As information and communication technologies (ICTs) have become essential tools for knowledge production and communication, we need to understand their role in the science system and in society at large. How have ICTs contributed to recent changes in science-society interactions and the involvement of new societal actors in the creation, maintenance and utilization of scientific information? As Van den Besselaar points out in a previous issue of this journal (Van den Besselaar 2006), it is increasingly understood how new media, such as the web, are in fact extending (and therefore changing) existing social and communication spaces.