The Interaction between Internet, Sustainable Development, and Emergence of Society 5.0

Abstract

(1) Background: The importance of this article is to analyze the technological developments in the field of the Internet and Internet technologies and to determine their significance for sustainable development, which will result in the emergence of Society 5.0. (2) The authors used automated content analysis for the analysis of 552 articles published in 306 scientific journals indexed by SCII and/or SCI - EXPANDED (Web of Science (WOS) platform). The goal of the research was to present the relationship between the Internet and sustainable development. (3) Results: The results of the analysis show that the top four most important themes in the selected journals were “development”, “information”, “data”, and “business and services”. (4) Conclusions: Our research approach emphasizes the importance of the culmination of scientific innovation with the conceptual, technological and contextual frameworks of the Internet and Internet technology usage and its impact on sustainable development and the emergence of the Society 5.0.

1. Introduction

The emergence of the Internet can be considered one of the greatest innovations of the last thirty years. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the Internet has exerted significant influence and brought about changes in the economic and socio-political spheres. In this context, business process redesign, computerization and digitization in the 1990s were all actualized. Additionally, the emergence of the Internet enabled the electronic exchange of documents, the pooling of databases, new communication channels between public administration and citizens (e-government), between organizations, and between organizations and customers (e-commerce) [1,2].

In 2004, they announced on Facebook that they would “give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected” [3]. The rapid development and spread of web 2.0 and social media had begun, enabling the interaction between current and potential users (consumers) and revealing the form and nature of their thinking [4]. Porter identified two factors that determine Internet profitability: an industrial structure and a sustainable competitive advantage [5]. These are universal factors that relate to any form of technology or type of business. However, their effectiveness depends on the type of business and industry.

The introduction of the Internet and the parallel development of the Internet, or digital economy, enabled the transition from the third industrial revolution (1960–2011) to the next, dubbed as the fourth industrial revolution (also referred to as Industry 4.0) in 2011. Rapid technological developments, cheaper computer equipment, and the increasing availability of broadband (such as 5G, fiber optic cable) are factors that have changed lifestyles and work styles. Information and communication technologies enable continuous interactivity, connectivity, transparency, and leaps in productivity. All of these factors have an essential role in sustainable development. Technology and economic growth are inextricably connected in the transition from new to innovation economies [6].

Today, digital media are used innovatively by content creators for creative expression in such spheres as digital art, science, technology, and business. Digital media provide users with several essential abilities. The abilities range from expression to education, whilst communication and social interaction are also bolstered. Thus, paving the way for the digital economy’s popularity. Since 2008, aspects of life, such as economic and social activities, have been integrated into the digital economy, made possible by the technology of the Internet and other platforms, such as the mobile and sensory systems [7]. In recent years, a more significant role in the technology field of ICT has been observed in the mobility of data transmission, cloud computing, the development of business intelligence systems and the web 2.0, which also includes social media [8]. The web 2.0 and its successors, the semantic web 3.0 and the 4.0 web, have evolved due to the maturity of their predecessors and the fact that more than four billion people in the world have access to the Internet [9]. Internet evolution is leading to further innovation in the global markets, which are manifesting themselves in many ways, from changing consumer behavior, and thus to new sustainable developments within business models (sharing economy, circular economy); reorganizing the financial industry with the introduction of fintech (digital payments, digital remittances, crowdlending and crowd investing); the decline of traditional media and the emergence of digital media (video games, video-on-demand, e-publishing, and digital music) [10,11]. In the government, new sectors developed, such as e-government, as a public service, and e-democracy, as the citizen online participation and decision-making system, which are in the fourth industrial revolution, transforming smart governance in the framework of the smart city [12].

The fourth industrial revolution brings the next evolutionary step in the development of Internet technologies. It is based on the “cyber-physical systems, the Internet of Things (IoT), the Internet of Services (IoS), 5G and the Industrial Internet” [13,14,15]. The fourth industrial revolution is changing the meaning of the ideology of a network, segueing from a focus on connections to a source of innovation [16]. The development of networks has also increased the importance of data. In recent years, the value of data has increased dramatically for businesses [17,18].

The importance of this article is to analyze the technological developments in the field of the Internet and Internet technologies and to determine their significance for the sustainable development which will result in the emergence of Society 5.0. This goes back to the name of a Japanese government program in which they wish to establish a better, super-smart and more prosperous human-centered society, with the support of the economy, known in Europe and America as Industry 4.0. [19].

The Internet can be understood as a conglomerate of ideas, technical and social inventions, political contexts, socio-cultural circumstances, and economic developments, the results of which are visible in the context of sustainable development. The question is how to familiarize oneself with the current knowledge about the relationship between the Internet and sustainable development. Since there is a large number of articles, an alternative approach was chosen that was capable of efficiently and successfully categorizing vast amounts of data, that enabled the reader to obtain appropriate explanations of the research phenomenon understandably. For the topic under discussion, an automated content analysis method was used to identify the key topics and the concepts of interest to the researchers [20,21,22].

Our approach emphasizes the importance of the culmination of scientific innovation and its impact on sustainable development; therefore, we are primarily concerned with the conceptual, technological and contextual foundations that drive the emergence of the Internet. This development, which has led to a global network, demonstrates the rich heritage of a range of inventions owing to the ingenuity of different individuals throughout history, with credit due to several organizations and the actualization of diverse strategic goals. In this paper, some critical cases that set the tone for the flourishing of the Internet are considered, utilizing an analysis of different sources, including those that posit that this growth would have been inevitable. It should be noted that technology is not regarded as a set of neutral tools but is merely available in a social system since technological integration with the social environment usually “leaves room for different social interests and values to participate in it” [23].

The article consists of the following sections: introduction, which is followed by research method, which includes data collection, literature selection, data analysis and results of our analysis. The article concludes with a discussion of the results and a conclusion, which includes paper limitations and proposes research in future development trends.

2. Research Method

2.1. Data Source and Data Collection

This research presents an insight into the studies about the relations between the Internet and sustainable development. During the research, articles published from 1996 to April 2020 were analyzed. The review focuses solely on the analyses of empirical and theoretical studies that were published as peer-reviewed papers.

The peer-reviewed scientific papers were retrieved through the research platform Web of Science (Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI). The Boolean keyword combination was used to search for the relevant paper titles and abstracts: [Internet] AND (‘sustainability’).

