VIDEO BLOGS AS A TOOL OF DESTRUCTIVE INFORMATIONAL INFLUENCE IN THE CONTEXT OF COGNITIVE WARFARE

Abstract

This study is devoted to the analysis of video blogs as tools of destructive information influence in conditions of cognitive warfare. The authors attach particular importance to the methodological foundations of the study of cognitive wars, as well as the basic principles and methods of non-kinetic wars aimed at exercising control over public opinion and consciousness. The empirical basis of the study included the use of several methods: analysis of YouTube video blogs as a «global» network space through the use of the R language, LDA topic modeling and discourse analysis to interpret the results obtained. The study sample was built on the basis of three criteria: opposition, politicization and popularity of bloggers’ channels. As a result of the work, the authors identified the peculiarities of the wording of video titles of anti-Russian bloggers, the most popular text units used in the titles of YouTube channels unfriendly to Russia, as well as their central themes in the corpus of words and phrases. The main result of the study was the means of cognitive warfare used by opposition bloggers in their publications on YouTube. In conclusion, the authors formulate recommendations for preventing the destructive information influence of this tool of cognitive warfare.

Keywords:

SOCIAL MEDIA, VIDEO HOSTING, VIDEO BLOGS, YOUTUBE, DESTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE, COGNITIVE WARFARE, DIGITALIZATION