Conflict potential of risk reflexivity: information management under the conditions of pandemic

Abstract

The article problematizes a range of issues related to the emergence of new mechanisms of risk-reflective legitimization / delegitimization of information control over the spread of a pandemic in the context of Covid-19, taking into account the antagonistic definitions of its threats and dangers. The main substantive task of the study is to analyze the conceptual model of classification of various types of risk reflections - communicative, autonomous, critical, and disturbed, which adjust the hierarchies of the significance and social acceptability of risks. The authors focus on the features of the behavior of a modern social subject in the conditions of uncoupling of risky communications depending on the interpretation of information about risks. The conflict potential of information flows that impose forms of risk perception and risk behavior, the mechanisms of formation of information inequality of reflection of risks and social information exclusion in the policy of distribution and compensation of risk are revealed. The article argues that the inability to appropriate the constructive elements of risk reflections in the strategy of information management of threats destroys the security. The article proves that in the information field, the risk subspace is an asymmetric structure of production, reproduction, ranking and distribution of threats and risks, functioning simultaneously as a tool and a goal of struggle. The authors argue that incorrect attributive judgments and interpretations of the threats and dangers of the pandemic can escalate social and political conflicts.