Digital document: an old entity in a new phenomenon

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of the essence of the digital document as a social phenomenon. The paper analyses the standard established identification characteristics of the digital document, as well as the ideas about its essential characteristics in Russian and foreign science. The author expresses her opinion on the problem and presents the proof, founded on the study of a digital document on the basis of philosophical, social, and activity-oriented approaches and on the theory of social self-organization, which forms the scientific novelty of the article. The author comes to the conclusion that a digital document appeared as a result of the new technological information revolution, just like written and typewritten (man-made) documents appeared as a result of the agricultural and industrial revolutions. Therefore, the essence and the social role of a digital document remain unchanged. The identification feature of a digital document, as well as of a document in analogue format, is its form (structure), including the content and the metadata. Regardless of the form of representation, in analogue format or digital, the document retains its essential properties of an evidentiary and legal force, and the essential functions – information and instrumental, which allow a digital document to serve as an information resource and a social tool. In understanding the essence of a digital document, it is important to take into account not only its relationship with the information system in which its entire life cycle takes place, but also its social role as an instrument of socially and legally significant action and social selforganization.