Cyberscience 2.0—Research in the Age of Digital Social Networks

At the start of the twenty-first century, the Internet was already perceived to have fundamentally changed the landscape for research. With its opportunities for digital networking, novel publication schemes, and new communication formats, the web was a game-changer for how research was done as well as what came after—the dissemination and discussion of results. Addressing the seismic shifts of the past ten years, Cyberscience 2.0 examines the consequences of the arrival of social media and the increasing dominance of big Internet players, such as Google, for science and research, particularly in the realms of organization and communication.

Michael Nentwich is the director of the Institute for Technology Assessment of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the author of Cyberscience: Research in the Age of the Internet. Rene Konig is a sociologist at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis of the Karlsruher Institute of Technology.