Disinformation And The Resilience Of Democratic Societies

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Dec 5, 2025, 10:02 PM

disinformation and the resilience of democratic societies

You have full access to this open access article A Correction to this article was published on 31 May 2025 This article addresses the critical issue of societal resilience in the face of disinformation, particularly in highly digitized democratic societies. Recognizing the escalating impact of disinformation as a significant threat to societal security, the study conducts a scoping review of the literature from 2018 to 2022 to explore the current understanding and approaches to... The core contribution of the article is the development of a preliminary typological framework that addresses key elements and issue areas relevant to societal resilience to disinformation. This framework spans multiple dimensions, including legal/regulatory, educational, political/governance, psychological/social-psychological, and technological domains.

By synthesizing existing knowledge and filling identified gaps, the framework aims to serve as a foundational tool for empirical analyses and the enhancement of resilience strategies. One of the innovative aspects of the proposed framework is its potential to be transformed into a computable and customizable tool. This tool would measure the maturity level of various countermeasures against disinformation, thereby providing a practical methodology for planning and implementing effective democratic responses to disinformation. The article emphasizes the importance of this framework as both a conceptual and practical guide. It offers valuable insights for a wide range of civil society actors, including policymakers, educators, and technologists, in their efforts to protect information integrity and bolster societal resilience. By laying the groundwork for a more comprehensive understanding of societal resilience to disinformation, the article contributes to the broader discourse on information protection and provides actionable guidance for addressing the evolving challenges posed...

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript. In highly digitized democratic societies, there are growing concerns about the impact of disinformation. European countries have faced significant challenges related to disinformation issues, such as elections, fundamental democratic values, pandemics, and migration, among others. This has prompted the European Commission (2018a) to outline four pillars in its action plan on tackling online disinformation. These include improving institutional capabilities, fostering coordinated responses, engaging the private sector, and raising awareness. The Digital Services Act (European Union 2022) has binding regulatory powers to address large social media platforms, for instance, if they are deemed to be promoting and disseminating disinformation.

However, the effectiveness of these measures remains uncertain. The Global Risks Report 2024 by the World Economic Forum (2024) clearly illustrates this, ranking disinformation as the most severe short-term (2-year) global risk and placing societal polarization in third place – with both... Edited by: Ludmilla Huntsman, Cognitive Security Alliance, United States Reviewed by: J. D. Opdyke, DataMineit, LLC, United States

Hugh Lawson-Tancred, Birkbeck University of London, United Kingdom *Correspondence: Alexander Romanishyn, a.romanishyn@ise-group.org Received 2025 Jan 31; Accepted 2025 Jun 30; Collection date 2025. Disinformation is often considered one of the main threats to democracies, but strategies to counter it systematically remain debated (OECD, 2022; Turcilo & Obrenovic, 2020; West, 2017). The spread of disinformation is often connected to the trend of democratic backsliding; the deliberate dismantling of democratic norms and institutions by political elites (Colomina et al., 2021; Maati et al., 2023; Reisher, 2022;... Yet, disinformation research focuses disproportionately on so-called consolidated Western democracies, especially the United States.

1 To understand the structural features relevant to exposure and resilience to disinformation in countries experiencing democratic backsliding, we first apply the framework established by Humprecht et al. (2020) beyond consolidated democracies. The framework identifies features of a country’s political, media, and economic landscape that influence resilience to disinformation at the societal (rather than individual) level. We extend this framework to the Visegrád countries – Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia – formerly authoritarian communist countries that are now experiencing democratic backsliding and an increasingly “illiberal public sphere” (Štětka & Mihelj,... Evidence of these phenomena are emerging in Czechia (Cianetti & Hanley, 2021; Hanley & Vachudova, 2019), and there is broad consensus about Hungary’s new status as a competitive authoritarian regime (Krekó & Enyedi, 2018;... Similarly, scholars argue that under the rule of the Law and Justice Party (PiS) – until December 2023 –Poland regressed to a semi-consolidated democracy (Wójcik & Wiatrowski, 2022), and serious challenges to liberal democracy...

The variation in the degree of democratic erosion in these countries, combined with their shared history and cultural interconnectivity, makes them an excellent set of cases for clarifying the potential relationships between societies’ resilience... There may be multiple reasons to expect that the original framework, which was designed for consolidated democracies, is not sufficient to explain resilience to disinformation in other countries. Research outside of established democracies indicates that trust in the media in these countries is conditioned by popular wisdom and personal experience (Alyukov, 2023), social interactions (Pasitselska, 2022), and historical contexts (Pjesivac et al.,... In the process of applying the original framework, we empirically identify several key differences in resilience features between democratic and eroding regimes. For example, we observe that consuming and trusting politically captured media that disseminate disinformation should be interpreted as lower resilience in eroding regimes. Therefore, we use our initial findings to suggest advances to the framework in application to eroding democracies and then empirically apply our advanced framework.

To do so, we integrated V-Dem’s (Coppedge et al., 2019) Media Capture Index to account for the ownership features of a country’s media landscape. Media capture refers to the degree of control exercised over the media by political elites, which enables the latter to define the public agenda and, by extension, public opinion (Hallin & Mancini, 2004; Schiffrin,... We also identify the part played by civil society in countries experiencing democratic backsliding, adding a Civil Society Index to account for variation in the scope of civic spaces and pro-democratic mass mobilization. The Civil Society Index helps highlight the role of non-government actors, which have been shown to bolster democratic practice and improve societal resilience to disinformation (Bernhard, 2020; Eisen et al., 2019). In the empirical application of our advanced framework, we identify that Slovakia and Czechia fit the “polarized” cluster alongside countries in southern Europe identified by Humprecht et al. (2020), with Slovakia demonstrating the most resilience.

