The Introduction first considers the enthusiastic reception of Krautrock in Britain, comparing it to the limited contemporary interest in Germany and locating the origins of a homegrown pop music in the desire to develop a pop musical countermodel to the hegemony of Anglo-American pop and rock music. Then the trajectory of Krautrock’s rediscovery beginning in the mid-1990s is traced; first, the renewed media interest from the 2010s onwards, which has resulted in several journalistic books on both the movement in general and on individual bands; next, the concomitant academic research on Krautrock that accelerated in the mid-2010s and continues apace. The Introduction further discusses the neglect of female voices in the received Krautrock narrative und critiques essentialist attempts to reduce the highly heterogenous movement. Rather, the Introduction proposes understanding Krautrock as the specifically (but not exclusively) German variety of a ‘sound of revolt‘ thriving in the politically charged period from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s. By considering German experimental music as an attempt to give voice to the longing for a better future, the conclusion links Krautrock to Ernst Bloch’s utopian philosophy.

Responding to an environment of panic surrounding social media’s effect on democracy, regulators and other political actors are rushing to fill the policy void with proposals based on anecdote and folk wisdom emerging from whatever is the most recent scandal. The need for real-time production of rigorous, policy-relevant scientific research on the effects of new technology on political communication has never been more urgent. This book represents a clarion call for making social media data available for research, with results concomitantly released in the public domain, even while recognizing the importance of privacy and the business interests of the firms. We hope this concluding chapter, as well as the entire volume, can be helpful in providing a path to do so.