Digital sociology for exploring digital society

The advent of the digital age has become a serious challenge for researchers in various fields of scientific knowledge. Among others, this refers to sociology, which tried to give an adequate answer to the question of how the world is changing. The purpose of this article is to outline the contours of a new sociological field - digital sociology, which has been actively developing in recent years. The article provides an overview of Russian and international studies that have contributed to the formation of the scope of research and research objectives of digital sociology. It focuses on digital society, which appears due to the development and implementation of modern technological infrastructure represented by key digital technologies (communication networks, big data technologies, algorithms and complex algorithmic systems, platforms, artificial intelligence technologies, cloud computing, augmented and virtual reality technologies, etc.). This extremely complex infrastructure has a decisive influence on the emergence of new social practices, on identity, on the everyday life of both the individual and society as a whole. Digital sociology aims to theorize critically about digitalization, datafication, algorithmization, and platformization, and to determine the social implications of these processes. Moreover, digital sociology offers a range of methodological techniques and tools based on digital technologies that provide new possibilities for quantitative and qualitative sociological research. Digital sociology is also seen as a professional sociological practice which includes teaching the discipline, carrying out scientific communications, and sharing the results of sociologists' scientific work.