Civilizational transition in the focus of interdisciplinary methodology. Review on the book: Vasilenko L.A. and Meshcheryakova N.N. (2021) Sociology of Digital Society: monograph, TPU Publishing House, Tomsk, Russia (In Russian)

Abstract

The research paper presents a review of the monograph devoted to the methodological and theoretical aspects of the digital societysociology. L.A. Vasilenko and N.N. Meshcheryakova introduce the digital society conceptas a new independent stage in the existence of a post-industrial society and a transitional stage to a postdigital one. The concept is constituted through the description of the digital society essential features, which qualitatively distinguish it on the general line of civilizational development. The authors submit that classical sociology, with its spectrum of theories, methods and techniques, is not enough to understand the hybrid reality, partially virtualized. The monograph lays the theoretical and methodological foundations of sociology of digital society. Its content is aimed at summing up the study resultsof the digital society as a special stage of the information society and the formation of the author’s vision of the way to solve problems. Reviews of the most significant studies have been generated in the text. A multidisciplinary approach to the review and to the presentation of one’s own positions and developments has been presented. The authors go far beyond the subject of sociological science itself, and form a three-dimensional picture of digital society as a whole. Digital society is considered from the perspective of a civilizational approach. The authors consistently concentrate their attention on the issue of the evolution of the information society formation, then move on to the main aspect of the author’s concept. They are deploying arguments in favor of proving that the digital society is the next stage in the information society development. An original scenario approach to the empirical data interpretation on the digitalisation process has been implemented. When organising the study and formulating conclusions, positive and negative consequences and scenarios of evolution are highlighted. The book is of considerable interest to sociologists, philosophers, specialists in the field of social management.

Keywords

• digital society
• sociology
• interdisciplinary approach
• evolution
• digital sociology
• increasing complexity
• normal anomie
• scenario approach
• hybrid methods