The history of the conquest of the "fourth front"
The availability of information to the masses of people has evolved over the centuries into a formidable political and economic weapon. Back in 30-ies, bourgeois researchers called the ether over the planet "Fourth Front", "theater", where the grandiose play - "War of Words".
The first technological achievement of great social and cultural importance was the invention of the printing press by Johann Gutenberg. Gutenberg's Bible, printed in 1456, opened the door to the cultural space, the movement in which led us through the 500 years into the information age.
The second technological invention that revolutionized the way information was exchanged was the telephone. Today, hundreds of millions of people communicate via wired, fiber-optic or radiotelephone channels and electronic PBXs - whenever they want and how they want, forming the space of personal communication technologies.
The third revolution in the exchange of information made the radio. Before the invention of radio, man’s influence on man was local in nature, with his invention in 1895, A.S. The whole world became the theater of information-psychological confrontation.
Radio Propaganda
As a media outlet and exposure to a person, a radio immediately showed that it has at least two advantages over printing: time and distance are not an obstacle for him. Broadcasting has developed rapidly. The boundaries for propaganda, the impact on the minds of people actually ceased to exist: almost completely excluded control and censorship over it by the state whose population was elected the object of influence. Therefore, large states are beginning to rapidly develop international short-wave broadcasting, turning it into an active tool of their foreign policy, especially if it was an aggressive policy.
Especially these properties were evaluated by Hitler and his associates. The leaders of the Third Reich paid special attention to the propaganda power of radio on the population as a weapon to implement plans for world domination. Describing the role of radio broadcasting in Nazi propaganda, Goebbels rather cynically stated: "Without radio and airplanes, conquering and consolidating power in the present conditions is simply unthinkable." During the Second World War, the “ether” over Europe became the arena of struggle for the capture of the minds of the peoples of entire states using radio.
Especially fierce "battles on the air" took place between England and Germany. Great Britain used new weapons of psychological warfare, the so-called secret radio stations. Their goal was to spread threatening rumors and weaken the morale of the German troops. In form, these programs fully corresponded to all canons, according to which the speeches of the national socialist figures of Germany were built. As well as Nazi propaganda, secret British radio stations widely resorted to false reports, without bothering themselves with references to any sources.
In the methods of broadcasting to foreign audiences during the war years, the United States also largely followed the experience of the Nazis. If Goebbels’s propaganda ministry organized on the USA broadcasts of disguised radio stations broadcasting on behalf of “isolationists,” then the Americans did the same, leading radio propaganda to Japan, ostensibly on behalf of neutral Japanese.
Common to most of the concepts of conducting a radio war was the Goebbels installation, aimed at turning a potential radio listener into a kind of Robot - a "manipulated person", whose consciousness, feelings and actions can be controlled like a machine.
Simply enough, the essence of manipulation concepts was revealed by Professor Bordeaux University, Jacques Ellul: “Propaganda is no longer about writing openly in a newspaper or speaking on a radio program that, according to the propagandist’s desire, an individual should think or believe. In fact, the problem is posed as follows: forcing such and such a person to think this or that, or more precisely, forcing a certain group of people to act in this way and not otherwise, and find a “psychological trick” that causes the corresponding reaction. This psychological trick is called "stimulus", that is, psychological and psychoanalytic tricks that cause certain actions, certain feelings, certain mystical impulses. "
COMPUTER ENTRY INTO FIGHT
The next information revolution was accomplished by a personal computer and telecommunications networks. The connection of personal computers with telecommunications networks has opened the way to the emergence of information technologies with new opportunities. The computer and telecommunication networks of our day are phenomena of a global nature, they are capable of shifting the political map of the world and changing the existing relations between the geopolitical centers of power. Like any science achievement, this invention carries a good and evil beginning.
Network computing is a powerful tool for the information association of countries and peoples, a prerequisite for their economic and political integration. Network computing is a presentation of unprecedented opportunities for professional and non-professional subscribers to access global information resources. This removes the differences between local and distribution storage of information, and the network itself becomes a global storage. On the other hand, network computing is a tool for the informational, political, and cultural expansion of developed countries in relation to undeveloped and developing countries.
Network computing offers great opportunities for information and psychological impact on the peoples of the world. Of particular danger are the possibilities of conducting information terrorist activities through the use of global computer networks, the prevention of which is difficult, and the neutralization of consequences is insanely expensive. This determines the need for international action, the development of agreements to prohibit or limit the use of network computing as an information weapon - something of the type of agreements to limit nuclear weapons.
