The first issue of the Information Society Journal for 2025 is published. The main theme of the issue is The digital age and its possibilities. The articles in this issue cover, among others, the following topics:

Understanding the conceptual foundations of information society development
Institutional regulation of digital trade
Analysis of investment attractiveness of innovative sectors of the economy
The impact of digital transformation on foreign policy
Information support for consumer cooperatives
Chatbots and video blogs as auxiliary learning tools
Encyclopedia as a source of knowledge about the history of demography and statistics
Technologization of the judicial process using China as an example
Cybersecurity systems for an autonomous robotic complex
Remote sensing of the Earth to improve management efficiency in the information society

In her address to readers “Summing up the results of 2024,” the journal’s editor-in-chief Tatiana Ershova wrote:

---

It is impossible for us to ignore the dramatic and potentially unpredictable events surrounding Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Each of them could have a powerful impact on the course of events in the world, but we will focus on the revolution started by Elon Musk, who headed the Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE) under the Trump administration.

The reformer has declared his mission to be to expose corruption and reduce gigantic bureaucratic costs, which, according to him, could reach $1 trillion. He wants to save the US economy from the debt crisis and restore investor confidence. He intends to reduce costs by automating some government functions with the help of artificial intelligence.

Reuters reports that as early as February 2025, Trump and Musk fired 9,500 federal employees as part of their campaign to reduce bureaucratic red tape in the US. These people joined about 75,000 people who agreed to voluntarily leave with a compensation package. The cuts also affected the diplomatic corps: several sources reported that some embassies were asked to reduce both American and local staff by 10%.

It is very difficult to predict how this risky venture will end. If everything works out, the United States could become the first major economy to successfully reform its bureaucratic system using AI and digital technologies. However, if the reform fails, the country could face even more serious economic and social problems, the first of which will be rising unemployment and a decline in trust in government institutions.

In Russia, AI is being dynamically introduced into the work of government agencies, but we are not doing this to reduce the number of their employees, but rather counting on a radical improvement in the quality and increase in the volume of work performed. The most obvious areas of AI application are working with citizen requests, communications between government agencies, working with texts (for example, regulatory legal acts), modeling and forecasting, analyzing government spending, and much more. Time will tell whether the country’s economy will receive a bonus in the form of the release of a large number of qualified personnel and their use in other sectors.

People of science can only observe these processes, comprehend them and share the results of their research with the public. And we, of course, publish scientific articles on this topic.

Our journal has been actively publishing articles on AI since 2020. And they are by no means only purely technological. This issue also contains two such works. One of them is devoted to the use of AI for the administration of electronic justice (using China as an example), the second – to the use of neural networks by people with hearing impairments. Paying due attention to all thematic sections, we will follow research in the field of the most advanced technologies with attention and interest.

---

The full text of the issue can be found on the journal’s website.

On February 26, 2025, the Russian Engineering Academy held a solemn ceremony of awarding diplomas “Information Partner of REA”.

The event opened with a speech by REA President Boris Gusev, who spoke about the history of the creation and development of the Academy. First Vice President and Chief Scientific Secretary of REA Leonid Ivanov spoke about the publishing activities of the Academy.

In the photo: President of the Russian Engineering Academy B. V. Gusev and Editor-in-Chief of the Information Society journal T. V. Ershova

Then, official representatives of the editorial offices were awarded Diplomas of REA Information Partners. On behalf of the scientific and analytical journal “Information Society”, the diploma was received by the editor-in-chief Tatiana Ershova.

The Information Society journal has been published by the Institute of the Information Society jointly with the Russian Engineering Academy since 1999. The journal covers issues of the information society development in Russia and abroad. In 1989, it began to be published as the Bulletin of the Russian Society of Informatics and Computer Engineering, and in 1997 it received its current name.

Nowadays this is a Russian periodical that consistently and systematically covers scientific achievements, as well as public policy in the field of information society and digital economy development. The journal’s materials are aimed at forming a Russian community of scientists, experts, politicians and practitioners purposefully engaged in issues of using information and communication technologies for socio-economic development.

