«Chaos» and «Complexity» as Systematic Tools for Studying Modern Information Space

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to update the application of such concepts as «chaos» and «complexity» for analyzing processes in the modern information space and to investigate the problems of chaos in the field of media messages, which is considered as a natural stage in the emancipation of consumers and media producers.

Research methods. In the analysis of this topic, the study use the idea and hypothesis of the theory of nonlinearity in the study of mass communication processes, as well as postmodern and post structural chaology in the understanding of the modern infosphere.

Results. We argue that the study of random and unpredictable processes in media can be configured using a methodological approach that uses «chaos» and «complexity» as systematic tools to explore the modern information space. The chaos in the media is also provoked by the shaping of the modern agenda, since the new communication paradigm offers more fragmented, concise, dramatic information, which in turn calls into question the sense of its significance. The article poses the following problems: how and why the selection system works, distortions in media messages, why no effective tool has yet been found to resist chaos in the media, and why it is impossible in principle to overcome chaotic processes both in the socio-cultural space and directly in the plane of media culture. The article examines chaos as an element of self-organization of media communication, as a result of which there is an impetus to new processes of development of the information space. We cannot deny the fact that chaos in the modern infosphere has gradually become an integral, component part of reality, since media culture has become a total force of modernity.

Novelty of the article lies in the fact that the analysis of chaotic elements in a message makes it possible to understand the nature of chaos in media communication, its role in the formation of everyday practices and, in general, in mass communications. Since the manipulative and propaganda side of mass communication is increasingly becoming the norm and value of new media, and manipulation and propaganda are intensified by the very chaos of events and messages about them, then in the analysis of the modern information space, attention should be focused on understanding and managing these processes.

The practical significance of the research results lies in the fact that they can be used in the process of analysing specific media messages in order to identify communicative noises or accidental (or intentional) connotations.

Key words: post-non-classical paradigm, chaos, complexity, unpredictability, media, info space, entropy, post-truth.