The three-step screening process was used to find appropriate articles for analysis. Firstly, we searched for the literature on keywords “Internet” and “sustainability” on WoS database. Secondly, only peer reviewed articles were selected—conference papers, book chapters, and editorials were rejected. Thirdly, those articles were manually reviewed and selected by the reading of their title, abstract, and conclusion.

In this paper the authors used the literature review to analyze the current state of the art of any particular topic and to identify research gaps for developing future research [24]. The authors prepared the systematic literature review according the Prisma 2009 technique whose process is presented in Figure 1 [25].

A search of the Web of Science resulted in 571 peer-reviewed articles published in academic journals. The review of the abstracts, as well as the full texts, was undertaken, unearthing 19 irrelevant articles—i.e., those that the main text was incongruent with the inquiry into the Internet’s importance in sustainable development— which were subtracted from the sample and analysis, which resulted in a final sample of 552 articles published across 306 journals.

The first article on the topic was published in 1996. Since 2008, the number of published articles has increased, and a noticeable upward trend has been observed over the last three years. Most of the papers were published in journals that are directed towards the general focus of sustainability (e.g., Sustainability, Sustainable development). A significant number of papers were published in such journals as, Journal of Cleaner Production, International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology, Journal of Environmental Protection and Ecology, Environmental Engineering and Management Journal. The papers were primarily focused on environmental modelling, management, and planning. In the third most important group were the journals focused on the Internet, computers, telecommunications and technology (IEEE Access, Sensors, Journal of Medical Internet Research, Telecommunications Policy, IEEE Communications Magazine, International Journal of Production Research, Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, Computers in Industry, Electronic Library, Electronics). Other papers were focused on the economy, tourism and development (e.g., Amfiteatru Economic, Tourism Management), urbanism, building and land use (Journal of Urban Technology, ISPRS International Journal of Geo Information), medicine (e.g., BMC Health Services Research) and education (e.g., International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education).

In parallel with the increasing use of the Internet and Internet technologies in society, the number of research articles dealing with the relationship between the Internet, Internet technologies and sustainable development has also increased, as shown in Figure 2.

2.2. Classical Content Analysis

The research in this article is based on content analysis, which has been used for more than three centuries, but only since the middle of the 20th century has it received a methodologically developed form, while the term itself, content analysis in English, has been used since 1941 [26]. The procedure is based on Krippendorff, that went through several stages of development: the quantitative analysis of newspapers, content analysis, propaganda analysis, general content analysis and computer analysis text [27], whereby the second edition also refers to the development of qualitative approaches [28], which are used in the article research. Krippendorff believed that various forms of qualitative content analysis probably emerged in response to the quantitative analysis of newspapers or partial results of content analytical research in the middle of the last century [27]. Other authors assume that this form of content analysis was developed primarily for the qualitative studies of the considerable amounts of data obtained through the use of scientific interviews and used in various disciplines, such as sociology, psychology, and linguistics [27,28]. Content analysis is a research technique that aims to produce a systematic empirical record of symbolic communication as one of the most critical aspects of social life [29]. According to Halmi [30], the application of content analysis moves between quantitative semantics on the one hand and the subject register on the other, whereby the subject register implies the discovery of only the actual content of some symbolic communication. According to Barelson’s classical definition, content analysis is “a research technique for the objective, systematic and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication”. The quantitative aspect of content analysis is more emphasized in this definition because of the need to prove and confirm the method as “scientific/positive/solid”, but, in this case, the qualitative elements of the research remain with “textual and/or visual content”. Therefore, the qualitative aspects of the analysis are also relevant content, especially when the number of units analyzed is too small to apply statistical methods. There are three approaches to the analysis of symbolic (qualitative) material outlined by Barelson: (a) from the content—the researcher is primarily interested in the content-related characteristics of the message; (b) from the creator of the material—the researcher is only interested in the content of the message if this enables him to learn more about the characteristics of the person who created the message; (c) from the audience—through the content of the message, the researcher tries to find out the characteristics of the audience to whom the message is addressed [29].

Classical content analysis is based on the review and manual entry of bibliographical references in order to provide content-relevant insights into texts. The content analysis itself is performed manually, which means that studies are limited to manually examining various written sources (e.g., academic articles) to identify themes and contents. The research is thus limited to the text size, which results in several associated limitations (e.g., insufficient sampling, biased estimates), time-consuming searches for a large number of articles, and thus the reduced efficiency and effectiveness [31]. Another limitation associated with manual text analysis is that researchers prioritize resources according to their interest and thus overlook other relevant findings [31,32]. All these reasons have led to the consideration that researchers need to apply new methods that can help to address these existing problems and make content or text analysis more effective, objective and robust. Therefore, an alternative approach to classical text analysis is automated content analysis (ACA) which is based on different computer programs and is increasingly used in the scientific literature [29].

2.3. Automated Content Analysis

An Automated Content Analysis (ACA) references a series of algorithms using probabilistic models. These models are segmented into different sections, namely, “topic models” or “concept-mapping models” [33]. The aim is to decipher obscure thematic compositions in the literature. The term “thematic composition” describes the main themes of a literature collection, the frequency with which they occur, and how they correlate. The purpose of these algorithms is to identify themes and classify the literature utilizing the themes as a guide for the classifications [31].

The concept of the ACA seeding process has a significant impact on the outcome of the research, as it includes two essential features that contribute significantly to the usefulness of the method in the review and the synthesis of large volumes of text. For example, the ACA can process large amounts of text faster than manual methods of literature synthesis. Another feature of the ACA that contributes to its usefulness and significantly influences the final result of the study is the exclusion of unintentional human bias. In manual classification, people are exposed to various influences (external environmental disturbances, fatigue, personal bias) that they do not even notice and about which they cannot even report [32].

The key capacity of the ACA is to mitigate all these external subjective influences. In this way, it excludes human bias, which has a significant impact on the results of the study itself.

The ACA is, therefore, developing its concept of categories from textual data, using strategies based on “Grounded Theory” mutual information and designing data collection and data analysis through an iterative pop-up process [32]. Of course, the ACA as such is not entirely free of subjectivity and requires human input (e.g., manual seeding concepts).

The key considerations of the authors contribute to the usefulness of the ACA. The authors interpret the findings of the ACA based on their own experience and the evaluation of the article analysis. The literature synthesized in this way must be placed in the competition between Internet and sustainability by the authors themselves [33].

