«Consuming of Information» in the Modern Ukrainian City at the Time of War: the Information «Gap» Between East and West

Abstract

The war in the eastern Ukraine also called a hybrid war, war on two fronts – military and information. The focus of this article is the informative component, the article describes the features of the concept of «consumer information» and how this category describes the nature of the information war. Our author's definition of «consumer information» means a process of searching information, receipting it through the prism of channels (Internet, TV, printed sources), assimilation and specific types of reactions to it. Using the methodology of symbolic interactionism made it possible to identify and describe the features of «interaction» between East and West of Ukraine in the information space during the war, especially their «specific» integration. Determined that information war «supported» by the existence of private pro-Russian media, limiting access to the Ukrainian media by pro-Russian separatists, enemy’s providing of information as the only objective one. Author analyzed that the features of consumer information in the Ukrainian society during a war are: unequal access to information between both regions and the monopolization of the media (especially television) and presentation of the pro-Russian position as the only objective and in the East, which precludes analysis and comparison of its consumers. «Closeness of the East led to hostile sentiments between people of Eastern and Western regions, the division into «us» and «them». Our final hypothesis says that the priority of the security of all states must be exactly information security (studying methods of information war and their quality opposition).