Digital technologies such as social media have drastically transformed the contexts and processes associated with collective action. New actors have gotten involved in efforts at changing the societal status quo, existing actors have adjusted to new ways of organizing digitally, and original forms of social movements have emerged and grown. All these developments do not, however, hold the potential for unequivocally positive societal impact. New forms of abuse and many unintended consequences have also multiplied. It is high time to take stock of the insights from current scholarship on these important issues.

Here we bring together major findings from existing scholarship and introduce the papers of this special issue. We also propose an agenda for future research by highlighting ongoing debates and issues that require further consideration. Questions associated with the increasingly intricated participation of human and technological agents deserve attention, for instance. Careful considerations of the actual impact of digital organizing at different levels (e.g., individual, group, organization, society) also require further scholarship. We finally caution researchers to be ethical and to remain careful of the potential for use and misuse of their scholarship on these important and often polemical topics.

诸如社交媒体之类的数字技术已经彻底改变了与集体行动相关的环境和过程。新的参与者已经参与了改变社会现状的努力，现有的参与者已经适应了以数字方式进行组织的新方式，并且社会运动的原始形式已经出现并发展壮大。但是，所有这些事态发展都没有潜力产生积极的社会影响。新的虐待形式和许多意想不到的后果也成倍增加。现在是时候总结一下当前奖学金对这些重要问题的见解了。

在这里，我们汇集了现有奖学金的主要发现，并介绍了本期特刊的论文。我们还通过突出正在进行的辩论和需要进一步考虑的问题，提出了一个未来研究的议程。例如，与人类和技术人员日益复杂的参与有关的问题值得关注。仔细考虑数字组织在不同级别（例如，个人，团体，组织，社会）的实际影响也需要进一步的奖学金。最后，我们告诫研究人员要遵守道德规范，并要谨慎使用它们在这些重要且经常是争论性话题上的学术成果。