3. Analyses and Research Results

3.1. Data Analysis

ACA was undertaken with the Leximancer software (5.0). As an advanced natural language processing software, Leximancer has no preconception to extract the data, and the final analysis is gleaned from the data. Utilizing Bayesian theory, Leximancer quantified the text through an emerging, unsupervised iterative process to determine the frequency of concepts and their relationships [32]. Therefore, the “fragmented pieces of evidence“ in the document can be used “to predict what happens in the system” [34]. Leximancer identified the main concepts in text reliably in a process that is easily duplicated (i.e., frequency and patterns of co-occurrence) based on the interdependence of words in the text. Leximancer transcends the limitations of qualitative analysis. Firstly, it overcomes some of the inherent biases and potential errors of researchers, especially in the manual coding of categories and defining the rules of classification [35]. With Leximancer, we can automatically infer concepts and themes from the data and provide clear, concise and accurate interpretations [36]. The concept derived from Leximancer consists of words which are interrelated, defined in the software as “words” that appear in two blocks of sentence text (including their synonyms). The prominence here in defining a theme is based not only on the frequency of occurrence of certain words but also on the number of connections that word has with other identified concepts [37]. Leximancer generates a heat map to display the final results visually. Themes are coded by color, and brightness is used to denote the significance of the theme [38]. The mapping implies strong semantic relationships, based on the visual proximity in Leximancer [32,39].

The research was carried out in four stages, beginning with the selection of relevant documents, followed by the generation of concept seeds utilizing the tab “concept seed”. The next step was the creation of a thesaurus for applicable terms, and the fourth and final step was the generation of results. Each step can be tailored to the needs and requirements of the research to ensure that only relevant information is analyzed. With the use of a comprehensive analysis, all terms that were not substantial in the study were omitted. Leximancer also provides a list of common words that should be excluded (e.g., a, an, ich, me, you, via). The remaining words were carefully removed manually from being further analyzed (e.g., “paper”, “article”, “study”, “research”, “methodology”). The software automatically produces results in the form of a topic guide and a concept map [40].

The research findings are discussed in the next subchapter.

3.2. Research Results

Leximancer 5.0 generated a total of 64 concepts and 12 topics from the titles, abstracts and keywords of 552 articles published in 306 journals between May 1996 and April 2020. The authors used slider % visual concepts to 100% and changed the number of concepts visible on the map from 50% (automatically) to 100%. The topic size was moved from 33% (automatic) to 39%. A topic is defined as a group or cluster of concepts that have commonalities or connections. This can be seen in their immediate proximity to the concept map. The topic’s name is gleaned from the most prominent concept that appears in the group of interconnected concepts. The calculation of the number of hits informed the topics that were formed and taken from the text and fit each concept based on the program’s machine learning abilities [41].

Table 1. Themes and concepts in the journals in the years from May 1996 to April 2020.

No	Theme	Hits	Concepts
1	Development	1201	development, sustainable, technologies, public, sustainability, environment, fintech
2	Information	889	information, Internet, technology, access, communication, global, change
3	Data	856	data, system, model, network, developed, application
4	Services	633	services, digital, support, potential, resources, big
5	Management	601	management, systems, key, challenges, quality, planning
6	Social	543	social, economic, impact, growth, business, market
7	Energy	527	energy, smart, urban, cities, factors
8	Countries	521	countries, Internet, online, digital, policy
9	Environmental	463	environmental, future, important, role
10	Knowledge	354	knowledge, service, health, users
11	Mobile	235	mobile, education, networks
12	Performance	90	performance

Source: Authors’ work.

presents the themes, as well as the hits and related concepts.

Figure 3 depicts the detailed concept map. Concepts are connected to the themes based on their relationship to each other, and these are graphically shown as circles. Leximancer uses the heat map concept to denote themes. Therefore, hot colors (red, orange) show the significant themes, while cool colors (blue, green) depict those that are less critical [40]. The four themes with the most significant number of hits are “development”, “information”, “data” and “services”.

Figure 3 shows that the circles of certain thematic overlapping with the circles of other thematic, thus forming cross-sections that contain individual concepts, which thus fall into both overlapping thematic. For example, the theme “development” overlaps with the themes “services”, “management”, “energy”, “environmental”, “social” and “information”. The theme “information” overlaps with the themes “countries”, “services”, “development” and “social”. The theme “services” overlaps with the themes “development” and “management”. The theme “data” overlaps with the themes “knowledge”, “services” and “management”. The theme “knowledge” overlaps only with the theme “data”. The theme “management” overlaps with the themes “development”, “energy”, “services” and “data”. The theme “energy” overlaps with the themes “development” and “management”. The theme “environmental” overlaps with the themes “social” and “performance”. The theme “performance” overlaps only with the theme “environmental”. The theme “countries” overlaps only with the theme “information”. It can also be seen in Figure 2 that the concept “important” lies between the intersection of the themes “environmental” and “development”. The concept “sustainability” lies between the intersection of the themes “development” and “energy”. The concept “potential” lies between the intersection of the themes “development” and “services”. The concept “local” lies between the intersection of the themes “services” and “information”. The concept “Internet” lies between the intersection of the themes “information” and “countries” and the concept “big” lies between the intersection of the themes “data” and “services”.

4. Discussion

For this automated content, the analysis used 552 articles published in 306 scientific journals indexed by SCII and/or SCI (WOS platform) between the May 1996 and 2020. The goal of the research was to present the relations between the Internet and sustainable development.

4.1. Research Topic through the Period

According to the consideration, the history, and the time variation of the article themes, the authors edited them following the development of the Internet and Internet technology and their meaning for the sustainable development and emergence of the Society 5.0 in two periods, according to their content characteristics.

4.1.1. Research Topic from 1996 to 2011

Based on the analysis of the content of the articles published between 1996 and 2011, it can be concluded that, in the 1990s, came the convergence of the telephone, data and broadcasting networks and services (theme: information). The results were visible in the synergy between computer science, computers and media, and were implemented at the end of the 20th century [42,43,44]. Nevertheless, it was only in the early 1990s that the personal computer got its own network identity, which is known as an IP address, connection equipment for local area networks (LAN) and connections to remote computers [45]. The concept of hypertext was disclosed in the early 1990s by Tim Berners-Lee, who invented today’s indispensable worldwide web and defined it as “a practical project designed to bring global information into existence using available technology” [46]. From the technical point of view, the web can be defined as a collection of uniquely labelled digital personal files written in hypertext mark-up language (HTML) on servers that are connected to a network of computers connected to TCP/IP, and accessible from any computer independent of the system platform [47].

