SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN THE CONTEXT OF BIG DATA
I. Platonova
Izhevsk State Agricultural Academy, Izhevsk, Russia
e-mail: platon-s@bk.ru
Abstract. The relevance of the article is related to the need to analyze the impact of digital technologies and big data on society and theoretical social knowledge. The digitalization of science, including the use of big data in social and humanitarian research, creates unprecedented opportunities for studying society, changing both epistemological and methodological strategies and models of social reality. The purpose of the article is to investigate how big data transforms social reality and theoretical social knowledge. The study uses such logical and philosophical methods as analysis and synthesis, comparison, generalization, elements of induction and deduction.
The article shows that the main difference between big data in the natural and social sciences is not so much in the amount of data as in their quality. The article considers models of classical, non-classical, post-non-classical social knowledge, substantiates a new “sociotechnical” paradigm of social knowledge. This paradigm “removes” the dichotomy of macro- and micro-levels of social reality, emphasizes the incompleteness and one-dimensionality of society, the mutual influence of individuals and technical objects, offers a “fluid” image of a person. The article shows that big data creates new opportunities for the transformation of society associated with changing structures of everyday life and social communication. It is concluded that with the help of big data, it is possible to strengthen social control, which becomes more subtle and latent. Social control involves the formation of meanings and values, social practices and rules. Social control can be carried out both by state institutions and by large platform companies.
The practical significance lies in the fact that, firstly, the article analyzes the features of social control, as well as the ethical aspects of the use of big data in a digital society; secondly, the article sets a number of vectors for further research related to both the development of social theory and the change in social reality.
Key words: big data, social theory, paradigm, society, social communication, control.
Cite as: Platonova S. I. (2022) [Social knowledge and social change in the context of big data]. Intellekt. Innovacii. Investicii [Intellect. Innovations. Investments]. Vol. 4, pp. 160–168, https://doi.org/10.25198/2077-7175-2022-4-160.
