Victims of Media War

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Throughout the ages the powerful have tried to deceive the weaker part of the human race this or that way in order to turn it to their account. But never in the history has uncritical consumption of information been so dangerous as it is today. Exercising control over current reality coverage makes it possible to construct a desirable reality of tomorrow.

The world has changed – today’s political, economic, and social processes are determined by information processes. And success in all these spheres depends on the efficiency of communications policy not in the tenth, fifth, third, second instance but in the FIRST. Competition between countries, groups and separate individuals takes the form of information antagonism which in its most acute phase becomes a media war. Also, globalization and total internetization lower the critical perception threshold and make this kind of confrontation large scale and difficult to control.

And, generally speaking, it does not matter whether we mean the war of Ares (usual military conflicts), the war of Athena (economies’ struggle) or the war of Christ (a struggle of ideas). In all these cases, a modern war is the so-called sixth generation war where the assailant tries to bereave the defender of its will to resist even before the active phase of hostilities begins. Thus, it is a case of senses and values and, correspondingly, of the so-called information and psychological influence. Which will be different depending on the intellectual level of development and psychological stability of the affected objects.

At the initial stage of the media war the assailant acts tentatively because in halcyon days the target society, even not a very educated and harmonious one, still demands to be shown proofs before it believes that 2*2 =5. While opinion leaders’ ability to think critically is rather high, information and psychological influence is exercised on the level of attempts at substantiating illogical statements. That is by proof.

As the influence increases (the amount of bad news, both real and fake, grows, the degree of emotions when covering this news rises, the bias of covering increases), the number of people who are able to keep the clarity of thought decreases. Frustration, depression, fear are the states contributing to noncritical information perception. That is why indoctrination soon becomes the main method used by the assailant. The information signal transmitted in this format is considered to be an all-clear signal overlooking the stage of the consumer’s logical reasoning about the data.

The indoctrination influence is exercised not in the consciousness but in the subconsciousness, and it is done intentionally. The amount of (mis)information is increased artificially, the activity of data submission grows like an avalanche, the sources reliability is overrated artificially, the facts or the invention are fed by small doses with highlighting the key points in a particular way in order to make attempts at logical processing on the conscious level difficult or impossible.

In the case of Ukraine, considering the peculiarities of the moment we should clearly understand that nobody will help us – “neither a lord nor a master nor a hero” – to protect ourselves and our families from ill-intentioned information aggression or unintentional yet misleading public hysterics of public people, experts, and journalists. Nobody is interested in it because creators and broadcasters of any statements do not serve public interests (it is a pure illusion) but those of a group or a person. Thus any information for general public goes through three filters:

·        geopolitical (whether it conforms to geopolitical likings of the resource’s owner and his key patrons-partners-clients);

·        capitalist (whether it conforms to the mercenary interests of the owner and others of his ilk);

·        worldview (whether it conforms to the editor’s and a particular journalist’s set of values).

That is why it is for the sake of personal information security of each and every of us if we learn simple rules of diagnosing destructive influences. The first symptoms of the fact that information gained from this or that source is an attempt at manipulating our consciousness or subconsciousness are simple:

·        increased frequency of repeating one and the same statement

·        patchiness of data submission, separate facts or “facts” taken out of their context

·        anonymity or disguise, or odiousness of the source

·        discrepancy between the name of the material or the footage and the narration

·        extreme excitement at presenting the contents – epithets, allegories, metaphors

·        absolutely accusational tone – misuse of negative cliché words (corruption, discrimination, bureaucracy, pejorative nicknames of dissidents)

·        absolutely aggrandizing tone – misuse of affective ideas (“liberty, equality and fraternity”)

·        categorical statements without any logical grounding

·        direct appeals to act without preceding logical grounding of reasonableness and reasonability of such actions

·        double standards (“peace enforcement” instead of “war”)

·        ignoring facts of common knowledge that contradict the statement from the material

·        discrepancy between given statements

If there is at least one symptom in the news item, it is a pause for thought. If there are two, it is necessary to reflect critically on the information (to compare various sources having understood their “genealogy” and “background”) and most probably to refuse from using it as a guide for action. And this will be a small victory over those who want to bring our free will under their sway and to use us like senseless and dumb biomass for their own insidious ends.

Basically, there are no mass media today, there are communication media that are committed and subordinate to those who pay the piper. Thus, “swallowing” the information without “chewing” it and believing everything seen and heard in the media today is criminal naivety against yourself and your kin. It is a clear example of the rabbit’s victimization when going into the constrictor’s mouth.

But the rabbit can stop looking into the constrictor’s eyes. We too can practice information hygiene:

·        limit our consumption of potentially destructive information;

·        refuse to use imposed stock phrases in our speech;

·        take time to think over the news that seems important to us;

·        form for ourselves the basic context of the events that does not appeal to emotions;

·        consider any news item to be another feature of the objective world image;

·        imagine the desirable future and think if the model of behavior that is so strongly recommended by the mass media or popular bloggers contributes to or interferes with its creation.

The society that is sustainable and has basic skills of media literacy is in the best way protected from information aggression. Ukraine is years away from this level – help us God to have another historic chance. Yet each of us can make a little step on this way. By not broadcasting or publishing unreliable information, by not using a fashionable label to pin on the dissenting opponent, by checking who the owner of this or that mass medium is. By doing so, we disrupt the plans of masterminds of current horrors that are brainwashing our society. The best medicine in troubled times is common sense whose high concentration should be kept in our tormented brains and scarred souls by all means. There is no other way to avoid becoming a victim of the media war.

http://forbes.net.ua/woman/1372794-zhertvy-informacionnoj-vojny