In the second half of the 1980s and early 1990s, the increase in the availability of computers and information equipment contributed to a faster transition to computerization and digitization in private and the public sectors. The new generations of programming languages (e.g., C +, SQL), relational databases, and LANs have enabled the integration of previously separate tasks, the interdependence of organizations with information, as well as the increased transparency of businesses and decision making [48]. Unlike the period of automation, where technology was used primarily for tasks, in the period of computerization and digitization, the trend from individual computer jobs changed to job integration and multi-purpose jobs, with access to programs from local and central units [49].

The concept of information infrastructure (themes: information, mobile and data) comprised approximately three layers in the mid-1990s and up to the end of the century—the underlying layer of networks (ISDN, GSM, broadcasting, IP, MPLS, Bluetooth, satellite) [50,51], the intermediate layer (security, electronic signature, directories, billing) [52,53,54], and the service layer (telephony, radio and tv, www, SMS, WAP protocol, video conferencing) [55,56,57]. In the context of business process redesign, computerization and digitization in the 1990s, and based on the information infrastructure, it was possible to do what interested the user and what would benefit them. These were mainly the services and applications developed during this period: e-commerce [58,59], new ways of Internet entertainment (e.g., movies on the Internet) [60] and virtual entertainment (e.g., online games) [61], distance learning [62,63], telemedicine [64,65], e-government (exchange documents with public service) [66], geographic information systems for spatial decision making for e-government sustainable development projects (regional and territorial spatial data) [67,68,69], environmental early-warning systems [70,71], and GIS for healthcare organizations for the collection of epidemiological data and for informing about healthcare delivery [72].

All of this (information infrastructure, services, applications, content) is the cornerstone of the functioning of the information society, but it requires the interdisciplinary knowledge of other fields (economics, law, sociology, psychology) [73,74,75] (themes: information, data, services).

During the research period, intellectual property became the universal basis for most new and existing services. The asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) technology, which initially played its role in the backbone networks, also became established in accessing the networks linked to ADSL and even in the UMTS concept [76,77]. The introduction of third-generation mobile communications heralded the introduction of Internet protocol version 6. In connection with the dominance of the protocol, IP came to the forefront in the MPLS label based on multi-protocol switching, which was intended to incorporate the advantages of IP and ATM technologies and was implemented in spinal networks in combination with optical technologies [78]. Mobile telecommunications had outgrown the voice transmission system, and 3G was mainly focused on multimedia and e-business [79,80].

The technologies of GPRS, EDGE and WAP, however, point the way to universal mobility [81]. The technology was, therefore, no longer a limiting factor since it allowed the implementation of virtually all services [82,83,84]. A bigger problem was developing relevant new services that were simple to use and, at the same time, interesting enough for users. The development of the Internet-based communication and knowledge management systems enabled the rise of the digital platforms which enabled data collection [85], information sharing [86,87], decision making (e.g., real estate knowledge, device-based decision support system, agriculture knowledge-based decision support) [88,89], capacity building [87], open access [90], transparency [91], and collaboration and information services [92,93,94]. The Internet platforms, mobile applications and participation tools enabled the emergence of the electronic banking [95,96], touristic online services [97,98], telemedicine [64,65], online education [63] and ICT-based learning systems (e.g., for environmental studies) [99,100], open-source [101], e-government (e.g., digital signature), and e-democracy services (e.g., citizen participation) [102]. It is important for e-business emergence that internet platforms gain the trust of customers, which enables privacy and security.

Under internet services, we most often imagine browsing the Internet, which, in addition to the web itself, also includes voice telephony, video conferencing, audio and video streaming, video on demand, WebTV, and similar services. In the 21st century, the Internet became a medium that brought together services that had until then been provided based on specific networks [103].

Internet technology has become universal, so it has succeeded. On the other hand, this universality in providing some services also causes problems. The compromise is between adding new functionalities, introduced by Internet technology (information on request, interactivity, easy generation and publishing content) and the quality of service and price. Internet services that became an alternative to existing similar services (provided by specialized networks) typically provided some new additional functionalities that were lower in quality than the “original” services and had a lower price. Increased bandwidth and the introduction of control mechanisms for quality of service in IP networks ensured higher quality, but also a higher price, which was still lower than the “original” solution [104]. Information infrastructure was understood as a concept that sought to interact with the different telecommunications networks, processing device data, databases, and terminals to the appropriate user quality and the safe use of telecommunication services for a reasonable price. This meant that there was no single solution, instead, there were several, and each meant an inevitable compromise between functionality, quality and price [105].

The most significant trends in modern telecommunications were: (i) Mobility, especially 3G and 4G, which caused countries to have to re-examine the industry policy. There were more and more services that were accessible on a mobile basis (voice and data) [104]. (ii) Broadband, which was, at the beginning of the 21st century, the only service at that time that enabled high-speed Internet (video services from radio and cable TV were only slowly migrating to other media) [105,106]. Fast Internet and the emergence of Internet platforms as a media-oriented service enabled the virtualization of network environments and the adoption of new movie distribution internet services [107]. It has to be mentioned that public investments in rural broadband services have an important impact on the regions and the countries’ economic development [108,109].

The advent of the Internet in the early 1990s influenced the rise of the so-called new economy (1990–2008) or the knowledge-based economy [110,111] (theme development). A vital feature of the digital economy era was the influence of the Internet on the growth of dot-com online businesses. Expectations about the influence of the Internet on the growth of new business models were therefore high at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century [73].

In the era of the new economy, there was a boom in global competition. However, the first world economic crisis in 2002 led to the decline of dot-com companies. Changes in macroeconomic trends contributed to uncertainty in the business environment. The financial crises between 2008 and 2009 ended the period of the new economy. The studies about the investments in information technology (IT) in the new economy show that that almost half of all projects initiated in the field of IT failed. Investments did not have such influence on the high economic growth in the U.S., with low unemployment and low inflation at that time [66].

