DIGITALIZATION AS A MEGATREND IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SOCIETY AND ITS IMPACT ON THE FIELD OF CULTURE
Authors:   Southern Branch, Russian Research Institute for Cultural and Natural Heritage named after D.S. Likhachev (Krasnodar, Russian Federation), Gorlova Irina I. , Zorin Alexander L. ,   Southern Branch, Russian Research Institute for Cultural and Natural Heritage named after D.S. Likhachev (Krasnodar, Russian Federation), Kryukov Anatoly V. ,   Southern Branch, Russian Research Institute for Cultural and Natural Heritage named after D.S. Likhachev (Krasnodar, Russian Federation)
Published: February 2021

The aim of the study is to identify the essence of digitalization and the disclosure of its features as one of the most significant trends in world development, affecting all spheres of public life and especially culture. The study was carried out on the basis of factual data, UN analytical documents, materials from the work of Russian and foreign philosophers, economists, and high-tech specialists. In the research process, the historical genetic method, comparative analysis of scientific concepts and diachronous method were applied. The previously identified megatrends (globalization and democrati-zation) are analyzed, their general characteristics are established. This allowed us to formulate a new definition of megatrend as a global trend that arises in one area of public life, but gradually covers all other areas of social practice. Further, the authors investigated the processes of digitalization in various fields of social practice. It is noted that, historically, digitalization arose in the field of economics and brought certain benefits, which allowed it to spread to other areas of social life. It is emphasized that in the social sector, digitalization has allowed not only to create new jobs and specialties, but also helped to unite people into groups based on information networks. These groups have become active elements of social space, acting not only in the bowels of the network, but also changing the world beyond. In the field of public administration, new technologies have laid the foundation for the development of “e-democracy” and “e-government” – forms of socio-political interaction that can significantly in-crease the level of citizen involvement in government activities, as well as improve their quality of life. The development process and the activities of electronic libraries and virtual museums are analyzed; It has been established that the essence of this activity in the aspect of digitalization consists in popu-larizing the cultural heritage and expanding its integration into social practice. The possibilities of using modern tools of “augmented reality”, which allow to achieve artistic, creative and educational goals, are determined. The authors conclude that the essence of digitalization is a fundamental reorgan-ization of all spheres of public life towards optimization, acceleration, algorithmization, standardiza-tion and unification of controlled processes in these areas, leveling “manual control”, reducing the role of the “human factor” and associated errors through the use of constantly improving networking tech-nologies and devices responsible for the accumulation, processing and storage of information.