HOSTILE PROPAGANDA OF THE DIGITAL AGE AS INFORMATION VIOLENCE: UKRAINIAN RESISTANCE TO RUSSIAN INFORMATION AGGRESSION IN THE GLOBAL CYBERSPACE
Authors:   State University of Information and Communication Technologies, Petkun Svitlana , Verkhovtseva Iryna ,   State University of Information and Communication Technologies
Published: November 2024

The information war against Ukraine launched by the Russian Federation in 2014, which intensified significantly after Russia's full-scale military invasion on 24 February 2022, requires the search for effective means of countering information invasion, taking into account the specifics of modern international public communications that use digital technologies and take place within the global cyberspace. The purpose of this paper is to describe the main directions, tools and prospects of Ukraine's counteraction to Russia's information aggression against it in the dimension of international public communications in the context of digitalization of global information and communication processes. The research methodology consists of a set of general scientific methods (logic, induction, deduction, analysis, synthesis) and a number of special methods: structural and functional analysis, typology, narrative, and generalization. Results. Under the influence of revolutionary technological changes in information and communication, within the framework of the global cyberspace, which has created a qualitatively new space for interaction between governments, countries, and peoples, along with the formation of the “digital world” and “digital human,” radical changes have taken place in international public communications. Socio-cultural dynamics have become more complex. The specific worldview of the information society supports pluralism, which is the acceptance of the simultaneous coexistence of different points of view. The media and mass media in general (television, the Internet, mobile communication networks) significantly influence the opinions, beliefs, and worldview of the population, cause the digitalization of the individual, change the format of social relations, and determine the models of constructing individual and collective identities. There is a negative information impact on people associated with information violence. One of its manifestations is aggressive propaganda, which aims to change people's attitudes toward certain phenomena in a direction favorable to the generator of propaganda content. In the context of Ukraine's confrontation with Russian information aggression, which has targeted everything Ukrainian since 2014 – the government, state, society, culture and identity of Ukrainians – researchers state that long before the military invasion of Ukraine, Russian propagandists were processing the world community in order to present the picture in a light favorable to the aggressor country, to form a negative image of the Ukrainian state and to prevent allies from helping it. The Kremlin is trying to “pollute” the image of Ukraine in the West and generally make the information field in which Ukraine appears dirty. Among the effective measures to counter anti-Ukrainian propaganda, in addition to the relevant legislative and instrumental measures within the framework of government agencies, is public diplomacy in terms of cyber diplomacy aimed at establishing ties with the public of the world and disseminating truthful information about the socio-cultural situation, political and public life of Ukraine. For this purpose, the necessary legal framework is in place and relevant changes are being made to Ukrainian legislation. Citizen/civil diplomacy is seen as an effective tool of cyber diplomacy in countering Russia's information aggression against Ukraine. Within its framework, Ukrainian scientists, politicians, journalists, students and the public in general will contribute to the promotion of Ukrainian interests in the world by preparing and publishing content on media platforms and social networks that debunks anti-Ukrainian propaganda narratives and thus influence the positive image of the Ukrainian state. Practical implications of the work lies in the possibility of using its results in the context of developing a strategy for Ukraine's resistance to hostile information influences in cyberspace. Value/originality. For the first time in the scientific literature, the author actualizes the need to develop a strategy for Ukraine's counteraction to hostile information influences in the dimension of international public communications and presents the author's vision of the main directions, tools and prospects of Ukrainian resistance to destructive Russian anti-Ukrainian propaganda as information violence.