INFORMATION WEAPON DEVELOPING
Militaryhistorical analysis of the experience of warfare shows that the content of forms and methods of warfare was accumulated evolutionarily. The qualitative accumulation of the new content of forms and methods leads to a revolutionary (spasmodic) change in the forms and methods of warfare. An indicator of a revolutionary change in the forms and methods of warfare is the emergence of weapons, which radically changes the content of armed struggle.
The display of great interest in global wars, informational confrontation is not accidental, since this is due to the fact that information becomes the same weapon as missiles, bombs, etc. Information, on the one hand, allows a small amount of a substance or energy to start, control and regulate the processes whose real-energy parameters are many orders of magnitude higher. On the other hand, a certain type of information can also have a positive or negative intellectual and spiritual motivating force, and can also be neutral. It is this property of certain information (in particular social information) that makes it possible to control the behavior of social subjects. In addition, the ability of a person to accumulate and retain (retain) such information allows you to quickly or permanently regulate his behavior.
Based on the above, information is a weapon that contributes to the emergence of fundamentally new operational forms and methods for their use.
Doctor of Political Sciences Andrei Manoilo in the monograph “Technology of non-force resolution of modern conflicts” notes: “At the modern stage of development of political technologies, information and psychological influence (IPV) does not always begin with military actions, but military actions themselves become a necessary factor in any combat psychological operation in as a means of initiating the chain psychological reactions envisioned by its scenario. A psychological war generates a local war: for the transition of a psychological operation from a latent stage to an active one, an initiating reason is necessary, and therefore a local armed conflict is needed. The fact that the traditional war plays a limited, strictly assigned role in the plans of the information-psychological war does not make it less dangerous, does not reduce its scope and does not completely force it out of the sphere of political relations - global military conflicts gradually disappear from political life, local armed conflicts and the frequency of their occurrence grow. Where psychological warfare begins, the likelihood of local armed conflicts increases substantially. ”
Andrei Manoylo, using the example of the war in Iraq, was one of the first to suggest the term information-psychological war, calling it a war of a new generation: “Watching the“ strange ”war in Iraq from TV screens, the world saw the emergence of new-generation wars - information-psychological, in which fighting plays a subordinate service role, and the plan of an armed campaign is built according to the rules and in accordance with the PR scenario impact on its own citizens, on citizens of political allies and opponents and on international e community as a whole. Thus, we can justifiably say that a modern armed conflict develops in the genre of reportage and according to the laws of this genre so that news its format as closely as possible corresponded to the format of PR material required for the implementation of information-psychological impact technologies. As a result, such a chain of production (by military units of the armed forces) and the practical implementation (by psychological operations) of news from the theater of operations becomes a high-tech pipeline for the production of processing tools and the formation of public opinion, ensuring voluntary submission, managing the vector of political activity of the authorities in different countries. The goal of the information-psychological operation is the voluntary submission of society, which is ensured through the use of technologies of psychological influence on the consciousness of its citizens. ”
A vivid example of the use of information and psychological technologies in order to manage political conflicts are various campaigns for a soft, non-violent change in the state system, the so-called velvet revolutions. Russian scientists see velvet revolutions as a threat to the independence of their native country. The United States uses them to export democracy and establish a new world order.
IMPACT OBJECTS
The subjects and, at the same time, the objects of the informational and psychological impact are individuals, certain groups of people, the state, society, the whole of humanity as a whole. Using an approach to the content of the concept of information and psychological impact, we can distinguish four plans of objects to which informational and psychological weapons are directed.The first and second plans refer to the person (person). The first considers a person as a citizen, that is, as a subject of political life, a carrier of a certain worldview, possessing a more or less pronounced sense of justice and mentality, spiritual ideals and values. A citizen is a conscious subject of relations with the authorities (the state), and he builds his life behavior depending on how much he trusts this authority. Trust in government is the main pivot of public behavior of citizens. The formation of trust is the main political task of the authorities, using directly or indirectly all sources of informational influence on citizens, at its disposal, first of all state-run media, as well as means of influencing other sources. Inadequate public (from the point of friction of power) interests of a citizen can take both acute forms of political extremism, threatening the very existence of power, and political equilibrium, no less than undermining the foundations of public life.
