Reclaiming the High Ground in the Age of Onlinement

This article discusses the nature of key aspects of the digital transition, which it characterizes as an age of onlinement generating various narratives. It invokes a metaphor of digital enchantment to account for the climate in which information and communication technologies (ICTs) are growing in importance. It establishes the reactivity and social relevance of communication research on ICT-related topics. It recommends that communication scholars reclaim the high ground by joining the conversation and providing fact-based, theory-grounded counternarratives; by reviving the slow-track of science; by improving the capacity for robust fast-track science; by developing standards for reasoned applied research; and by fending off the fragmentation of the field.