The audience of the magazine includes decision-makers in the field of using digital technologies in public administration at the national and regional levels, in the social sphere, in business, in production, in the media; a wide range of specialists in the field of creation and use of digital technologies; scientists and researchers; workers in the fields of education and culture; individuals interested in the problems modern information society and knowledge economy development.

Since February 26, 2010, the journal has been included in the list of periodicals recommended by the Higher Attestation Commission of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia for publication of the results of candidate and doctoral dissertation research. The journal is also indexed in the national bibliographic database of scientific citation (RSCI). The materials published in it undergo a procedure of peer review and expert selection. Since 2020, the journal has been published in electronic form.

The additional issue of the Information Society Journal for 2024 is published. The main theme of the issue is Digital development of spheres of activity: international experience and national practice. The articles in this issue cover, among others, the following topics:

Pilot Sectoral Digital Development Rating
Impact of Digital Technologies
Public Policy and Strategic Planning for Sectoral Digital Development
Human Capital for Sectoral Digital Development
R&D and Innovation for Sectoral Digital Development
Trust and Security in Sectoral Digital Development Processes
Infrastructure for Sectoral Digital Development

In his address to readers “Digital development of spheres of activity: international experience and Russian practice,” the issue’s editor Yuri Hohlov wrote:

---

The development of the information society today means the socio-economic changes that occur due to the use of digital technologies on the scale of a country, region or individual sphere of activity, be it a branch of the economy, a social sector or a system of public administration and local self-government. It is no coincidence that one of the national development goals of the Russian Federation until 2030 is digital transformation, or more precisely, digital development that brings economic and social dividends.

Numerous studies show that digital development is extremely uneven and depends on a large number of factors, which are not always technological by nature. It is necessary to be able not only to predict the most promising areas for the implementation of technological innovations and assess the current state, but also to purposefully plan and implement national, regional or sectoral digital initiatives.

This issue of the journal “Information Society” includes the main results of three years of scientific, methodological and applied economic research 2021-2023 on the digital transformation of major spheres of activity, carried out by employees of the All-Russian Academy of Foreign Trade together with experts from the Institute of the Information Society by request of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation. The publications in this thematic issue present both theoretical research on the construction of a conceptual framework for monitoring and evaluating the processes of digital development in individual areas of activity, and practical results of pilot testing of the proposed approaches and tools. The complexity of the studied socio-technological system of digital development lies not only in modeling the processes of innovative development (from production through use to impact) based on digital technologies, but also in the need to create conditions that contribute to the successful functioning of these processes.

The integrated approach implemented in the developed monitoring and evaluation system covers a large number of non-technological factors that should be taken into account in the strategic planning and implementation of digital development processes in individual areas of activity. Therefore, the results obtained will be published in two thematic issues of our journal, the first of which is now in front of you. The second issue will be published in the first half of 2025.

The developed monitoring and evaluation system is universal by nature, can be applied to all areas of activity and provide effective feedback for targeted movement towards achieving national development goals both for the country as a whole and for a separate area of ​​activity.

---

The full text of the issue can be found on the journal’s website.

The sixth issue of the Information Society Journal for 2024 is published. The main theme of the issue is The Digital Age: A New Experience of Transformation. The articles in this issue cover, among others, the following topics:

Artificial intelligence for decision-making in public administration
Building digital ecosystems of regions
Analytical platforms for studying social and political mobilization
Digital technologies for regulating and controlling migration processes
Formation of an innovative scientific and educational environment
Development trends in the EdTech industry
ICT in a preschool educational institution
Application of artificial intelligence in creative industries
Intelligent system for forecasting the development of the Russian-Belarusian borderland
Features of the photonic path of artificial intelligence development 

In her address to readers “Summing up the results of 2024,” the journal’s editor-in-chief Tatiana Ershova wrote:

---

Following an unshakable tradition, in the final issue of each year we look at the results of editorial activities, present a general picture and draw conclusions. In total, 94 articles were published in 2024. Thus, a new absolute record was set for all 35 years of the journal’s existence. Due to the political events of recent years, which have complicated the participation of Russian researchers in international publishing activities, the influx of materials to our editorial office has increased sharply, which entailed stricter requirements for their submission. As a result, the share of materials accepted this year was 63%, and the share of rejected ones was 37%, with 24% rejected immediately, and 13% after review.

