Perception of Historical Fakes: Experimental Approach and Frame Analysis

This paper presents the findings of an interdisciplinary study addressing the challenges of countering historical disinformation. Data collected between 2019 and 2021 regarding the perceptions of students in non-history disciplines towards fake information about Russian history published in foreign media are analyzed. The relevance of this research is underscored by the need to gather empirical data on the processes through which Western media disseminate false information about Russia's history, given the significant risk of such narratives infiltrating public consciousness and adversely affecting the cognitive security of society. Utilizing traditional philological analysis alongside cognitive linguistics and frame semantics, the study elucidates the mechanisms by which misleading meanings are integrated into objective historical knowledge. These mechanisms include false markers of credibility and emotionally charged vocabulary. The analysis reveals that respondents often rely on linguistic features of the text, particularly emotionally marked units and negative rhetoric, which do not always facilitate the accurate identification of the truthfulness of historical information. It was found that in cases involving specialized, controversial, or lesser-known historical facts, the use of fakes within a sandwich structure (truth-lie) can lead to a replacement of genuine knowledge with distorted perceptions, thereby blurring the foundations of objective personal understanding.