The organizations (themes management, information, service, knowledge) were therefore faced with the question of how to ensure a sustainable e-business model [112], and according to the research, large firms adopted ICT faster than SMEs. [113,114,115]. Many established companies in different industries were faced with enormous changes in product design and business processes (e.g., virtual teams) that led to the provision of digital services and products, such as car sharing, which is exclusively based on digital platforms and mobile applications [116].

The organizations were introduced to a comprehensive infrastructure based on a more flexible organizational structure for the implementation of marketing and technological innovation, as required [73]. The new social and economic paradigm brought an organizational change in management strategies, structures and styles. The increasing productivity (labor) during this period (after 1980) no longer provided a sufficiently high added value. Therefore, it was necessary to find a new business resource to create it. The predominance of this was that the knowledge and flexibility of organizational structures. With the introduction of knowledge, the role of the winning factor in the market began to assume quality. The importance of the quality of products or services provided, and the process of work itself, has gradually shifted from the industrial sector to public administration and public organizations. The product-oriented business was thus retreating to the customer-oriented business based on customer information behavior [117]. Humanity recognized that the ability to develop or acquire the fundamentals of modern information and communication technologies plays a vital role in economic, environmental and social development (e.g., foreign direct investments, citizens’ wellbeing, digital literacy) [75,82,118,119].

In 2011, came the launching of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR). The ubiquitous computing was considered as a “promising technological path of innovation”, and the Internet of Things (IoT) was born, which enabled new business models, technological platforms, and the emergence of the smart city and its services [120].

4.1.2. Research Topic from 2012 to April 2020

According to the analysis of the content of the articles published between January 2012 and April 2020, it can be concluded that the fourth industrial revolution is based on the Internet of the Future, that consists of the four pillars: Internet of Users (IoU), Internet of Content (IoC), Internet of Services (IoS), and Internet of Things (IoT) (see Figure 4) (themes: information, data, knowledge, service, and development).

From the perspective of the Internet of Users, the Internet of the Future will need to support the interactive involvement of an increasing number of different users with different needs and expectations [121,122]. Within the Internet of Services, the focus is on service-oriented computing, contextualized and proactive services, and service orchestration. IoS orientation will lead to the creation of virtual communities and the exchange of knowledge and experience among the users involved, with semantic technologies playing an important role in gathering vast amounts of information and knowledge [8,11]. The vast amounts of data lead to the big data dilemma that we face today, as well as the novel cloud computing paradigm, which has been proliferated in recent years. The growth of big data is projected to continue its rapid growth and will play a significant role in promoting the development of society [123]. Sources of big data include the web, social media, mobile applications, different types of records and databases, geospatial data, surveys, and scanned traditional documents [8,124]. The gap between the cloud and the endpoints (e.g., IoT nodes) is bridged by fog computing. The task of fog computing is to enable the storage and management of data in network nodes located near its devices. Thus, data processing, storage, networking, decision-making, and data management not only occur in the cloud, but these processes have already started their way to the cloud IoT (preferably near IoT devices). If cloud computing is a centralized unit, fog computing is a decentralized unit. Thus, fog computing enables devices to either serve as fog computing nodes themselves (e.g., tablet or smartphone acts as a fog node for home sensors) or use fog resources as clients of the fog nodes [124].

With the 4IR, creativity becomes a source of new value creation, and innovation and intuition (e.g., in intelligent manufacturing) [125] have become the lever for shaping the success factors in the market. The 4IR provide opportunities for the development of an era of the innovation economy, in which knowledge development, professional attitudes towards work and the acquisition of ICT become a stable basis for creativity and innovative processes as a means to increase efficiency and effectiveness [6].

The technological development in 4IR is the result of the rapid penetration of smart technologies in the human professional and social environment (theme environmental). When we talk about the importance of digital literacy for human social and professional sustainable development from ten years ago, today it becomes a prerequisite for managing the complexity of solving everyday functional activities. The rapid implementation of smart technologies in the business or private environment, therefore, requires people to acquire new skills and competencies to invest in acquiring, sharing, and creating knowledge, which requires access to devices connected to the Internet. Knowledge management 4.0 (KM 4.0) (theme: knowledge) enables continuous processes of sharing, storing, analyzing and transforming rough data into value-added information [126]. It is vital for the business and urban ecosystems of smart cities that stakeholders adopt digital platform deployments that play an important role in acquiring and improving the complexity of data collection and analysis. Smart technologies can collect knowledge (even tacitly) from citizens (i.e., through the codification of habits, visualization, consulting, use of e-services) and transfer “peer” data to data processing and storage centers (cyberspace) (e.g., by providing enriched information on citizens using platforms such as e-health, e-government, e-learning, e-social links for the elderly, e-mobility and fintech, which could also use video and audio to explain functionality, use, and human control [127,128]. The importance of knowledge management 4.0 processes has increased with the emergence of social distancing because of the coronavirus in 2020. It will have a significant impact on further socio-economic developments and accelerate KM 4.0 processes in the individual’s daily life and social inclusion.

The economic innovation system (theme development, management and social) incorporates critical factors, such as social capital and innovation and reverse innovation versus globalization. Reverse innovation is the process of presenting a product first in underdeveloped markets or developing countries, and only then in industrialized countries [129]. In the context of an innovative economy, social innovations are knowledge-based. Their core mission is to enable the further sustainable development of both organizations and the social environment [130]. The technologically advanced business model of social innovation in the 4IR is based on connecting individuals, organizations (both for-profit and not-for-profit), networks or digital platforms to connect both tangible and intangible resources. Thus, we can talk about the creation of a sustainable natural socio-economic model based on social innovation, social entrepreneurship and innovative, disruptive entrepreneurship [131]. In doing so, it is necessary to ensure an adequate level of R&D funding, the international protection of intellectual property deregulation, facilitating the acquisition of capital through venture capital and new derivatives as it is presented by the disruptive innovation crowdfunding and blockchain [132].

Mechanisms beyond the collection and use of the information will be developed within the Internet of Content and Knowledge. They will enable the advanced processing and dissemination of knowledge at local and global levels while incorporating conscious intellectual activities. For example, advanced web applications and multimedia search engines will be developed to make knowledge available to both human users and devices or things [133,134].

