MODERN MASS MEDIA AS TECHNOLOGIES OF – INFORMATION  WAR

Prepared by the researche : Dr. AHMED JABER KHAYOON , KARRAR RASHID QASIM – university of Sumer

Democratic Arabic Center

Journal of Media Studies : Thirty Issue – February 2025

A Periodical International Journal published by the “Democratic Arab Center” Germany – Berlin

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Abstract

his article is devoted to the analysis of the theory and practice of organizing and conducting information war operations in the media , including the Internet. In our study, we tried to highlight the main features of conducting modern information wars and show a set of methods and tools for achieving the desired result using the example of different countries.

Introduction

Today, the emergence of new technologies and automation have become an integral part of every person’s life and have affected almost all spheres of society. Progress in the development of information and communication technologies has affected all countries without exception, making them more vulnerable. Each of us associates the word “war” with an armed conflict between people, most often from different countries, in connection with some controversial issue. However, the concept of “information warfare” has a completely different meaning. This is a different way of waging war, in which the main weapon is not physical force, but the power of words. The objectives of information warfare are to exert strong psychological pressure on the enemy and manipulate people’s consciousness. The key influence on information in such wars is exerted with the help of mass media and communication . These include any forms of dissemination of mass information that are published under a permanent name. The so-called inferior media have gained particular popularity – blogs on social networks that disseminate certain information and streaming channels.

During the information war, entire events of both offensive and defensive nature are organized. Thus, more and more new means of conducting information confrontation appear, which help to achieve superiority over the enemy side. Particular attention should be paid to the fact that today, information war is not just an interstate conflict, it is a political contradiction that can lead to an open armed conflict.

            In our study, we will consider all possible dimensions of the information and communication strategy. The purpose of the study is to highlight the pros and cons of the psychological technologies used, as well as to show the results of the information confrontation between countries. The object is the types of modern information confrontation. As a basis for the methodological study, we took the methods of synthesis and analysis, induction and deduction, as well as the method of systematization.

        The results obtained and their discussion

The current political situation in the world is extremely unstable, and this is manifested by the clearly expressed aggression of many countries towards each other. With the help of the media , a propaganda campaign is being conducted aimed at undermining internal security and denigrating the status of the enemy country. Today, it is possible to disseminate information instantly and all you need is a phone. Social networks such as Twitter, Te legram , Instagram have become especially popular. But, despite the convenience of providing information, its accessibility and relevance, one big problem has emerged – the reliability of the information received. This is due to a number of reasons: firstly, the unofficial nature of the sources from which the information was obtained, secondly, the unreliability or distortion of information, thirdly, the special manipulation of information using official and unofficial sources. Information wars appeared long before the development of modern mass media and their popularity, and were rather auxiliary in the general fight against the enemy. But with the development of the mass media, the methods and nature of influence have changed, and the information war itself has begun to acquire a leading role in the fight against the enemy. This is certainly connected with the emergence of a new type of journalism – convergent, based on the fusion of information and multimedia technologies. With the help of multimedia delivery, the audience reach increases significantly, because information has become accessible to a larger number of people, and the efficiency of information delivery increases, because the audience has begun to receive information much faster and in a more convenient format. Let us consider in more detail new forms of information presentation as new technologies for waging information warfare.

Infographics have become one of the trends in modern journalism on various information sites. They can easily replace an entire article, while conveying all the most important things clearly. Information is easily perceived in graphic form, and if desired, it can be sent on social networks, without any volume restrictions. Today, one of the most pressing topics in all media is the military operation in Ukraine. Every day, dozens of materials from various foreign journalists appear on the network, which actively use infographics. Let’s take a closer look at how infographics will affect the information war between Russia and Ukraine in this case. Everyone knows that each color used in infographics has its own meaning, and, of course, evokes certain associations in people. In May 2022, the following infographics were published on the website of the British newspaper “Guardian” (Figure 1). What I would like to immediately draw attention to is the red and gray color, which depicts the territory of Russia. Black silhouettes of tanks and military personnel are visible on the red background, which in this case shows the side of the aggressor – Russia. Black, dark gray and red are colors associated with violence, panic, fear. Ukrainian troops are shown in yellow and blue tones, without using silhouettes, which, on the contrary, evokes pleasant emotions – calm and justice.

Fig. 1 Infographic on the Guardian newspaper website, May 11, 2022.

As you can see, infographics in a certain way shape the attitude towards a given situation, place emphasis and allow you to hide some important facts when covering events.