Basically, immediate rejection was due to violation of the requirements of the Author Guidelines for the quality and design of materials, which has not changed since 2020. The editorial board’s uncompromising position towards authors who are careless about the requirements or submit texts of an inappropriate level has been and remains unchanged. We do not consider it our task to educate young authors in the spirit of scientific integrity and responsibility, leaving this to their scientific supervisors. We see our task in the selection and regular publication of high-quality scientific works.

In 2024, the journal published works in a variety of research areas. The largest number of works was contained in the “Digital Economy” section (11), followed by “Education in the Information Society” (10). Eight articles were located in the “Information Society and Mass Media” and “Information Society Technologies” sections, seven each in the “Human in the Information Society” and “Information Society and Law” sections. An article appeared in the “Sports and Tourism in the Information Society” section, and the “Information, Consulting, Advertising” section was returned. Unfortunately, the “Leaders of the Information Society” section was again left without content. The remaining sections published 3-5 articles.

The number of our authors was 151, and this is also a record. Most of them naturally represented Russia, and the geographical coverage was very broad: 24 regions. There were 74 Muscovites among our authors, 9 researchers from St. Petersburg, 6 from Nalchik and Tambov each, 5 from Kemerovo and Tyumen each, 4 from Kaliningrad and Saransk each, 3 from Volgograd, Nizhny Novgorod and Perm each, 2 from Kazan and Sevastopol each, 1 from Balashikha, Vologda, Voronezh, Donetsk, Yekaterinburg, Lipetsk, Petrozavodsk, Ryazan, Samara, Smolensk and Tolyatti each. Three authors were from China, two from Azerbaijan.

Among the 2024 authors was a full member of the Russian Academy of Education, 43 doctors of science, 65 candidates of science. 22 authors of this year’s articles have the academic title of professor, 43 have the academic title of associate professor. The author teams also included 20 specialists without an academic degree, 16 postgraduate students, 6 masters and five students. Three members of the Editorial Board of the journal published their articles this year.

It is gratifying to note that we have achieved good results during the outgoing year. Therefore, on the eve of the new year, on behalf of the entire editorial board, I would like to sincerely thank our authors, reviewers and readers for their cooperation and interest in our journal and wish everyone good health, personal happiness and success in all endeavors.

---

The full text of the issue can be found on the journal’s website.

Please meet the fifth issue of the scientific and analytical journal “Information Society” for 2024. The main theme of the issue is Digital instruments for managing the economy and society. The articles in this issue cover, among others, the following topics:

The impact of human capital on the development of Russian regions
The image of a political leader in the space of network communication
Development trajectories of urban metauniverses
Information tools of a university lecturer
Medical robotics as a tool for modernizing the healthcare system
Countering information manipulations on the Internet
Native advertising in a media convergent network environment
Use of ICT by households and the population
AI for assessing damage from natural and man-made disasters
Innovative technologies for development in the Middle East

In her address to readers “Data, information, knowledge, wisdom,” the journal’s editor-in-chief Tatiana Ershova wrote:

---

On September 9 this year, at the International Forum “Kazan Digital Week – 2024”, the Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of Russia Maksut Shadayev spoke about the priorities of the national project “Data Economy and Digital Transformation of the State”. These priorities are formulated in the following areas: Internet and communications, government services, support for IT projects, development of promising technologies, cybersecurity, IT education.

This project will replace the national program “Digital Economy of the Russian Federation”, which ends in 2024, and is aimed at achieving the national goal “Digital transformation of state and municipal administration, economy and social sphere”, formulated in the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated May 7, 2024 No. 309 “On the national development goals of the Russian Federation”.

Russian President V. Putin in his Address to the Federal Assembly outlined some parameters of the new project: “By 2030, it is necessary to build digital platforms in key sectors of the economy and social sphere.” Its implementation should contribute to an increase in investment in domestic information technologies so that their growth rates are at least twice as high as the growth of the gross domestic product.

