虚拟社会是数字化的现实社会中的人在互联网建构的虚拟空间内依据特定的规则进行生产和生活活动的人化场域。社会分层作为虚拟社会的重要现象存在和发展,由作为虚拟社会纽带的信息的特性、虚拟社会物质基础的技术特质决定,是现实社会权力向虚拟社会延伸的结果。虚拟社会分层可以从虚拟社会接入情况、虚拟社会政策供应、虚拟社会工具供应、虚拟社会信息供应、虚拟社会信息意识、虚拟社会信息获取、虚拟社会信息利用和虚拟社会信息伦理等八个维度进行考察。ICT技术革新带来虚拟社会阶层的分化与流动以及虚拟社会阶层间聚合互动现象不断增长是虚拟社会分层发展趋势。
The virtual society is personified field constructed by internet, where the production and living activities of people staying in the real world must observe specific rules. Social stratification as an important phenomenon in the virtual society is decided by the nature of the information, the technology nature of virtual society' s material foundation, is the result of social power extended to the virtual society. When it comes to the virtual social stratification, we can judge it by eight dimensions, including access to virtual society, development of policies about virtual society governance, tools supply in virtual society, information provision accommodating virtual society needs, and virtual society information awareness, information acquisition, information utilization, and information ethics compliance. In the future, with the development of ICT technological innovation, virtual social stratification will present more liquidity and aggregation, and virtual interactions between social classes will keep growing.