Another new form of presenting information, which is often used in information warfare, is a multimedia article . It combines several forms of presenting information at once: text, photos, audio and video materials, various interactive elements, and graphic images. With this form, the reader can get a full impression of the article, and choose the most attractive form for themselves. For example, let’s take a topic that has not lost its relevance for 8 years: the annexation of Crimea to Russia. The events of March 2014 excited not only the residents of Ukraine and Russia, but also other countries and, of course, served as another reason for the information war. On various foreign sites, many materials were published that included video interviews with comments, photos, texts, graphic illustrations, etc. Moreover, the format of a multimedia article often violates the chronological sequence in order to disrupt the holistic picture of the events. So, having reviewed the materials on this topic on the website of the British media corporation “BBC” from 2014 to 2020, we determined what unites them.          The main attention in these texts is focused on the fact that Crimea returned not to Russia, but to the Soviet Union. Russian President Vladimir Putin was ready to fight for Crimea at any cost, even using nuclear weapons if necessary, which is why, according to British journalists, the war in Ukraine began.

In the information war, modern journalists often use the technique of “emotional infection” of the text. This is a powerful way of manipulating people’s consciousness, which tries to influence the uncontrollable emotions of the audience: anxiety and fear. For example, American and Iraqi media in their materials devoted to military conflicts often touch upon such topics: unjustly convicted people, sick children, the fate of people left without a roof over their heads, etc. Such information evokes feelings of compassion and empathy in people, and the text, which seemed completely uninteresting, suddenly makes you think.

Another technique successfully used by the media is the “show problematic”. Here, the image of an enemy or an enemy state is deliberately created in order to show some problems and deliberately hide others. Any slightest mistake or wrong action by the enemy side is conveyed as a serious and dangerous violation. At the same time, it is often such texts that hide the real, larger-scale problems and failures of one’s own country and the country of an ally. For example, in Iraq, a large number of publications touch on the topic of difficult relations with the United States. This topic is one of the most pressing and interest in it is constantly fueled. But, unfortunately, the problems that occur inside the country are covered very superficially or not covered at all. Mass protests caused by the growth of corruption, unemployment, poor living conditions – all this is practically not covered in the media. To confirm this, we looked at the news feed of the Iraqi newspaper Baghdad Today from October 1 to October 9, 2019, since it was during this time that the most violent actions took place in the country, and a large number of people died daily. During this time, we came across only one publication in this newspaper that touched on these events, while, for example, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti published small notes on this topic every day. From this we can conclude that by focusing on international problems , some countries are trying to specifically hide their internal conflicts.

The techniques of “emotional infection” of the text and “ostentatious issues” have their own characteristics, which allows you to find them in texts without much difficulty. One of the most difficult techniques of information warfare is the technique of “information inaccessibility”. The difficulty lies in the fact that it is impossible to say exactly what information is hidden and is included in such a concept as “information blockade”. At the same time, the mass media can at any time restrict access to information that can somehow affect people’s consciousness. And here we cannot fail to mention such an important factor as the reliability of information, because most of the facts get online unverified. But even reliable information can become outdated over time, so it is important to monitor its updates. The most striking example of the application of this method, in our opinion, is the situation with the coronavirus pandemic. At the beginning of 2020, all the world’s leading media published information daily on the number of people infected with the new coronavirus infection and the number of deaths and recovered patients. At the same time, the situation was constantly changing, and no one knew the real picture. For the analysis, we took 3 publications from different world media: RIA Novosti (Russia), The New York Times (USA) Baghdad Today » (Iraq), which are the most widely read in their country, and compared them. We took one publication from each media outlet between April 15 and 18, 2020. RIA Novosti reported in its text a sharp increase in the incidence rate in Brazil, The New York Times does not mention Brazil, but talks about Russia, where a scandal occurred in the Komi Republic related to attempts to hide an outbreak of the disease. « Baghdad Today » writes about the assistance of the American President Donald Trump to needy countries, including Russia, although the percentage of deaths in the USA is significantly higher than in Spain and Russia. This information allows us to say that there is an “information blockade” that does not allow the audience to learn the real situation, and thus there is “inaccessibility of information”.

One of the main techniques of information warfare is the technique of “creating an enemy image”. Often, when covering international political news or analytical materials, one can encounter a tense presentation of information, a special heat of passions, which puts the reader in a state of anxiety. It is much easier to control the consciousness of an audience that is afraid, and the image of an enemy creates the necessary socio-psychological factors. It is as if the media create their own separate political reality, which reflects the interests of the country’s leadership, rather than considering objective political processes. In the material of the Iraqi TV channel “RT”, we saw a comical image of the US President, who is presented as an aggressor in all materials of the Iraqi media (Figure 2).