The second plan considers a person as a personality-individual, possessing consciousness, subject to various manipulative influences, informational in nature, the results of which can directly threaten the physical or psychological health of a person. Such influences often for many years form the moral and psychological atmosphere in separate layers of society, nourish the criminal environment and contribute to the growth of mental illness in society. Sectarian preaching can serve as an example of such influences, resulting in social and personal maladjustment, and in some cases to the destruction of the human psyche.
The third plan provides for the analysis of informational impacts on organized or unorganized (crowd) groups and masses of people. The purpose of these impacts is to cause a special, conflicting behavior in acute life (political, military, emergency) situations. Initiation of panic, coercion to surrender, mobilization of protesters for action are some examples of such goals.
The fourth plan poses the problem of information and psychological impact on the population of the country as a whole or on a regional scale. “We should talk about the part of the population that is most exposed to manipulative influences, to which socially vulnerable citizens belong, first of all. It is they who experience strong moral and psychological pressure, which lies on the general background of poverty and insecurity in life. You can talk about the moral and psychological security of the population, the degree of which is significantly dependent on the mass and individual perception and assessment of the conditions of social life. ”
The objects of information and psychological impact include:
- the military-political leadership, military personnel and the civilian population of the country against which a military action is planned;
- military and civilian population of friendly, neutral states and countries;
- national and religious minorities;
- opposition forces;
- Certain social groups (intellectuals, entrepreneurs, housewives, etc.).
The informational and psychological impact on people is primarily related to the suppression of the will to resistance, “zombiing” of the psyche (manipulation and restructuring of thinking), programming the behavior of people in everyday and combat situations and ultimately their demoralization and mental degradation.
Zombies
Zombing is a type of information-psychological warfare, processing the subconscious of a person or a group of people by means of suggestion or special technical means and techniques, thanks to which he (they) are programmed to unconditionally subordinate to someone's orders, to perform any actions or to perceive what - any political, philosophical or religious doctrine inspired by them.
Being under the influence of suggestion, a person does not feel and does not control the impact on him. Vladimir Bekhterev noted that the suggestion occurs without the participation of the will (attention) of the perceiving person and often even without a clear consciousness on his part. Suggestion is carried out with the help of "verbal" formulas that are embedded in the psychic sphere of the inspired and become the active element of his consciousness. The suggestion is carried out by binding the introduced idea to the well-established ("supporting") attitudes, beliefs, values and group norms. "Supports" are perceived as their own. The problem of suggestion is related to the perception of information that tunes to a specific activity. The most stable is information, rationally meaningful and emotionally assimilated by a person, tied to the "support".
For many years, a lot of techniques of inspiring influence have been worked out, which cause certain effects and are used to manipulate people's minds. The effect of suggestion is an impression produced as a result of an inspiring effect on a person. The most common effects of suggestion include: “the image of the enemy”, “cult of horror”, “contagion”, etc. Consider some of the effects of suggestion.
The effect of "infection" is the creation of a special emotional state of the crowd, the masses of people. The source of "excitement" are nationalistic stereotypes, negative attitudes towards other nations and nationalities. The initiation of the process of “excitation” is carried out by creating conditions under which the signals of “excitation” come from the audience itself, and not from an external source. The order of launching the process of "excitement": instilling a sense of one's own ethnic exclusivity, superiority reporting in the media in an emotional and dramatized manner; the organization of nationalist and chauvinistic companies; explanation of economic and social difficulties by the presence of "aliens" that prevent the establishment of normal living conditions. The last decade has been marked by numerous facts of explosions, mass insanity and regression based on ethnic, political, national, confessional conflicts. The explosion effect occurs when a resonant emotional state of a mass of people or an ethnos is reached.
The effect of the "image of the enemy" - the creation of an easily perceived consciously constructed "image of the enemy." The essence of the methods of constructing the "image of the enemy" is to "... systematically direct ... the desire to show all the fears, illnesses, dangers and unresolved conflicts from outside, with unrecognized reasons, in order to find a scapegoat ...". One of the tendencies of the mechanism of creating the “image of the enemy” is to show only the bad, and the second is to create obstacles for information that carries positive information about the object.
Ways to influence the human mind and subconscious
At present, the following methods can be distinguished according to the impact on the human psyche: sensory and subsensory, manipulative, method of infection, operational and strategic methods. Modern psychology distinguishes between a person two ranges of perception: sensory (conscious) and subsensory (unconscious), in which information is absorbed, bypassing consciousness. Accordingly, methods of psychological influence on the consciousness and subconsciousness are also distinguished.
