Digitalization and development of information and communication technology: New challenges or escalation of old problems?

Evgeniy V. Maslanov
Insti­tute of Phi­los­o­phy, Russ­ian Acad­e­my of Sci­ences

Dig­i­tal­iza­tion and devel­op­ment of infor­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy: New chal­lenges or esca­la­tion of old prob­lems?

Abstract. This paper inves­ti­gates the impact of dig­i­tal and new infor­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies on the trans­for­ma­tion of human iden­ti­ty, on urban life, social, polit­i­cal and sci­en­tif­ic prac­tices. Bas­ing on the com­par­a­tive method, the author attempts to show that the use of new dig­i­tal and infor­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies leads to both pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive con­se­quences. In the first case, tech­nolo­gies cre­ate new op-por­tu­ni­ties for the for­ma­tion of iden­ti­ties, a greater inclu­sion of the pop­u­la­tion into urban life, as well as for the evo­lu­tion of new social, polit­i­cal and sci­en­tif­ic prac­tices. In the sec­ond case, the for­ma­tion of new tech­no-dig­i­tal iden­ti­ties might lead to exis­ten­tial crises and human dehu­man­iza­tion. New prac­tices of infor­ma­tion search and the use of social net­works con­tribute to shap­ing of an infor­ma­tion cocoon and author­i­tar­i­an regimes, while sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge ceas­es to be con­trolled by human­i­ty and human rea­son. At the same time, this dig­i­tal ambiva­lence sharp­ens old prob­lems, show­ing their fun­da­men­tal impor­tance, though not form­ing a new agen­da. The point is that not so much the new tech­nolo­gies them­selves pos­sess inno­v­a­tive poten­tial but pos­si­ble projects for con­struct­ing new socio­cul­tur­al and tech­no­log­i­cal con­di­tions for their use have it.

Key­words: dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy, new infor­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy, dig­i­tal­iza­tion, iden­ti­ty, civic activism, sci­ence, Inter­net

DOI: 10.5840/dspl2019211

Acknowl­edge­ments
The study was car­ried out with the finan­cial sup­port of the RFBR grant no. 18–311-00187 “Com­mu­ni­ca­tion plat­forms in the Inter­net as ‘trad­ing zone’: per­spec­tives and lim­i­ta­tions (Russ­ian con­text)”.

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