Information And Its Reliability in The Digital Reality

Abstract

The latest scenarios of multi-modal messages, the multi-component and dynamic nature of online communications serve as a barrier to finding reliable information. Digital technologies and artificial intelligence, due to the large-scale and uncontrolled information dissemination in near real time, create fertile ground for disinformation, various types of hoaxes, and manipulations that serve political and commercial propaganda. Disinformation, using complex manipulative narratives, social engineering tools, perception management technologies, and behavior management technologies, poses a threat to society as a whole due to its political, social, and psychological dimensions. By polarizing society, it can lead to anti-democratic and populist movements, irreconcilable differences among voters, programmatic distance between political parties, and serious damage to democracy. The purpose of the study is to examine information and disinformation as propaganda tools, a type of information weapon, and a form of ideological struggle. The methods used in the study were observation, document analysis, comparison, analysis, and synthesis. The theoretical significance of the study lies in the systematization and synthesis of expert assessments and scientific articles on the topic of false information, fake news, and disinformation. The current task in these conditions is to develop effective measures to combat the spread of disinformation on the Internet, establish a fact-checking system, define the concept of expertise and the information sources prestige, carry out information campaigns on media literacy, and raise citizens' awareness of the country's national policy and its political problems.