Volume 49 (2023): Issue 3 (November 2023)

In this article, I investigate the discursive field of the digital transformation of higher education and research policy in Switzerland. The qualitative analysis of political strategies and documents shows that actors in this policy field use open, ambiguous terms to characterise digitalisation. By building on this discursive strategy, the political actors aim not only to reduce uncertainty about the digital transformation as a complex phenomenon but also to build political consensus about the future development of this discursive field.

This article studies the rise of academic data science in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. By focusing on the boundary work that accompanies this development, we try to understand current transformations in knowledge production within digital academia and beyond. Drawing on qualitative interviews with data science scholars, we identify five lines of demarcation in claiming universal epistemic authority. This boundary work is characterized by multiple tensions and varies depending upon context and counterpart, making it inherently relational.

The digitalization of research practices in the humanities has led to the emergence of the field of digital humanities (DH). DH has made significant progress in institutionalization, while remaining underdefined. Through a qualitative study of Swiss universities we explore how institutional structures and definitions of DH interact. We show that underdefinition enables flexibility in institutionalization, while the local contexts that lead to diverse institutional arrangements may necessitate the underdefinition of DH.

This article examines how digitalisation is used for organisational distinction in the field of Swiss universities for the period 2010–2020. It shows that digitalisation does not fundamentally challenge the order of the Swiss university field but triggers competitive dynamics that are accompanied by different forms of identity articulation. The article concludes that the interplay of competition and identity articulation of actors is complex and must be analyzed in the context of relative field positions.

Building on scholarship on the mediatization of organizations, we propose a conception of the social media orientation of organizational leaders and apply it to higher education. Based on an online survey of 276 leaders of Swiss higher education institutions, we show that social media platforms have made their way into university management and communication but are still not as important as news media. The study discusses differences between university types and uses the literature on new public management to derive influencing factors.