Poland and Hungary are distinct from these countries both in their degree of media capture and in their civil society responses, with Hungary being the least resilient. Our application highlights the importance of these additional dimensions in identifying variation among countries experiencing democratic backsliding. We then apply our advanced framework back to the consolidated democracies used in Humprecht et al.’s (2020) original study, demonstrating that our advancements also improve our comprehension of resilience to disinformation in these countries. When applied to both the Visegrád group and the European countries in Humprecht et al.’s (2020) study, our advanced framework reveals that the degree of media capture conditions the relationship between media trust and... The Disinformation Deluge: A Threat to Democracy Itself Disinformation, the deliberate spread of false or misleading information, has evolved from a nuisance into a full-blown assault on democracy.

It’s no longer merely about manipulating elections or eroding trust in media; it now targets the fundamental rights and freedoms that underpin democratic societies. The right to access accurate information, to express oneself freely, and to participate meaningfully in public life are all under attack. Worse still, this erosion of rights paves the way for unchecked power, whether wielded by those officially in office or by influential figures operating in the shadows. This orchestrated campaign of deceit seeks to undermine democratic institutions, replacing accountability and transparency with arbitrary rule and intimidation. The consequences of inaction are dire, jeopardizing the very foundations of a free and just society. The Tactics of Disinformation: Flooding the Zone, Silencing Dissent

One of the primary tactics employed by purveyors of disinformation is to "flood the zone," overwhelming the public sphere with a torrent of falsehoods and conspiracy theories. This creates an environment where reasoned debate becomes impossible, where lies are amplified, and where the voices of reason struggle to be heard. Independent voices – journalists, civil society organizations, and even judicial figures – are often targeted with baseless accusations and smear campaigns, designed to discredit them and silence their critique. This strategy aims to undermine public trust in legitimate sources of information, leaving citizens vulnerable to manipulation and increasingly reliant on those disseminating the disinformation. Social media platforms, with their vast reach and algorithms that can prioritize sensational content, often exacerbate this problem. The Urgency of Regulation: Protecting Freedom, Ensuring Accountability

Ullrich Ecker is a professor at the School of Psychological Science and a fellow at the Public Policy Institute, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia. Jon Roozenbeek is assistant professor in psychology and security at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, UK. Sander van der Linden is a professor of social psychology in society at the University of Cambridge, UK. Li Qian Tay is a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Medicine and Psychology, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. John Cook is a senior research fellow at the Melbourne Centre for Behaviour Change at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Disinformation, the deliberate dissemination of false or misleading information to deceive or manipulate public opinion, represents a profound and ongoing threat to Western democracies.

It erodes trust in institutions, fuels polarization, and undermines decision-making processes. Russian disinformation campaigns, in particular, showcase a sophisticated, multilayered system of narratives tailored to exploit societal vulnerabilities. Understanding their architecture and methodologies is critical for crafting effective countermeasures to safeguard democratic systems. Moscow’s disinformation campaigns have achieved significant victories in reshaping public opinion and influencing geopolitical trajectories. In Georgia, Russian narratives have successfully steered segments of the population away from a Western-oriented path, fostering skepticism toward European integration and NATO membership. Similarly, these campaigns have undermined international support for Ukraine by spreading false narratives about the conflict, portraying Ukraine as a failed state or aggressor, and sowing doubts about the necessity of Western involvement.

Moreover, Russia’s strategic use of disinformation has eroded trust in NATO, amplifying fears of alliance overreach and internal divisions. These successes highlight the dangerous efficacy of disinformation in advancing Moscow’s geopolitical agenda and emphasize the urgent need for robust counter-strategies. Russian disinformation operates as a well-coordinated ecosystem capable of deploying and adapting diverse narratives across multiple platforms. These narratives are strategically designed to evolve in intensity and variation, targeting the unique characteristics of the media environments and societies they infiltrate. Countries with complex media landscapes are especially vulnerable due to the multiplicity of audiences and channels. Key narrative categories include the “Russian World” (Russkiy Mir), which solidifies identification with Russia among Russian-speaking populations, particularly in nations like Latvia, Estonia, and Ukraine.

The narrative of Slavic Unity leverages shared ethnic and historical ties to bolster support for Russia’s geopolitical agenda. Similarly, nostalgia for the Soviet era challenges Western-dominated global systems by portraying Russia as a counterbalance to perceived Western hegemony. Other narratives focus on “anti” rhetoric against the European Union, NATO, and liberal democratic values, resonating with far-right and nationalist movements in Europe. Finally, the strategy of presenting alternative and conflicting information seeks to erode the concept of objective truth, creating confusion and mistrust of credible sources. The systemic nature of these campaigns relies on a network of state institutions, including the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Federal Security Service, alongside state-controlled media and private actors. Even the Russian Orthodox Church plays a strategic role in amplifying these messages.

Counteracting such interconnected networks requires a holistic and targeted approach that goes beyond addressing individual narratives to dismantle the broader infrastructure. A particularly insidious component of this ecosystem is the role of the Russian Orthodox Church and its affiliated organizations in advancing Kremlin-aligned narratives. Under the guise of anti-cult activities, these efforts marginalize minority religious communities while promoting Russian imperialist ideologies. The Russian Association of Centers for the Study of Religions and Sects (RACIRS), led by Alexander Dvorkin, exemplifies this strategy. Through seminars, publications, and collaborations with media outlets, RACIRS propagates divisive rhetoric abroad, often justifying Russia’s foreign and domestic policies, including the invasion of Ukraine. For instance, RACIRS has engaged in partnerships with pro-Russian groups in Central and Eastern Europe to influence public opinion.

Disinformation And The Resilience Of Democratic Societies

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