Abstract

The article defines the key aspects of the merits and impact of information warfare on public consciousness and public opinion. In the article, we review the information war not as an auxiliary mechanism for real war, but as a mechanism of affecting the public opinion. The public opinion can not be formed completely because the information in the hands of the media acts as a real weapon aimed at the mass consciousness. The article discusses in detail the four main factors that determine the effectiveness of the impact of information: 1) information warfare agents that affect the population, mass consciousness, public opinion; 2) information weapon of war; 3) the content itself, the content that is broadcast during the information war; 4) the specifics of mass awareness in different countries, the formation and functioning of their public opinion. And how much information war characteristic of the crisis, the presentation of information aimed at manipulating public consciousness and, accordingly, the public opinion as the outward expression of consciousness.