West and East: Two Views – ‘Two Roads’, or About Russia in the Centre of Information Confrontation

The review analyses the monographic study by a team of authors ‘Information Warfare in a Special Military Operation. Experience of linguistic analysis’ (Moscow: LLC “FLINTA”, 2024. 272 p.), devoted to the study of manipulative means of influence on the formation of public opinion. The monograph was edited by Doctor of Philological Sciences O. I. Kalinin. The center of research attention is Russia, namely a special military operation, which became the subject of a fierce information war. The authors of the monograph note two evaluative tendencies regarding the Russian position — categorically negative (on the part of the Collective West: Great Britain, Germany, Spain, etc.) and restrained (on the part of the countries of East and South-East Asia: China, Vietnam, North Korea, etc.). The peculiarities of the structure of the work are noted. The first chapter presents the theoretical and methodological basis for the study of information wars: the authors emphasise the relevance of different approaches to the study of this phenomenon (communicative, discursive, cognitive and cultural-ideological) and insist on the productivity of a comprehensive analysis of the collected material. The second and third chapters of the monograph list the key strategies and tactics of influencing mass audiences in the media space of Western and Eastern countries, as well as two trends in the understanding of the future world order reflected in the media of different countries.