The role of the public sphere has increasingly come to the fore in studies concerning the state of democracy in Europe. Similarly the role of culture in formations and transformations not only of personal but of political identities as well has attracted attention. It is the purpose of this article to bring these areas together in a comprehensive approach to media, culture and democracy with a view of the public sphere as a crucial mediating field. Article focuses on the role of media in sustaining and developing democracy, a democratic dialogue and in fulfilling the role of media as the critical watchdog of the political system and other powerful players on the European scene. The concept of knowledge democracy is meant to enable a new focus on the relationships between knowledge production and dissemination, the functioning of the media and our democratic institutions. The emerging concept of knowledge democracy moreover obliges us to realise that the institutional frameworks of today’s societies may appear to be deficient as far as the above mentioned undercurrents, trends and other developments demand change. Democracy is without a doubt the most successful governance concept for societies during the last two centuries. It is a strong brand, even used by rulers who do not meet any democratic criterion. Representation gradually became the predominant mechanism by which the population at large, through elections, provides a body with a general authorisation to take decisions in all public domains for a certain period of time. Fragmentation of values has lead to individualisation, to uniqueness but thereby also to the impossibility of being represented in a general manner by a single actor such as a member of parliament. More fundamentally media-politics destroy the original meaning of representation.

Creating of reality in propaganda documentaries. The case of Leni (Helene Amalie Berthy) Riefenstahl on the basis of Triumph of the Will and Olympia

The aim of this article is to present the biography of a film director- L. Riefenstahl, with an emphasis on her propaganda documentary works by the example of two documentaries: “Triumph of the Will” and “Olympia”. The thesis stated by the authors of this article is about creating reality by L. Riefenstahl. The authors present the propaganda techniques used by the director in her documentaries. The authors base this work on the analysis of audiovisual productions, historical method and finally- deduction. L. Riefenstahl was the artist with a great experience. As the director, not only was she innovative and unconventional, but also she was able to use and transfer her experience gained on other fields of her own life onto audiovisual productions. Therefore, the critics value Riefenstahl’s works due to their innovatory character and technical nuances. Although L. Riefenstahl is one of the most talented documentary directors, still, vast majority of her films were vile propaganda at the service of the 3rd Reich. Worshipping Hitler, love of symbols and faith in NSDAP is highly visible in Riefenstahl’s works.

In the last decade, one can notice the huge interest of researchers in the field of cyberpolicy, which is primarily due to the widespread use of the Internet in the public space. This fact is also an impulse for conducting interdisciplinary research that combines knowledge from social sciences on the one hand, and uses content from technical sciences on the other. Compared to the form of conducting election campaigns in the 20th century in the U.S., during the 2016 election campaign there were significant changes in the conduct of political struggle. These changes consist above all in the use of cybernetic tools, which to a large extent, however difficult to determine, shaped electoral behavior. The contemporary political competition is more and more dependent on technology, which becomes the main element of the professionalization of election campaigns. Investigating the impact of cyberspace on electoral results is a big challenge, considering the fact that the area of cybertechnology is extremely complex. Cyberspace has now become a field for many political phenomena that are constantly evolving and in most cases their importance is immense for the functioning of the political system. The article is intended to deal with selected phenomena related to cybertechnology that were compared with other events from the U.S. election campaign in 2016. The article aims to investigate selected events resulting from the use of cybertechnology, which had an impact on electoral behavior.

The purpose of the article is to explore the basic principles of information policy formation in Ukraine in the context of hybrid information warfare; identification of features and problems of information policy and its impact on the public administration system. The results of the study show that since the beginning of Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine and the widespread hybrid information war, the state’s information policy has changed its vectors and priorities. Confirmation of this was the adoption of a number of legislative documents, which identified the external enemy of the aggressor and outlined directions for the protection of national interests. It is analyzed that one of the main tasks in the information confrontation of the hybrid war is the formation of appropriate information policy and information security. It was pointed out that in the conditions of a hybrid war, a systematic approach should be devised to adequately respond to the state’s power structures to the challenges related to information confrontation. In order to minimize the spread of manipulative influences in the national information space, the formation of practical mechanisms for implementing the country’s information policy, establishing communication with civil society and raising the overall level of media literacy of society is a necessary question.

In the current dynamic world the strategic communications (STRATCOM) mean a comprehensive process which is aimed at developing, promoting, and distributing the required narratives and messages of any organization in order to form and ensure its positive image, inform counterparts (adversaries) and target audiences of the organization’s intents and positions, main tasks and achievements. While implementing the STRATCOM, it is very important to remember about their main rules and principles which are unique for both security and defence sector and business. Unfortunately, in the current “hybrid” measurement sometimes we should realize the effectiveness of the SC activities, thus it is necessary to define the measurements of effectiveness and performance for effective evaluation of activities. Ukraine has been repelling the aggression in the Eastern Ukraine since 2014 within massive hybrid warfare against it. This fact has caused the initiating a range of reform and innovative processes in Ukraine. Since then, we have known about the STRATCOM in Ukraine. In (Historical retrospective analysis of formation and development of strategic communications in security and defence sector of Ukraine) we have analyzed the process of development of the SC in security and defence sector. This process was speeded and pressed up by the warfare. Moreover, it was implemented in line with existing NATO principles and standards. Even the definition and concept of the STRATCOM were taken from the NATO documents. However, the reality reveals the necessity to revise the term definition and consider the implementation of business processes related to communications in security and defence sector. Some nations have already passed through this transformation and changed the approach to their SC. Even NATO Military Policy on Strategic Communications MC 0628 was successfully used until 2014. It is the STRATCOM baseline documents and it needed to be revised (NATO and Strategic Communications. The story so far. The Three Swords Magazine 33/2018. pp. 65–73). In the article the authors make some proposals how to improve the STRATCOM definition and improve the whole process of their realization.

