Ekspansijos is rytu apraiskos lietuvos informacineje erdeje
In: Politologija, Heft 2, S. 62-81
ISSN: 1392-1681
Sign Lithuania has joined NATO & the EU. However, one should ask themselves a question whether the integration process has already ended & whether we have become an integral part of Europe. Such doubts appear after taking a closer look at our information space, which contains signs of informational cultural expansion from the East. In the information age the concept of power is changing. Some countries compete for ideological & cultural dominance in the information space of other countries and, consequently, the latter seek to protect their space from such influences. Lithuania has also entered such a battlefield, therefore, the conception of a national information space & information attacks towards that space should be analyzed more thoroughly. At the present moment, the main goal is to make the Lithuanian academic society & especially the general public aware of the problem of the information warfare, its threats as well as the principles of information security in respect of an individual & the whole of society. In Russia, the theoretical level of this issue has been traversed a long time ago & practical actions are being taken today: strategic documents concerning information security were adopted five years ago, concrete institutions responsible for the implementation of a particular information policy in the "near abroad" countries are being established Russia has been aiming & still aims to keep Lithuania in the sphere of its control. Thus, Russia has started to employ new tools of power, namely, information resources, telecommunications & the media. The consequences of such information pressure from the East are evident: the results of a research conducted by RAIT last September show that the majority of Lithuanians prefer watching Russian films with Lithuanian subtitles & English or other Western films dubbed in Lithuanian. In order to change the present situation, an active & independent information policy in the Lithuanian information space is necessary. The article analyses changes in the concept of power in the information age. Soft power, comprised of information & media control, is presented as a significant lever used by major states in informational & geopolitical warfare. The article also discusses a transformed concept of geopolitics & the concept of neocolonialism. The general understanding of information space is presented & measures how to influence it are discussed. The programs broadcast by the Lithuanian television networks are presented as a specific reflection of the Lithuanian information space. An assumption is made based on the analysis of the Russian share of TV broadcasts in Lithuania that there are evident signs of informational-cultural expansion from the East in the Lithuanian information space. Adapted from the source document.