The core of the sensory method are the techniques of rational psychotherapy. Dubois, the author of rational psychotherapy, called it a method of influencing the world of a person’s ideas precisely by convincing dialectics. Thus, the method is based on the sensory (conscious) ability of a person to absorb information, as well as the ability to convince him. Conviction with the use of manipulation becomes even more effective.
At the heart of the sub-sensory method lies the sub-sensory (unconscious) ability of a person to absorb information, in which information is absorbed, bypassing consciousness. An example of a subsensory impact on the human psyche is an explanation of the influence of the so-called 25 frame of the movie. The essence of the 25 frame is as follows.
It is generally accepted that the human brain is able to perceive 25 frames per second as a continuous image. This means that every second so many neurons die that are enough for the viewer to remember these 25 frames. But 24 frames are close to each other in meaning, and they differ slightly in the picture, their images coincide by 90% or more, and one frame differs sharply both in meaning and in the picture by all 100%. Figuratively speaking, it turns out the following story: 24 frames are smeared in different sections of memory, and one frame always beats in the same place. The film goes 1 hour 40 minutes. In second 1000 milliseconds. Thus, the viewer looks at the 25-th frame exactly 4 minutes - the 25-th part of the entire screen time! This is a lot. This is a serious threat to the psyche ... It is clear that the destruction of neurons in the 25 frame has more devastating consequences, because if you use the comparative image introduced above, this is a long automatic queue fired at the same place. This is a gigantic bloodied and deep wound in the psyche. The significance of the image associated with this wound is so great in absolute magnitude that everything else no longer has any significance.
A more complex subsensory mode of influence on the subconscious of people is the effect on the masses by means of the psycho-correction of their behavior (I. Smirnov's method). The essence of the method is that in the human brain with the help of computer psycho-probing find the reference points, acting on which you can control the behavior of the masses of people. The most difficult and crucial moment is the compilation of the plot, that is, the text of the suggestion, which can sometimes consist of just one word and last for four or seven seconds. Then the plot is encoded into music or noise. The main thing is to find keywords that will act on the subconscious.
The basic basis of the manipulation method is the illusory, mythical interpretation of reality, the conscious and unconscious misrepresentation of the individual, society, which is based on manipulative psychotherapy. The implementation of the method is carried out by the combined use of the techniques of sensory and subsensory effects of information on the world of the individual, society.
The concept of "infection" in a broad sense is given by S.P. Rastorguev. In its interpretation, the virus carrier is an element of the system, the level of “aggressiveness” of which with respect to neighboring elements exceeds a certain predetermined value that can reprogram the surrounding elements of the system. Figuratively speaking, it is “a stranger among his own,” but capable of reproduction. Such a definition of a virus makes it possible to combine both biological viruses and their virus carriers, as well as computer viruses, both individual politicians and criminal elements, like all of humanity as a whole, and separate nations. The whole question on the scale of the phenomenon under study: what to take as a system, and what as an element.
As for the mental virus, it must have the following properties:
- a mental virus is an independent mental education (SMO), designed in the form of an idea (an element of the idea) and capable of infecting it when activated together with other SMOs;
- the level of aggression of the SMO - the virus carrier with respect to the rest of the SMO must exceed a certain threshold value;
- contamination of the QS should reduce the effectiveness of the functioning of the QS and, as a result, of the object itself - the carrier of the QS, that is, the person.
The introduction of mental infections is carried out with the help of the so-called psychological complexes, which include mental complexes imposed by an external source (media, own environment, etc.).
An example of a modern psychosis - a great nation begins to crucify its past, abandons its property, guaranteed security, wages, etc. “Thoughts-infections are dangerous, they can kill” and kill. The most effective means of infection is the media, which appropriately reprogram the internal language of society in order to please and by order of certain groups and groups of society (the world community).
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT SOCIETY
Information warfare emerged as a form of informational confrontation, and in this respect it was a product of the development of society, which absorbed all the experience that humanity had accumulated during this confrontation.
Having emerged at a certain stage of maturity of informational confrontation as a result of scientific and technological progress and information integration of the world community, information warfare became an independent way of implementing the foreign policy of strong states that acquired new opportunities for the realization of their plans: to impose their own will on other peoples and states; implement unauthorized interference with the work of almost any computer system in the world; anonymously hit the opposing electronic weapons.
Possession of information resources in modern wars has become the same indispensable attribute, as in past wars, the possession of forces and means, weapons, ammunition, transport, etc. Winning informational confrontation in the course of modern wars can contribute to the achievement of their strategic goals.
Information