Key Idea: Digital society is a contested term for a world that is unevenly digital. This topic gives you the vocabulary the rest of the course runs on: the names, the divides, the milestones, and the difference between converting material and changing an organization.
Paper 1
- Part a: define a term, or identify two names or milestones
- Part b: explain why a described group is excluded
- Part c: “to what extent” is a described society digital
Paper 2
- Q1: read an access figure off a chart
- Q2: explain how a source uses digitization or digitalization
- Q4: synthesise sources on who a change actually reached
Everywhere else
- This vocabulary is assumed in all seven content topics
- The divide is the standard counter-argument in any AO3 answer
- Digitalization is the frame for every 'impact on an organization' question
The five names, and what each one argues
Nobody is asking you to prefer one. They are asking you to notice that choosing a name means choosing what you think drives the change.
| Name | Says the driver is |
|---|---|
| Information age | Information as the key resource |
| Computer age | The machine itself |
| Post-industrial society | A shift in what work is |
| Network society | Connection between people and machines |
| Fourth industrial revolution | Physical, digital and biological converging |
Multiple digital societies. Whenever a question implies one shared digital experience, the strongest move is to ask digital for whom.
Three divides, not one
Learn these as a set
- Access — is there a connection, a device, power, and a price you can pay?
- Use — a shared phone on a small bundle is a different internet from an unlimited home line.
- Skills and outcomes — what can you actually accomplish? This gap outlives the other two.
Important: At access. Infrastructure is the easiest half and the half that governments report on. Naming use and skills is usually the cheapest way to move an answer up a band.
Digitization is not digitalization
| Digitization | Digitalization | |
|---|---|---|
| What changes | The material | The organization |
| Example | Scanning a library's card catalogue | Closing the catalogue room and redesigning how people search |
| Test for it | Is something analogue becoming digital? | Has a role, structure or business model changed? |
These are two different words in the guide and examiners hold you to it. A definition question answered with the wrong one scores zero, however well written.
Exam-style questions
Identify two characteristics of digital society.
🔒 Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Explain two ways in which digitalization can change the work of employees in an organization.
🔒 Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
To what extent does digitization benefit the communities whose cultural heritage is digitized?
🔒 Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Quick check
Name three alternatives to “digital society” Information age, computer age, post-industrial society, network society, fourth industrial revolution.
What are the three divides? Access, use, and skills and outcomes.
Define digitization and digitalization Digitization converts analogue material into digital form. Digitalization uses digital systems to change the structure or operation of an organization.
Name four milestones Integrated circuit (1958), microprocessor (1971), personal computer (1981), the internet (1969), online social networks (2000s), mobile and cloud (2007).
Bit and byte A bit is a single binary digit, 0 or 1. A byte is eight bits, giving 256 possible values.
Is digital higher quality than analogue? More robust, not automatically more faithful. Copies do not degrade, but the recording is always an approximation set by the sample rate and bit depth.
Exam tips
- Every extended answer in this topic should name a real case. “Some countries” cannot reach the top band however well it is argued.
- Keep digitization and digitalization separate. It is the most common one-word error in the whole subject.
- When a question assumes one digital society, the counter-argument is already written for you: ask who is outside it.
- Learn the guide's own wording for the divides and for analogue and digital. Precise vocabulary is where the AO1 marks live.