Digital media have been responsible for some of the most wide-ranging changes in society over the past quarter-century. At the same time, there is little agreement in the social sciences about how these changes should be understood. One reason is increasing disciplinary specialization. For example, media and communication studies concentrates on specific areas such as the news or influe…
The web has been with us for more than a quarter of a century. It has become a daily and ubiquitous source of information in many peoples’ lives around the globe. But what does it tell us about historical and social change? For a researcher in the twenty-second century, it will seem unimaginable that someone studying the twenty-first c…