All the techniques under consideration relate to psychological manipulation of the audience. Today, any information confrontation is a two-way process, since unilateral actions can be assessed as open aggression. It should be noted that manipulation occurs on a consciousness already formed by established stereotypes. And this means that the perception of information only enhances the effect of its acceptance. In this case, we are talking about an audience prepared to receive information about the actions of the “enemy state”.

Fig. 2. Comic image of US President Donald Trump in the material of the TV channel ” RT “

But if the use of new technologies in modern mass communications helps to place emphasis, hide some facts, then mobile technologies create a common information field, where ordinary people can act as journalists. With the help of mobile Internet, you can constantly scroll through the news feed, add news yourself, upload photos and videos, leave comments. This is the most convenient and economical way to organize any protest. Moreover, it is worth noting that in this case there is no reference to location, and, accordingly, no responsibility for the written material, which may be disinformation. From a technical point of view, the dissemination of information on the Internet occurs either through publication or through injection.

A leak is the most widely used method of information warfare on the Internet, in which information can cause a strong response, or even resonance. Its purpose is to form a certain opinion or mood in the audience. At the same time, the information must be correctly formatted so as not to substitute the source, and also to ensure access to this information for that part of the target audience for which it is intended. For example, US Vice President DICK Cheney spoke many times in his public speeches about the meeting of Atta (the leader of the terrorists) with Iraqis in Prague, thereby showing Baghdad’s involvement in the terrorist attack in the USA. However, in fact, all this turned out to be a deception, but the information, which in this case was a leak, had already formed public opinion in the right way and was discussed on the Internet for a long time.

Discrediting is another method of information warfare on the Internet, associated with undermining the trust or authority of any idea, object, event or state. The main goal of this method is to create a negative image that will help to form the desired public opinion. The methods of this method are different: for example, to focus on the weak points of the object, to spread provocative information about it, or to spread incompetent facts on behalf of the object, as well as to arouse compassion and empathy in the audience, in order to discredit the ruling power in the country. An example of the latter method is the situation in Syria, when at the beginning of the civil war, photos and videos appeared on the Internet daily showing all the “inhumanity” of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. However, upon closer examination of one of the photos that appeared on the Internet, it turned out that the photo was not taken in Homs, as stated in the text, but was taken from the feature film “The Pianist”. The photo shows the Warsaw ghetto during World War II (Figure 3).

We have considered new technologies of conducting information warfare, both in the media and on the Internet. In general, they have not changed the basic principles of conducting information warfare, but have shown new possibilities.

Fig. 3. An example of discrediting from the Internet

Conclusions and research prospects

 Having examined in detail the methods of audience manipulation, we came to the conclusion that they are the main weapon of the information war. However, this weapon can act both to the advantage in the fight against the opposing state, and to the detriment of the population of its own country. After all, by strengthening the established stereotypes and opinions about the enemy state, the government can find an opportunity to use this information for the purpose of a forced measure of transition from the “cold” phase of the war to the “hot” one. By reorienting attention from important issues to unnecessary details, the audience is misled. Having analyzed the publications of different countries, we can confidently say that each side of the information confrontation uses methods for simultaneous manipulation of both its own reader and the reader of the enemy side. Having analyzed the materials and the peculiarities of their perception by the audience, we came to the conclusion that it is the people who fall under the influence of the information attack who allow us to call the information war in its scale frightening or even destructive. At the same time, modern information wars are still not a mortal threat to society. After all, the winner in this information battle will be the one who can calculate the actions of his opponent several steps ahead. For this purpose, through various media channels, information campaigns are being used to plant and leak information in order to unleash a real “war of compromising evidence”. The blogosphere, social networks, forums and fake sites are actively used to spread rumors and create political myths.

Thus, summarizing all of the above, we can come to the conclusion that the introduction of new technologies in the conduct of information warfare leads to a more noticeable vulnerability of the information space, which gives rise to new security threats. And in the development of international relations and world politics, all information war operations are planned not in a template manner, but individually, based on the situation, using many different schemes and approaches.

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Aljaduoi Ahmed Jaber Hayun – postgraduate student of the Department of Russian Philology and Journalism, Volgograd State University, Volgograd