This might be a stupid question, but it just popped up into my head and I was wondering ever since. To clarify what the terms mean and how they are connected, I had a quick look and summarized my thoughts below.

Social science as the umbrella term: aspects of human society. Sociology is one part of social science and focuses on society, human social behaviour, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life, meaning it focuses on aspects of human society. Somewhere I found the info that social science primarily focus on “in the now”. Whereas humanities focus on the product of human society (literature, arts, languages, philosophy…).

So far so good, but what about culture studies? This is where it gets a bit muddy. Culture studies can be either social science or humanist: If it has stronger ties to social science: culture is viewed as the context, whereas when having stronger ties with humanities, the focus is on cultural artefacts (e.g. a picture that is analysed?) and culture as a product. One example, I think, might be new media studies, that look at contemporary cultural artefacts.

I also read that social science has a more rigorous scientific approach, whereas the humanities have a more theoretical/philosophical approach. However, what a scientific approach is and whether or not all research has or should have a theoretical/philosophical approach is another story. Nevertheless, I think I know what they mean and it is a bit clearer for me now.