Following the logic of the implementation of national projects, the activities of the new project will be carried out within the framework of the state program “Information Society”, implemented since 2010 and aimed at achieving the goals of the Strategy for the Development of the Information Society in the Russian Federation and other strategic planning documents.

It is hoped that the national project “Data Economy” will be aimed at achieving the goals of socio-economic development. After all, data is just a base layer, a raw material that in itself means not so much. No technology and no infrastructure will turn them into useful information, valuable knowledge and invaluable wisdom. This is why the pyramid must be turned upside down: first, wisely formulate the most important things that we should strive for at home and on a global scale; then, with knowledge of the matter, outline the effects that must be achieved to improve the lives of the people and strengthen Russia’s position in the world; after that figure out what information and what technologies can help with this, and based on this, determine what data needs to be collected and how to use it to develop different areas of activity. And based on all mentioned, create the necessary infrastructure that will help do this in the most effective way.

And then the circle will close: data will turn into information, information – into new knowledge, and knowledge, in turn, will make us wiser and our lives – better. In the meantime, the enormous efforts towards automation, electronization, informatization, digitalization, and now “datafication”, which have been undertaken for many decades, seem more like attempts to fit into fashionable agendas.

---

Full texts of the issue’s materials are available on the journal’s digital platform.

Please meet the fourth issue of the scientific and analytical journal “Information Society” for 2024. The main theme of the issue is Large-scale dissemination of digital technologies. The articles in this issue cover the following topics:

Ethics in the field of artificial intelligence
Digital communications and the modern young generation
Business modeling of media
Media consumption among the youth of Donbass
Legal restrictions on the use of AI technologies
Regulation of the quantum communications industry
Technological solutions in oil and gas production and the agro-food sector
Technological capabilities of tax administration
Application of modern digital technologies in insurance
Features of the information society in Tanzania

In her address to readers “Technology: burden and benefit,” the journal’s editor-in-chief Tatiana Ershova wrote:

---

“It is a mistake to think that technological innovations have a one-sided effect. All technology is both a burden and a blessing: never either-or, but always both.”

These are certainly true words by Neil Postman, an American writer, educator, media theorist, and cultural critic, the author of eighteen books, including Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992), The Vanishing of Childhood (1994), and The End of Education: Reassessing the School System (1995). As a humanist, Postman believed that “new technologies can never replace human values.

His media theory was influenced by the French philosopher and sociologist Jacques Ellul and the Canadian sociologist and philosopher Herbert Marshall McLuhan, whose works I studied with interest 17 years ago while working on the book The Information Society Is Us!

So Ellul surprised me a lot by considering it useless to differentiate technology from its use, because technology generates specific social and psychological effects that do not depend on people’s desires. Therefore, he said, there should be no place for moral considerations in the process of using technology. That’s it, no more, no less! However, some time later he turned to neoconservatism and even began to advocate curbing technical progress. He already considered the technical system a means of oppression and called it one of the factors of human alienation. In his last works, the scientist returned to liberal positions and even went so far as to say that the information society, being “the implementation of ideas of a socialist, anarchist and pacifist nature”, generally presupposes the liquidation of the state, which he called bureaucratic. Such vacillations took place in his life for thirty years.

As for McLuhan, one of his main research topics was connected with the use of technology as a way of expanding human capabilities. Its essence is that the content of any message is inevitably influenced by the technology used to disseminate it. He argued that the emergence of technology brings significant changes to human communication with the outside world (both natural and social) and reorganizes their way of perceiving the world and their way of life. He viewed technology as an extension of the human body and believed that it eventually separates from the human and gains power over him, acquires its own (far from human) logic and imposes this logic on man, whether he wants it or not. In the face of this alienated technological infrastructure, the human turns out to be a weak and dependent creature, with a strange optimism losing himself, like Narcissus, paralyzed by his reflection in the water.

