female, 49.6% male), though ethnicity analysis shows significant disparities with White, non-Latino researchers comprising 61% of authorship. BERTopic analysis identified ten major research topics, with social theory and financial critique emerging as the dominant theme (9,016 documents). Temporal analysis demonstrates declining prominence of traditional theoretical topics and growing interest in mental sociology and gender studies. By mapping these patterns, the study offers an empirical foundation for understanding how sociology responds to broader societal changes and contributes to debates on equity, disciplinary boundaries, and future research trajectories.