Information wars as a phenomenon of the post-industrial (information) society: the main paradigms

The purpose of this article is to study information warfare as a phenomenon of the post-industrial (information) society in conjunction with the main paradigms found in modern science. The research methods are comparison, analysis, synthesis, classification, induction and deduction. The paper presents eleven paradigms of the study of information warfare identified in the scientific literature, which allow us to pay closer attention to a wide range of different aspects of such a complex phenomenon, as well as to familiarize ourselves with authors studying this phenomenon. The article notes that information warfare has a long history, but has evolved significantly to date and is primarily a phenomenon of the post-industrial (information) society. It is concluded that modern information warfare has become a more in—demand and effective means of defeating the enemy than before due to the appearance of nuclear weapons in the middle of the 20th century, as well as the new «information revolution» that took place at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, the development of mass media, techniques of information and psychological impact, and represents not only targeted actions to use digital means of communication to gain superiority over the enemy through various manipulations with information and information systems, as well as protecting their own, but also the effect on his psychoemotional state and behavior. It is also revealed that often similar meanings and theses are repeated from time to time in works on this topic. The theoretical significance of the work is to clarify and expand the understanding of the phenomenon of information warfare and to streamline (classify) existing approaches (paradigms) to its study.