Returning to the quote by Neil Postman, let us not forget about the complex nature of human use of technology. This “double-edged sword” will always remain in the center of attention of researchers. And our authors are no exception. Today, one of the most popular topics among our authors is artificial intelligence with its enormous possibilities and inevitable dangers. But when forming our editorial portfolio, we try to achieve a balance of topics and different points of view.

Please meet the third issue of the scientific and analytical journal “Information Society” for 2024. The main theme of the issue is Life in digital: what’s new.

Information war and changing the old world order
Remote investment entrepreneurship
Business models of enterprises in digital economy
Difference between traditional and digital protectionism
Intellectual migration in Azerbaijan
Legal regulation of the use of unmanned aerial vehicles
Media activity of military universities
Machine translation based on multi-agent neurocognitive architectures
ICT for proactive and anticipatory management
Interoperability of information systems

In her address to readers “Open science as a global public good,” the journal’s editor-in-chief Tatiana Ershova wrote:

---

“Russians have an openness of spirit,” wrote philosopher and sociologist Nikolai Berdyaev, the author of the original concept of the philosophy of freedom, in his collection “The Fate of Russia” (1914-1917). And this is truly so. This is why Russia immediately supported the 2021 UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science.

In the foreword to last year’s report “Open science outlook 1: status and trends around the world” Director-General of UNESCO Audrey Azoulay noted: “…… More than ever, we need science – science that is open and collaborative, and therefore effective. However, despite the potential of the open science model, it is far from widespread. We can and must go further. We must make scientific results, processes and methods accessible. We must democratize science. <…> We must bring about a cultural shift, to ensure that open science is no longer the exception, but the rule.”

Our editorial board and the Institute of the Information Society, where we have been working for 25 years, have always professed the principle of openness of scientific research. We publish articles in the journal completely free of charge for authors and, from 2020, also for readers. Since that time, we have been distributing our authors’ works under the terms of the open international license Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – ShareAlike 4.0 International; CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. This means that you can freely share (exchange) – copy and distribute journal materials on any medium and in any format; adapt (create derivative materials) – remix, modify, and create new things based on this material. In this case, the following simple rules must be observed: indicate authorship, do not use the material for commercial purposes, and when creating a derivative material, distribute it under the terms of the same license.

Rossiyskaya Gazeta, citing analysis data from the Institute for Statistical Research and Economics of Knowledge at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, notes that Russia’s contribution to the global number of publications indexed in the Scopus database doubled from 2010 to 2019, which allowed Russia to move to 7th place in the global ranking. But in 2022, due to the worsening geopolitical situation, the participation of Russian scientists in a number of international scientific projects was suspended. The number of publications in indexed scientific publications has noticeably decreased, and Russia’s share in the global flow of publications has fallen to 3%. Thus, before our eyes, politicking is becoming the cause of the destruction of scientific ties and causing irreparable damage to world science, torpedoing the free exchange of scientific ideas.

According to the Director-General of UNESCO, for open science to realize its full potential, it must become global public good. However, until the desire for “hegemony”, which has given rise to harmful discrimination against Russia and other countries defending their sovereignty, is not stopped, open science will remain only a beautiful metaphor. And although we are currently going through difficult times, we remain confident that collaboration between scientists around the world will not only continue, but will soon flourish. In the meantime, we are guided by the principle “Do what you must, and come what may.”

The second issue of the scientific and analytical journal “Information Society” for 2024 has been published.

The main theme of the issue is Digital social innovation.

Co-authorship of a scientist with artificial intelligence
Creation of artificial general intelligence
The importance of human capital under sanctions
Global digital currency in the digital economy
Strategies for speech behavior in the digital environment
Artificial Intelligence in educational systems
Archival heuristics in the information society
Information and psychological violence and criminal law
Promoting images of Russian parties on YouTube
Approaches to controlling a group of robots

In her address to readers “The heroism of scientists is our historical heritage,” the journal’s editor-in-chief Tatyana Ershova wrote:

---

The second issue of our journal is always published on the eve of Victory Day, and at this time a parade rehearsal is usually held. The power of our military equipment evokes pride, but no less admiration is generated by a reverent attitude towards the memory of the heroic past of our people. This is of particular value against the backdrop of attempts by the so-called collective West to rewrite history, to appropriate the merits of Soviet soldiers, to turn inside out the values ​​for which millions of fighters against Nazism died.

