“DIGITAL LIBERALIZATION”, “DIGITAL DIVIDE” AND CYBER-SKEPTICISM

Abstract

The article discusses social problems emerging in the course of the development of the information society. It focuses on the main interpretive models and positions in sociology and media theory concerning the directions and possibilities (perspectives) of social-political change under the conditions of the expansion of information technology. The idea and the prospects of “digital liberalization” are analyzed in terms of two radically excluding positions of “cyber-optimism”, extrapolating into “cyber-utopianism”, and “cyber-skepticism” with its “cyber-dystopian” extrapolations. Cyber-utopian beliefs and ideas are exploited and promoted in the wider and highly politicized neoliberal discourse of the «new world order», «globalization», and «the end of history». Cyber-skepticism is connected to the critique of the oppressive authoritarian response to the prospects of informational freedom. It warns that symmetrical counteractive technological measures on the part of authoritarian and oligarchical states can not only nullify the chances of digital liberalization, but also increase the risks and possibilities of upgrading traditional forms of political control and repression. The article analyses the forms and different levels of “digital divide” — digital inequality — which arise in the age of internet, seen as a new territory of human habitat and communication. Refs 11.

Keywords:

information society, information technology, social-political change, digital divide, digital inequality, digital liberalization, cyber-optimism, cyber-skepticism, cyber-utopianism