Abstract
Pandemics are social disasters provoking panic, acute stress and post-traumatic stress disorder, massive aggression, and other psycho-emotional and behavioural disorders. The strength of these reactions is associated with informational conditioning of a person in a period when archaic layers that cannot be rationalized are actualized in their psyche. The time has come for the analysis of information strategies that reinforce or deactivate the feelings of uncertainty and vital threat that arose in society. The paper explores psychological defences and coping strategies, forms of aggression and hostility that take place during a pandemic and similar disasters. The study also includes an assessment of the Russian-language Internet content from April to August 2020, affecting the COVID-19 pandemic from the point of view of information security. We analysed the techniques of cyber fraud and phishing.
The author reveals effectiveness of communicating information using the image of an eyewitness of events or an expert. The position of an observer-journalist is rarely effective in reducing social tension. In panic, society needs samples of adaptive behaviour and directives, humour that relieves fear. The reason for the panic and aggression is the low level of awareness of the population as well as following false authority.
The results obtained can be used by experts in the field of information security, state and municipal employees, students and postgraduate students, the journalistic community.
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