These days, one cannot help but remember the people of science who took up arms at the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War. Many employees of scientific institutions of the USSR applied to join the ranks of the people’s militia. Many of them died. Their memory is immortalized by a memorial plaque, which is located next to the building of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 2011, giving an interview to Gazeta.ru, front-line soldier, chairman of the Council of Veterans of the Great Patriotic War of the Russian Academy of Sciences, academician Evgeny Petrovich Chelyshev said: “For us, this plaque is a continuation of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier – the Tomb of the Unknown Scientist.”

The Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences came up with an excellent initiative in February 2024: the archives of the Victory Museum included biographies of almost 200 employees, teachers and students of the institute who, during the war years at the front or in the rear, brought Victory closer. Thus, a special section appeared in the national historical project “Faces of Victory”.

The national historical project “Faces of Victory” was launched on the initiative of the Victory Museum on December 3, 2019. Designed to store more than 150 million biographical materials, the project opened up the opportunity for everyone to perpetuate the memory of the contribution of their relatives – home front workers and front-line soldiers – to the defeat of Nazism and transfer family stories about them for eternal storage to the Victory Museum.

I would like to hope that the initiative of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences will be accepted by other scientific organizations throughout the country, and the chronicle of the heroism of our fellow scientists will be constantly updated.

The “Faces of Victory” project has a section “Scientific Regiment”, which I wrote about in the preface to the previous issue of the journal. It is dedicated to the contribution of scientists to the defeat of the enemy and clearly demonstrates that we have many people to be proud of: great scientists who made every effort to strengthen the military power of the country, achieved success in various fields, and also sacrificed their lives to protect the Motherland.

Purely civilian applications of artificial intelligence, which are the subject of a number of articles in this issue, can find application in the control of unmanned aircraft and autonomous uninhabited underwater systems, precision weapons, on-board equipment controls and even troops. This is how modern Russian researchers contribute to the fight against neo-Nazism. Taking this opportunity, I congratulate our authors and readers on the upcoming Victory Day and wish everyone good health, optimism and new productive ideas.

---

The full contents of the issue are available on the magazine’s digital platform.

The third issue of the scientific and analytical journal “Information Society” for 2023 has been published.

The main theme of the release is “Interaction of human and technology”. It is revealed in 13 articles devoted to the following:
Again, about the essence of the information society
Existential landscape of human-machine interaction
Hate speech on social media
Digitalization of Russian regions and interregional cooperation
Cryptocurrencies as a new form of money
Telecommunication market today
Standardization of data technologies for AI
Crop protection robots
Digital transformation in China
Use of quantum technologies in the USA

In her address to readers, the editor-in-chief of the magazine Tatiana Ershova wrote:

The first article in this issue, written by MSU professor Tamara Naumenko, examines the paradigm foundations of the information society theory. This made me remember the very beginning of our activities to promote the development of the information society in Russia at the end of the last century or, if you like, the millennium. We wondered why seemingly reasonable people resisted it so much. But over the years, things have become clearer.

Our opponents were patriotic people. It was exactly what puzzled us: don’t we want Russia’s good, don’t we want its powerful development? It was very difficult to prove that we were not eager to sell our country out to the West. It was necessary to explain long and hard that no one can build a modern economy without the use of new technologies. And since, due to wrong decisions, we have missed the opportunity to independently create technologies and equipment on a par with the West, why not to use what we already have and what we can buy for our own purposes? Of course, in parallel it was possible and necessary to create our own technologies, and on a serious scale. And those who called for the information society were certainly not responsible for the fact that this did not happen.

