How Does Information Manipulation Interfere with Normal Brain Function? The Disruption of Neuroethics in War-Time Mass Media

Abstract

The article describes massive changes in the brain function of mass-media recipients. It is written within the relevant neuro social state of the Ukrainian mass media society in the conditions of undeclared military censorship and counter-propaganda. The material for analysis was two groups of data: content analysis of news media and a sociological survey of citizens for the presence of cognitive dissonance and lies that can violate neuroethics, namely, forming a distorted picture of the world, creating long-term deprivation and inadequate neural connections.

The purpose of such research was to find out the regular influence of affective and defamatory infospace on the brains of people whose countries are at war. We clarified the nature of the newest manipulations in the media and around ethical issues, the state of research on the neuroethics of manipulations, comparing the nature of war journalistic manipulations in Russian and Ukrainian media and the objectification and explanation of neuroethical violations in Ukrainian media through the techniques of lying, silencing, avoidance, analysis, self-counting, etc.

The authors used methods of theoretical, statistical, comparative and systemic analysis, content analysis, sociological methods of collecting background data and neuro interpretive methods for the received input data.

The result of the article was a systematization of the manipulation of the brain in a state of permanent tension; in particular, we identified ways of institutional avoidance or deception and diagnosis of specific neuroethical threats and consequences among the population (emotional dependency, deprivation, emotional-cognitive dissonance, lack of entitlement to accurate truth, the difference between the content of the national and local media, etc.)