Fake news in the context of understanding modern information anomalies

The article focuses on the problem of media materials bypassing the important requirement for quality journalism - veracity. The purpose of the work was to study the regularities determining the tendency towards information disorder at the stage of global digitalization of media environment. The discourse analysis made it possible to prove that the nature of fake phenomena can be understood not only in a media discourse but also in political, economic, scientific and other types of discourse. The authors systematize the reasons why information anomalies appear, special attention is paid to the ways of adequate response to a fake crisis (improving fact-checking procedure, using effective legal and marketing instruments, developing technological filters, increasing the level of media literacy, observing journalism ethics). The study proves that clip thinking – figurative, synthetic, stimulating instinctive reactions, targeted at emotions and opinions – is part of mental basis of destructive processes in media environment. It blocks the verification mechanisms and actualizes binary mythological oppositions inherent in fakes: life – death, order – chaos, friends – foes, people – power etc. It can be proved by outrageous Russian fake media products: TV news report about a boy crucified in Slavyansk by Kiev security forces; fake news about a Putinburger; unreliable news reports about a fire in the Winter Cherry shopping mall. The analysis of the above mentioned materials detects national specific features of information attacks. This aspect should be taken into consideration when forming a critical thinking culture which will provide an optimal balance between freedom of speech and cybersecurity