It is surprising that people did not believe us for a long time and stubbornly could not understand that we are in the same system of values with them, that we are carriers of the same paradigm, if the latter is understood in a broad sense as a worldview, or way of thinking. We actively participated in the most prestigious international events and projects in order to keep abreast of everything most interesting and useful, and then we came home and tried to promote the most advanced experience in our country, taking into account its peculiarities. We also organized major events in Russia: the annual conference “Information Society Technologies”, “Tver Forum”, as well as many round tables and seminars, to which we invited well-known Russian and foreign experts, true leaders of the information society.

One of such events was the international conference “Global Knowledge – Russia. Partner Networks as Instruments for the Development of the Information Society and the Knowledge Economy”, which took place in Moscow on December 9, 2002. It brought together more than 100 representatives of the state, business, civil society, the scientific and educational community from 19 countries of the world. Here, for the first time, the preparation of the national strategy “Russia in the Information Age” was announced, about which the First Deputy Minister of the Russian Federation for Communications and Informatization A.V. Korotkov (blessed memory of him), spoke in detail. A document under this title was not approved, however, but as a result of its discussion, a certain new concept of “informational development of the country” arose. The next version of the document, called the “National Strategy for Informational Development”, already set “advanced informational development” as a major task.

On February 7, 2008, the long epic ended: thanks to the active support of the Security Council, the Presidential Decree approved the “Information Society Development Strategy”, which fully took into account Russia’s national interests. Common sense finally prevailed, and a lot of ICT4D work began countrywide. It actively continues to this day, only now with an emphasis on the use of digital technologies.

The second issue of the scientific and analytical journal “Information Society” for 2023 has been published. In her address to readers, the editor-in-chief of the magazine Tatyana Ershova wrote:

---

I love old proverbs – even ours, Russians, even any other people. This is truly a mirror of deep folk wisdom. Take this one: “A good master is the master of money, and a bad one is a servant.” Bravissimo to the author! Whatever you insert into this proverb instead of “money”, everything will be true. For example, “ICT”. Or digital technology. Well, isn’t it?

I remember how, more than twenty years ago, theку was an campaign to “electronize” Russia. At international conferences, we only had time to fend off the nasty questions of foreign well-wishers, why we adopted a federal target program with an impressive budget, but did not bother to conduct an elementary assessment of the country’s readiness for electronic development. But since 1999, we have been hoarse to talk about it at every corner, only no one has listened to us. “Electronic Russia” sounded very fashionable, it was possible to raise good money on this – why think, you need to hammer! But we stubbornly promoted the idea of assessing the electronic readiness not only of the entire country, but also of its regions, and sectors of the economy, and, if necessary, even individual organizations, if they were seriously going to move to a new technological level.

Back in 1996, we did such a thorough job at the Russian State Library before entangling it with wires and filling it with computers. At the same time, mass “informatization” of libraries, schools, museums and other respected institutions began, but only in many of them computers stood and gathered dust, because they simply didn’t know how to use them and were afraid – suddenly you break an expensive thing! The fact that before the delivery of equipment it was necessary to train workers and take care of IT specialists was sometimes forgotten. The main thing was not to fall out of the trend. Of course, this was not the case everywhere, but campaigning, unprofessionalism and self-interest in this matter went off scale.

Since 2001 and until recently, many members of the Editorial Board of our journal have participated in the assessment of readiness for the information society in various aspects under the auspices of a number of organizations, in particular, the Institute of the Information Society, Rosatom State Corporation, ANO “Digital Economy” and others. Many people remember the well-known long-term series of Index of Russian Regions’ E-Readiness by the IIS. And the result of the participation of Russian specialists in the World Bank project in 2017 was the Digital Economy Country Assessment (DECA), which was officially recommended to all G20 countries as the basis for planning the development of the digital economy.

One of the thematic headings of our journal is “Measuring the Information Society”, and we strongly welcome articles on this topic. True, burdened with knowledge and experience in this area, we are very strict in their selection, but the rubric does not stand idle, and this is very pleasing. Today, a comprehensive model for monitoring the development of the information society in the broad sense of the word, including the development of the digital economy and digital transformation, continues to improve and keeps pace with the standardization processes in the development and use of digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence and data processing. All this allows us to hope for a masterly attitude towards these important things in our country. After all, in the current geopolitical situation, we have no other choice.