The IoT (theme information, data, services, performance and knowledge) can be described as a dynamic global network infrastructure that will add the ability to interact with real physical objects through the use of standard communication protocols and the ability to configure the Internet of the Future independently. It is and will continue to integrate them into the business, information and social processes that are part of everyday life. In this way, we get a so-called smart environment in which people can play an active role in the context of using certain things. Technological changes that have a significant impact on the social and political development of society, and the emergence of new forms of social engagement, lead us to the smart city paradigm and create opportunities for citizens to gain more significant influence in decision making through modern technological solutions and socio-political issues [127], which leads to the development of smart city governance, which could be based on social consensus based on a self-governing city management system [128,135]. The research thus proceeds from a systematic approach to the social environment, and thus we assume that the consequences of the use of modern technological solutions will have an impact in the future on changes in social relations and the complexity of the social system [136,137]. It is primarily about designing theoretical frameworks that are useful for designing and regulating new social relationships and for managing a complex social system and policymaking (e.g., the democratic process of self-organization of the (cyber) community in interaction with government institutions) [138,139].

In connection with the Internet of Things, we come across a series of related concepts that may even be contained in the Internet of Things concept. Above all, it is necessary to distinguish between the Internet of Things, the Web of Things (WoT), the communication between devices (M2M) and wireless sensor networks (Wireless Sensor Network, WSN). Unlike the Internet of Things, which enables the accessibility and connectivity of devices and things, the Web of Things is about integrating embedded devices into the web using web protocols and services, such as HTML, XML, RSS and others—that is, the accessibility of data from devices and things. Sensor networks play a unique role within connected embedded devices, which are typically wirelessly connected to spatially distributed nodes that jointly observe or monitor a particular physical or chemical phenomenon [140].

Today, the IoT has an impact on mobility services, health care, smart homes, energetical systems, agronomy, etc., as well as in the area of intelligent factories, where the development of the industrial Internet plays an important role [141]. In the context of the smart factory, it is essential to mention Cyber Manufacturing Systems that, together with IoT, form the framework the smart manufacturing, where the communication and information network provides the connection between all the connected systems [142]. Artificial intelligence is increasingly concerned with data analysis, planning, and the management of smart, sustainable, and human-centered product development processes [143]. The smart factory of the future will be based on the sustainable mutual interaction between machine and human [144]. This definition of a future smart factory is very close to the concept of Society 5.0 because its vision is to establish a human-centered society in which products and services are designed to meet potential needs and reduce specific gaps, such as regional, generational, gender, or linguistic gaps. The transformation processes will ensure that people’s lives will be comfortable and vigorous. In order to ensure such living conditions, some of the challenges of economic and social change need to be addressed, which can be achieved by going beyond the use of advanced ICT, AI and robots versus the transformation of society [19]. According to the Japanese Artificial Intelligence Technology Strategy, AI presents the key technology for the emergence of Society 5.0. The strategy consists of five pillars, and it has to be exposed to the ethics and regulations of AI development and rules, which include answers to how, where, how long, and which companies can collect, store and share customer data [145]. The Japanese government proposes establishing global rules about data sharing, and they released the Social Principles of Human-Centric AI in 2019 [146].

In the next chapter are presented the results of the automated content analysis of the articles published between May 1996 and April 2020.

4.1.3. Automated Content Analysis Results for Articles from May 1996 to April 2020

The results of the analysis show that the top four most important themes in the selected journals are “development”, “information”, “data”, and “business and services”.

The theme “development” is related to the concepts “development”, “sustainable”, “technologies”, “public”, “sustainability”, “environment” and “fintech”. This can be explained by the fact that information and communication technologies are increasingly entering the field of so-called green IT technologies in order to achieve long-term sustainable development [147]. The technological footprint is seen as an important factor that harms the environment. Consequences are seen in that the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are not being achieved. In order to preserve the natural environment, it is, therefore, necessary to accelerate the development of technologies that achieve a low technological footprints [148]. Another issue related to sustainable development is the introduction of new technologies in the digital business environment, introducing new sustainable business models through the Internet and Internet technologies, such as sensors and WiFi robots. These technologies are essential in the field of waste collection [149], business logistics, consumption, production [150], and the field of natural disaster warning systems [151]. New technologies have also led to the emergence of fintech, which is significantly changing the business of the financial industry, moving it from traditional banking and e-banking into the cyber-physical system (emergence of corporative sustainability) [152,153]. It is also important for citizens that, as part of the development of a sustainable society, local authorities can implement online tools to involve citizens more in political decision making. In this way, citizens can contribute to the development of their environment by making more environmentally conscious demands on the leadership of the municipality [136].

The theme “development” overlaps with the themes “information”, “services”, “management”, “social”, “environmental” and “energy”.

The second most important theme is “information”, which is related to the concepts “information”, “Internet”, “technology”, “access”, “communication”, “global” and “change”. Since the last quarter of the 20th century, humankind has been continuously witnessing the emergence of social change due to the increasing penetration of technologies that enable continuous connectivity and social interaction. Nonetheless, the negative effects of the Internet on society must not be forgotten. [154,155,156]. The theme “information” overlaps with the themes “countries” (concepts: countries, Internet, online, digital, policy), “services (concepts: services, digital, support, potential, resources, big)”, “development” and “social (concepts: social, economic, impact, growth, business, market)”.

Countries (themes: countries, development, information and social) have to be aware of the need to invest in the development of the Internet, and that the introduction of Internet technologies have significant implications for lifestyle changes, changes in the society and an important effect on economic growth and sustainable development [157,158,159,160]. Nevertheless, Internet use and prevalence varies widely between countries. Internet prevalence, therefore, depends on the economic and social situation in each country [161]. The Internet can be described as a medium that integrates all the traditional media and is not only an information broker, but also an instrument of active communication, such as the medium of business, and even of interest and political relevance [162,163]. Such an epochal technological breakthrough makes all kinds of connections possible, from entertainment and joint business to the organization of joint political and social actions. Thanks to this, there are enormous opportunities for global communication and connections between people who are in similar situations and share common material, humanitarian, political and other similar ideas and interests. These technical and communicative advances lead to a global synchronization of social and political activities. The members of a group can work together, make joint decisions and act together, regardless of the spatial separation that can be measured thousands of kilometers away. Theoretically, they could be trained on this basis to become transnational social groups and organizations, and to act as those who are located in a smaller community [164,165]. The governments of the countries are also responsible for the institutionalization of Internet policy. It has been shown that it is good that the Internet is protected. The adoption of an Internet security policy is important only for the greater security of individuals, the economy and national security [166].

