big trends
increasingly dominated by powerful
corporate actors, often silencing other
voices, including democratically elected representatives.
For seven decades Europe has been
a political and social project, seeking to integrate what has been divisive historically and to make citizens
more equal. While the proponents of
the Web were driven by similar values,
there is now increasing concern in Europe—and beyond—that the Web has
become a vehicle of disintegration,
polarization, and exploitation. What is
more, since the Web operates at a global scale, beyond nation-states and with
little formal regulation, we lack both
the understanding and the means to
avoid sleepwalking into another catastrophe.
Web Science seeks to investigate,
analyze, and intervene in the Web
from a sociotechnical perspective, integrating our understanding of the
mathematical properties, engineering
principles, and the social processes
that shape its past, present, and future.
7 Over the past 10 years, Web Science has made remarkable progress,
providing the building blocks to face
the challenges described here. And yet
there is more do to. In this article, we
offer a more detailed definition of Web
Science and outline its achievements
to date. We consider how Web Science
frames and addresses key sociotechnical challenges facing the Web now
and for the near future, emphasizing
the importance of this as new artificial
intelligences start to shape the Web
(and Web Science) in significant new
directions. Arising from this, we outline some of the practical strategies
Web Science is developing to integrate
knowledge across disciplinary boundaries and build collaboration with Web
stakeholders. Web Science equips us
to understand the past and present
of the Web and the skills and tools to
shape a positive future.
What Is Web Science?
Web Science in Europe begins from the
premise that the Web is both technical
AS WE FINALIZE this article November 11, 2018, and
consider current and future directions for computing
in Europe and across the globe, we remember the
end of World War I exactly 100 years ago: the end to
a war of atrocities at a scale previously unseen and
the culmination of a series of events that European
nations had allowed themselves to ‘sleepwalk’ into,
with little thought for the consequences.
10
When this article appears in spring 2019, we will
remember the first proposal for a new global information
sharing system written by Tim Berners-Lee 30 years ago at
CERN,
4 the European organization for nuclear research.
This proposal marked the beginning of the World Wide
Web, which now pervades every facet of modern life for
over four billion users. However, the Web 30 years on,
is not the land of free information and discussion, or
an egalitarian space that supports the interests of all, as
originally imagined.
4 Rather, egotisms, nationalisms, and
fundamentalisms freewheel on a landscape that is
Web Science
in Europe:
Beyond
Boundaries
DOI: 10.1145/3312569
BY STEFFEN STAAB, SUSAN HALFORD,
AND WENDY HALL