Sociotechnical turn in the study of digitalization of society

The aim of the article is to conceptualize the notion of digitalization of society through an analytic comparison of existing sociological and technical approaches to digitalization. The article describes the contextual environment of the origin and development of the sociological discourse of the digitalization of society. The analysis was used to propose and conceptualize the sociological definition of digitalization of society and social digitalization. Digitalization of society is digitalization carried out in the context of historically conditioned social forms of life and activity. Social digitalization is a global process of transforming information to digital form that radically changes the nature of intergroup and interpersonal relationships of people. The conditions of social existence become dependent on digital technologies, which lead to unintended and uncontrollable consequences. The authors attempt to bridge the knowledge gap by turning to the technological discourse of digitalization in order to complement the exclusively sociological discourse. This combination of two distant areas has provided a deeper understanding of the impact of digital technology on public life beyond the interpretation of changes within actor-networking or postmodern terms.