Enormous progress has been made in the fields of business, social communication, connectivity and organization. The shift in companies to the Internet has led to a strong dynamization and acceleration of economic activities [167,168]. From the above, it is reasonable to expect that this circumstance will also contribute to the dynamism of social mobility so that more and more people will have the opportunity to start their own business (e.g., on digital platforms) with little or no investment, thereby continually improving the economic situation of the lower classes and increasing prosperity. In particular, it can be assumed that the lower strata are approaching the upper strata in the dimensions where the latter were unattainable: they represent social capital—social connections mainly based on social networks, horizontal mobility and communication, which leads to business contacts and arrangement [169,170,171,172]. The supposed well-being that the Internet age can bring is most striking and experienced by Western societies. In the world’s leading economy, the USA, the coefficient of inequality was 16.2 (2018), and the percentage of people living below the poverty line was around 13.1 per cent in 2018 [173,174].

The environment (theme environmental) (concepts: “environment”, “future”, “important”, “role”), which overlaps with the performance (concept: “performance”) theme, is related to research on the importance of using sensors and environmental data from an Internet of Everything (IoE) to monitor natural resources and various energy resources. The successful monitoring of natural and energy resources reduces their consumption and has a positive impact on the sustainable management of natural and energy resources [175,176,177]. However, it is also the case for the sociological term of human environment (work, friends, social habits, medical institutions, education institutions, financial institutions…) and the Internet has been “disruptively transformed how human beings interact with their environment (e.g., via smartphones app, digital platforms)” [178,179,180].

The theme “energy”, with the concepts “energy”, “smart”, “urban”, “cities” and “factors”, deals with the use of modern information and communication technologies, such as IoT, IoS, broadband, cameras, sensors, and urban digital platforms. Increasing population growth in urban areas is driven by increasing urbanization, which in turn reinforces the development of innovative solutions (new building materials, control of resource consumption with sensors) that lead to a reduction in the consumption of natural energy resources in the urban environment. In this way, innovative technologies within the smart city will enable citizens to feel at ease and develop digital city management that minimizes its environmental impact. The concept of the “smart city” is based on intelligent urban management with minimal human interaction [181,182,183].

The third most important theme is “data”, which is related to the concepts data, system, model, network, developed, and application. The theme “data” overlaps with the fourth most important theme “services” (concepts: “services”, “digital”, “support”, “potential”, “resources”, “big”), and other themes “knowledge” (resources: “knowledge”, “service”, “health”, “users”) and “management” (resources: “management”, “systems”, “key”, “challenges”, “quality”, “planning”).

From the perspective of the Internet of Users, there needs to be support for the interactive involvement of an increasing number of different users with different needs and expectations. Within the Internet of services, the focus is on service-oriented computing, contextualized and proactive services, and service orchestration. This will lead to the creation of virtual communities and the exchange of knowledge and experience among the users involved, with semantic technologies playing an important role in gathering vast amounts of information and knowledge [123,127,184].

Smart technologies can collect knowledge (even tacitly) from citizens (i.e., through the codification of habits, visualization, consulting, use of e-services) and transfer “peer” data to data processing and storage centers (cyberspace) (e.g., by providing enriched information on citizens using platforms such as e-health, e-gov, e-learning, e-social links for the elderly and e-mobility, which could also use video and audio to explain functionality, use and human control). The importance of this type of knowledge management processes has gained in importance with the emergence of the coronavirus. It will have a significant impact on further socio-economic development and accelerate the knowledge management processes in the individual’s daily life [185,186].

Therefore, this has led to the big data dilemma we face today, as well as the novel cloud computing paradigm, which has proliferated in recent years. The growth of big data is projected to continue its rapid ascent and will play a significant role in promoting the development of society [187]. The sources of big data include the web, social media, mobile applications, different types of records and databases, geospatial data, surveys, and scanned traditional documents, among others [184]. The gap between the cloud and the endpoints (e.g., IoT nodes) is bridged by fog computing [182].

The last theme is “mobile” with the concepts “mobile”, “education” and “networks” The emergence of the smartphones and mobile Internet (e.g., 4G and 5G) “created a new social lifestyle” [188]. Thus, mobile applications are becoming increasingly important not only for form-banking, m-government and m-supply channels, but also for the “transformation of network teaching from the desktop computer to mobile teaching” [189].

4.2. Research Summary

The research includes the application of the method of automated content analysis, in the framework of which articles from the field of Internet development, Internet technologies, and their importance for sustainability were analyzed, which will lead to the emergence of society 5.0. The analysis itself was performed with Leximancer 5.0. Sustainability analyses have already been carried out with this program in the past. For example, Chen and Bouvain [190] researched reports on corporate social responsibility in connection with the United Nations Global Compact membership. Lodhia and Martin [191] focused on investigating the content of the reports submitted in Garnaut Climate Change by Emissions—Intensive Trade—Exposed Industry Sectors to the Australian Government. Palmer [192] analyzed the content of submissions submitted by non-profit interest groups. Hasbulahh et al. [193] used the ACA to produce a mood analysis of Malaysian government social media. Petchler and Bailon-Gonzales [194], on the other hand, used the ACA to analyze online political communication.

In the following section, a short overview of the collected answers to individual questions will be given. Based on the results, gaps in knowledge and perspectives for future research guidelines will be created.

4.2.1. What Are the Main Problems Being Analyzed?

Based on selected articles analyzed by ACA in the field of the development of the Internet and Internet technologies and their impact on sustainability, it can be concluded that the most critical problems analyzed include the growing presence of ICT in the field of green information technologies, the implementation of new sustainable business models and technologies, such as sensors and WiFi robots. Most of these analyzed business models deal with the sustainability of resources (land, water) and waste management, which are used for insights into the reasons for system behavior, the prediction of future behavior, and policy review. It is also worth mentioning the changes in the industrial manufacturing sector caused by the emergence of the Industrial Internet of Things, changes in manufacturing supply chains and changes in the financial industry with the emergence of Fintech, which is significantly changing the financial industry. All technological business models have a significant impact on the growing importance of corporate sustainability. The development of Internet technologies and the expansion of the Internet itself have a significant impact on regional development and the emergence of a sustainable Society 5.0. The new technologies have a significant impact on the ability of citizens to make direct decisions on important social and environmental development choices.

