The article was received on May 12, 2021.
As German researchers Jeanette Hofmann, Norbert Kersting, Claudia Ritzi und Wolf J. Schünemann [10; 11, 54, 146–162; 12; 23, 17–49] note, digital changes have long taken over the sphere of scientific publications: scientific documents circulate electronically, become available on digital platforms, are algorithmically filtered and bibliometrically processed and evaluated. IT racks are used in libraries. Computer workstations have long been established. And publishers are increasingly selling downloadable versions instead of individual book titles. On the contrary, in this period, publishing a collection of publications and even creating a series of books on «Politics in the Digital Society» may seem like a completely outdated idea.
Although individual volumes, both print and «open access,» are released simultaneously, it is believed that this series of formats has a future. It is intended to create a space where current and meaningful work on «Politics in the Digital Society» is made available to the broad (social) scholarly community. These can be the key outcomes of major research projects, dissertations and other monographs, or even conference volumes. This can be research in political fields and political investigation, research of participation, political communication from other fields of political science, sociology, or communication science because the study of digital technology also crosses the boundaries of established disciplines and fields of study.
Among other things, this boundary condition may be due to the fact that about twenty years after the beginning of the «digital era» in German-speaking countries only now an autonomous field for such research is emerging.
Through an analysis of new technologies and their social and political implications, the following has been discovered (see Kersting) [10, 11–54; 11, 146–162; 12]: even publication forums where one could delve into scientific discourses were long lacking.