Information Threats And The Problem Of Solidarity In The Digital World

Abstract

This article examines the dual relationship between digital transformation and social solidarity, focusing on how information threats – disinformation, manipulative content, propaganda, and cyber insecurity – shape the possibilities and limits of cohesion in contemporary networked societies. The study synthesizes theoretical and empirical literature on the information society (Webster, Castells, Bühl), the conceptually contested notion of social cohesion (Cuellar, Easterly, Pervaiz, Dheret, Beauvais and Jenson), and emerging research on digital threats to solidarity (Alsina, Black, Choi, Deveaux, López-Rabadán) in order to develop an integrated framework for understanding solidarity in digital space. The results indicate that digital technologies simultaneously expand the infrastructural capacity for cooperation and generate structural vulnerabilities – algorithmic polarization, disinformation, and “transitive” or ephemeral forms of online solidarity – that can undermine the durability of social bonds. The discussion situates these findings within the policy context of Uzbekistan, where rapid growth in internet and mobile penetration, alongside youthdominated digital participation, renders information security and media literacy matters of pressing national concern. The article concludes that sustaining genuine, durable social cohesion in the digital era requires a coordinated strategy integrating legal and institutional safeguards for information security, the systematic development of media and digital literacy, and the deliberate cultivation of solidarity mechanisms that extend beyond the transitive engagement patterns characteristic of networked communication