4.2.2. Knowledge Gaps and Research Opportunities

Based on the research carried out, we can assess the gaps in knowledge regarding the procedures of article selection, analysis feature (see Section 2.3) and the purpose of the analyzed results. Thus, we can say that the articles treated in a given period and a given article database possibly do not contain all scientific research and professional views on the selected research content. The main thing is that the present analysis gives us an insight into the key issues of the internet and internet technologies phenomena and their impact on sustainability and, thus, on the phenomenon of Society 5.0 itself.

Therefore, the following research opportunities emerge in:

• Detailed research on the emergence of the Internet and Internet technologies and their impact on the challenges of corporate sustainability in the 21st century. It is important to find out how different corporate and external factors—in particular, the cultural characteristics of countries and regions and the expectations of different stakeholders—influence the adoption of Internet technologies to enable sustainability [195,196,197].
• Research of the strategy of lean and green management based on using internet technologies and finding out the answer if and how it will ensure the efficient use of resources [198,199,200].
• The researches link to the social needs of the adoption of new sustainable policy programs that will mitigate the impact of job losses caused by the rapid development of digital technologies [201].
• Research on the possibilities of informatization of society and social processes as a whole [19,202,203].

5. Conclusions

This article used ACA to analyze the contents of the articles. We used the Leximancer software 5.0 to create an automated content analysis. The goal of this research was to find out how to use current knowledge to explain the relationship between the Internet and sustainable development. The research limitation is that this research was prepared only by using analyses of the articles from the scientific journals in the research platform Web of Science: SCI -EXPANDED and SSCI.

From an analysis of the content of the articles, it can be concluded that research in the field of digitization has increased in the context of the fourth industrial revolution. Within the development themes, the research focuses on digitization (e.g., converting a factory into a smart factory, developing intelligent living) and connecting all devices to the Internet, and consequently on issues of data storage and analysis, based on methods using artificial intelligence [122,125,139]. It is also worth mentioning the development of the industrial Internet, which, unlike Industry 4.0, goes beyond production and includes the broader adoption of the Internet in other forms of economic activity [204]. The three main elements of the industrial Internet are smart machines, advanced analytics and people. Machines that are networked and have control over every part of production and software are not complex. Advanced analytics is a combination of analytics based on physically advanced algorithms and automation as well as a wide range of knowledge about the profession itself [205]. People networked in key positions within the company help to create smarter design processes, better sustainability and a better quality of service, and this is perhaps one of the essential things—better safety at work [206,207].

For example, research topics on the development of information and data focus on IoT, which covers everything that has to do with the Internet, but increasingly also serves to define objects that communicate with each other. IoT consists of interconnected devices, from simple sensors to smartphones connected to a network via the Internet. By combining these interconnected devices with automated systems, information can be collected, analyzed and used to solve a specific user problem. Within IoT, everything is focused on the development of networks, connected devices and large amounts of data. IoT allows devices on closed private Internet connections to communicate with others and enables the same devices to communicate not only within that network but worldwide. IoT creates a privately secured network of connected devices that actually operates and cooperates globally to exchange data with other devices. De Mauro, Greco and Grimaldi [208] identified extensive data as information values that are so large in volume, speed and variety that they require specific technology and analysis methods for their digital conversion to determine their value. An example of the use of large amounts of data is provided by Pejić Bach et al. [11], in the financial sector, where, in addition to structured reports, unstructured texts are also analyzed, based on which business decisions are made later. Authors analyze the use of text analysis techniques for data collection and further application in business. Marrara et al. [209] analyzed the application of disruptive technologies in small and medium-sized enterprises using FinTech technologies (large amounts of data, in-depth text analysis, blockchain, artificial intelligence) with particular emphasis on the banking sector.

Within the services, it is necessary to mention Cloud Computing, which enables the availability of computer system resources on-demand, especially data storage and computing power, without direct active management by the user. The term is generally used to describe data centers that are available to many users via the Internet. Large clouds, which predominate today, often have functions distributed across multiple locations than the central server. Clouds can be limited to a single organization (business clouds), many organizations (public cloud), or a combination of the previous two (hybrid cloud) [210].

Digital technologies also play an essential role in the field of environmental protection. The increasing environmental awareness and increased producer responsibility have increased the need to develop economic, environmental, and socially sustainable business strategies, an important part of which is the integration of digital technology [211]. Here, it is incredibly necessary to mention waste return policies and the establishment of a high-tech manufacturing industry for waste recovery. Replacing old products with new and more technologically advanced ones has become a strategic added value for companies [212,213].

Currently, the Internet of Things (IoT) solutions play an important role in many areas, especially in smart homes and buildings, healthcare, vehicles, and energy. Based on the analysis of the articles, it is possible to predict its further expansion into various areas of development of the future Internet, which include infrastructure, technologies and services. It is also necessary to mention the development of ICT and information management in the digital context and the importance of creativity [214,215]. More and more research will be focused on the fields of advanced interfaces and robotics (robotics and micro space), and nanoelectronics and photonics [216,217,218]. As a result, new forms of entrepreneurship are also being developed with its business models. The added value of these business models is combined with the production of goods, the supply of services, the value chain, public procurement and the importance of influencing the global social dimension [219,220]. It is precisely this further technological development and the emergence of new business models that the Japanese are counting on, in the context of resolving long-standing deflation in the country [221]. If Industry 4.0 is a German program designed to save the German and European economies, the Japanese place Society 5.0 alongside it. In the further development of their economic and technological program, they are counting on the gradual integration of AI and other cutting-edge technologies. The Japanese thus want to go beyond the horizons of Industry 4.0 and establish Society 5.0 as the next step in social development based on data-driven innovation. The goal of Society 5.0 is that people will have a comfortable and vigorous live and functional system services will facilitate value creation (e.g., economic development, social transformation and economic growth) to society [19]. To implement this program, it is necessary to introduce next-generation technologies, reform corporate governance and develop strategies for creating value for cities and communities. The program’s implementation will reduce the risks associated with innovation failure. In doing so, the public and private sectors will have to work together and focus together on solving social problems (labor market, education), create an appropriate business environment that will enable the growth of entrepreneurship and competition, encourage talented people to develop knowledge and skills, and to ensure the security of data exchange [146].