Today, the culture of our country and the whole world, primarily due to the explosive development of electronic technologies and their innovative potential, is at a stage of development, defined by many as a «revolutionary leap» or «phase transition». The scholars studying humanities have already accumulated a significant array of conceptual and theoretical constructions aimed at analyzing and understanding the functioning of socio­cultural realities in such «transitional» conditions. Many of them in new situations open up new facets of reading and understanding. The concepts considered by us are Yu. M. Lotman, T. Kuhn and V. S. Stepin as independent phenomena have repeatedly become objects of research analysis; however, so far no attempts have been made to compare them in general.