Russia and the Network Society

Abstract

This is not, strictly speaking, a paper about Russia. Rather, it explores the applicability of an analytical model of social structure of the Information Age to the labyrinth of Russian society in this end of the 20th century. As with all models, it is not expected that Russian reality will entirely fit into the proposed theoretical framework. The hope is, however, that by reflecting on current social trends in Russia from this perspective, some fruiful hypotheses may be generated, that will help to understand Russia when used to inform empirical research. As a communicating device, authors illustrate the argument with some empirical observations. Yet, this should not be considered as a full-fledged analysis of Russian social, technological, economic, cultural, and political trends. Indeed, even a sketchy empirical assessment of the broad range of issues considered in this paper would be tantamount to a book-length study of today's Russian society. The analytical approach tentatively proposed here may contribute to such a study.