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The chapter will review significant changes in information technology (IT) affecting research over the 30-year history of Communication, Information Technology, and Media Sociology. It compares broad overviews of computers and the social sciences published shortly after the beginning of the section (1989 and 1990) with a contemporary overview of online research methods from 2017. It also draws on my own experiences from 1981 to the present as both an academic and a software entrepreneur. The author will discuss how changes in the section parallel developments in social science computing over this period, identifying some of the significant ways IT has transformed both the methods of research and the substantive foci of research. Finally, the author extrapolates into the future to consider how continuing changes in the Internet, big data, artificial intelligence, and natural language understanding may change how sociological research is conducted in the foreseeable future.

Why is the quality of innovation-driven entrepreneurship seemingly declining? We argue the growing Entrepreneurship Industry and the way it has transformed entrepreneurship as an activity are important, under-appreciated explanations. By leveraging the Ideology of Entrepreneurialism to mass-produce and mass-market products, the Entrepreneurship Industry has made possible what we term Veblenian Entrepreneurship. This is entrepreneurship pursued primarily as a form of conspicuous consumption, and it is fundamentally different from the innovation-driven entrepreneurship that it emulates and superficially resembles. Aside from lowering average entrepreneurial quality, Veblenian Entrepreneurship has a range of (short-run) positive and (medium- and long-run) negative effects for both individuals and society at large. We argue that the rise of the Veblenian Entrepreneur might contribute to creating an increasingly Untrepreneurial Economy. An Untrepreneurial Economy appears innovation-driven and dynamic but is actually rife with inefficiencies and unable to generate economically meaningful growth through innovation.