For the last fifteen years, the development of digital social networks (DSN) and their uses have changed the public space as well as professional, personal and militant practices. What effect has this had on scientific production and on the professional identity of its creators? What do DSN say about the evolution of scientific and academic professions? What opportunities, but also what obstacles, do researchers encounter when they engage in social networking today to bring their research to life in a different way? Beyond the arenas that these networks help create, what regulations and adjustments do they require in terms of professional practice? Through a series of articles based on surveys and the experiences of social science professionals (researchers and those involved in digital communication), this special issue of Tracés aims to shed light on the social and institutional conditions of the production of science in the DSN era.