Dear Colleages, Guest-edited by two emerging scholars, and featuring work from several continents, a special issue of the *Cultural Science Journal* is (Vol 3.2) now published, presenting important experimental explorations in a nascent, fast-changing and potentially vast field of study. The issue showcases work by Early Career Researchers (ECRs) as well as established figures, and includes work from The Netherlands, Australia, Taiwan, Bulgaria and the USA. It was co-edited by doctoral students Thomas Petzold and Henry Siling Li – while both were in the throes of final write-up and submission of their own PhD theses. The idea for the issue was born out of discussions at the CCI Symposium of mid-2010. In a context where large-scale data generation and collection is occurring across a wide range of individuals and organisations, the core questions raised by that discussion were: · How to address the need for new ways of researching and theorising human interactions in the era of the internet? · What tools are available to us? · What challenges we are facing? The overarching idea is that not only cultural phenomena but also the tools to understand them can be treated as points of evolution in a longer evolutionary process. With that in mind, the issue has included papers that combine innovative research design with a large-context treatment of socio-cultural phenomena. The issue opens with two papers by senior researchers *Mark Deuze *and *Alan McKee* (co-authored with PhD student *Ben Hamley *and* Christy Collis*) on the need for an evolutionary and interdisciplinary approach to media culture in an era of ‘the survival of the mediated.’ These are followed by 5 papers by ECRs – *Denise N. Rall, Hui-Jung Chang, Nikoleta Daskalova, Jason Tocci, and Han-Teng Liao & Thomas Petzold*. They address issues of *data and reality, geo-linguistic analysis, cross-cultural comparison, reflective use of social media and the change and evolution of internet scholarship itself*. The papers cover a good variety of internet scholarship, from quantitative to qualitative analysis, from critical to empirical approaches. Beyond the fascinating articles themselves, the publication of this special issue of *Cultural Science Journal* is another example of the CCI strategy of nurturing next-generation research leaders through practical experience in the difficult arts of editing and publishing globally networked research. Congratulations to Thomas and Henry. Check it out at: http://cultural-science.org/journal/index.php/culturalscience Henry Siling Li PhD Candidate,CCI (Z1-515) Creative Industries Faculty Queensland University of Technology Musk Ave, Kelvin Grove QLD, 4059, Australia Tel: 07 3138 8775 Mobile: 0449 286 996 e: Slhenrylee@gmail.com