W artykule zaprezentowano formułę rosyjskiego oddziaływania propagandowego jakiemu państwo rosyjskie poddaje obywateli Białorusi. Wskazano cele i grupy docelowe tego oddziaływania, dokonano oceny ich efektywności oraz przedstawiono możliwe formy reakcji, mającej na celu przygotowanie Białorusinów do umiejętnego dostrzegania działań mających na celu dezinformację, manipulację i kształtowanie opinii publicznej zgodnie z rosyjskimi celami politycznymi.

In the context of democratic discourse, civil society is given a decisive role in the formation of power and influence on power. However, between the authorities (state and self-governing) and public organizations, as representatives of the interests of civil society, mostly subject-object relations are established, where the subject is the government. The article is devoted to finding an answer to the question: can the model of subject-subject relations between the government and civil society, where both social institutions are equal participants in the political process, have practical application? Analysis of social changes in Western Europe and Ukraine gives grounds to support the point of view of those scholars who consider civil society the basis of the state, a factor that gives a specific character to each state formation, regardless of the generality of democratic processes. At the same time, attention is drawn to the heterogeneity of civil society, which is a barrier to its consolidation and strengthening of subjectivity. There is a noticeable increase in competition between the state and civil society in terms of influencing society, as well as the manipulation of public movements by public authorities to achieve political goals. However, a fairly high level of public confidence in public organizations and the potential for their advocacy allow the use of public influence to activate the population and strengthen the position of civil society in relations with the authorities.

Transformation and informatisation of society contribute to introducing social media and information and communication technologies (ICT) as an integral part of society. The article is devoted to studying forming such a key competence of modern personality as media literacy through social media. The analysis of recent research and publications shows that the use of social media is controversial and has already been studied by scholars in various aspects. The use of social media today can be perceived as a pedagogical tool and a lever of information and political influence on society. Taking into consideration the imposition of martial law in Ukraine, we experience a special need to create own platforms of proven and quality information presented to the audience on social media as well as experts and influencers that will support the image and spirit of the country and ensure the dissemination of verified and reliable information. Education is considered the main counteraction to propaganda, manipulation and bias, and educators have been the headliners of the educational process. When conducting the research, the following tasks were set: 1) to find out the peculiarities of social media functioning (especially in martial law); 2) to test the feasibility of using social media as a tool for forming media literacy (based on findings of the educators in Dnipropetrovsk region). To conduct a comprehensive study of the use of social media as a tool for forming media literacy, we used a mixed research design based on quantitative and qualitative methods. The information overload that occurred at the beginning of the Russian military aggression against Ukraine negatively affected Ukrainian citizens’ ability to perceive information critically. However, by adapting to life in new conditions and restoring the ability to think critically, citizens continued their professional activities at a qualitatively new level. Exploring the potential of using social media for political manipulation and propaganda requires further in-depth study and analysis and can serve as a basis for political or psychological research in modern society.

The present study is devoted to the linguopragmatic aspect of the modern Ukrainian political discourse, investigation of the main communicative strategies and tactics based on the speech of current President of Ukraine V. Zelensky at the meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in the Ramstein format. In the institutional political discourse communicative strategies and tactics might be qualified as very powerful manipulative categories. Its identification can only be made by deep analysis of vocabulary, grammar, sentence formation and context of the speaker. The use of strategies and tactics in the institutional political discourse demonstrates how strong the addressee can operate his knowledge, will, and emotions. Manipulative metastrategies and tactics are called to implement and realize the communicative goals and intentions of the speaker. We offer our own classification of manipulative metastrategies and tactics through the framework of cognitive scenarios. All our metastrategies and tactics are implemented to create a positive image of the subject of the speech and a negative representation of the opponent at the same time. The cognitive scenario represents the communicative situation. The analysed speech of V. Zelensky demonstrates the manipulative metastrategy of minus through combined scenarios. It means that the President tries to show his figure both in a positive self-presentation, a negative representation of the object and a theatrical action. A scenario of the theatrical action is represented by tactics of dramatization. The positive self-presentation is combined with a negative representation of the object. The tactics of irony and sarcasm, offending and warning belong there. In general, Ukrainian presidential style of the speech at the meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in the Ramstein format is rather emotional than neutral. That is because of the beginning of the war between Israel and Sector Gaza and the future threat of the illusion of World War III.

Machiavellianism is a personality trait of which the essence is created by a specific view of the social world that is treated as a place of combat, by egocentric motivation, subjective treatment of other people and a tendency to achieve goals by means of interpersonal manipulation. This article presents the results of a few researches dedicated to the phenomenon of Machiavellianism in children and the youth, and to stressing problems and threats created by the Machiavellian pupils at school; it also suggests some ways to overcome those problems.