Digital Inequality: Current Trends in Formation and Research

Introduction . At the beginning of the XXI century, information and communication resources appear, under the influence of which the intensive digitalization of society begins and, as a result, the transformation of most social phenomena: processes, institutions, communities, etc. The purpose of the article is to analyze digital inequality as a type of social inequality based on existing sociological approaches in domestic and foreign science. The main problem lies in the lack of systematization of scientific publications analyzing approaches to defining the concept, mechanism of occurrence and social consequences of digital inequality. Methodology and sources . The research methodology is based on a sociological and interdisciplinary approaches. The reports of the United Nations, the Okinawa Charter of the Global Information Society, and the World Bank are used as a source base. In the domestic field, the development of a methodology for research on digital inequality was undertaken by O.M. Slepova, T.S. Martynenko, O.N. Vershinskaya, O.V. Volchenko and others. Western discourse is primarily represented by the ideas of the J. Van Dijk, P. DiMaggio, M. Castells, E. Hargitay, D. Garip. The works of Chinese researchers Huang Rongui, Gui Yun, Chen Yongson, Yan Hui, etc. are analyzed. Results and discussion . There had been revealed a direct dependence between the growth of the level of economic development and the growth of the level of digital inequality. The role of digitalization, which makes cardinal adjustments to the classical criteria for analyzing the social structure of society, was also revealed. It is shown that, in contrast to the growth of digital inequality, social support connections are formed, which involve equalizing relationships to the potentials of the information space. Conclusion . Digital inequality, as a phenomenon that appeared at the turn of the century, continues to intensify and has a direct impact on the development of new forms of social inequality. New criteria of inequality are being added to the traditional ones, and a new profile of social stratification is being formed.