Digital elite: trends of formation and development

Abstract

The article aims to identify and examine the key trends and socio-political processes that are shaping the formation of a digital elite in the public-power sphere. It demonstrates that the transformation of systemforming elements of power, leading to the formation of new “power alliances”, is largely hidden from social control, and the process of institutionalizing the digital elite as a stable privileged group is in its early stages. Representatives of this group exert managerial influence through such tools as digital platforms, new forms of control over various resources, and influence over the trajectories of the digital transformation of traditional political institutions: in the long term, this will allow them to influence both the public agenda and the adoption of socially significant decisions. The authors analyze the key trends in the development of the digital elite – the formation of new power relations and structures, as well as socio-political actors – “power alliances”.