MEDIA AS AN ENVIRONMENT FOR IDENTIFICATION: GLOBAL CHALLENGES AND LOCAL RESPONSES

Abstract

The aim of this article is to highlight how information warfare (using fake news techniques) and cultural appropriation are jointly reformatting the processes of individual and group identification in a globalised media environment. Methodology.The views of media researchers such as M. McLuhan, N. Postman, and N. Coldry are combined with contemporary developments in the field of strategic communication and disinformation. The concepts of authors such as bell hooks and R. Rogers have made it possible to interpret cultural media practices as elements of the broader logic of the global cultural industry, where symbolic capital is transformed into commercial profit. Scientific novelty. By combining research on disinformation and criticism of cultural appropriation, fields that are usually considered separately, a model is proposed that explains how epistemic destabilisation and symbolic commercialisation are interrelated. This concept of a ‘double helix’ explains why the threat to identity cannot be countered in a fragmented way: cognitive and cultural dimensions must be addressed simultaneously through interventions that change the media environment itself. Conclusions. Contemporary media have become an active environment where identities are simultaneously formed and destroyed. The two main threats – information warfare and cultural appropriation – form a ‘double helix’: the first undermines trust in facts and shared narratives, while the second commodifies symbols taken out of context, reinforcing cognitive ruin with new manipulative images. An effective response must be systemic: media literacy as civil defence, traceable digital heritage licences and transparent platform algorithms are changing the very rules of information and meaning circulation.The proposed model integrates research on disinformation and appropriation, outlines the cumulative risk, and points to the need for further monitoring, especially given the growth of generative AI. Protecting identity requires the simultaneous protection of truth and symbols, which is only possible through an ecological rethinking of the media space.