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Nachrichten, Fake News und Wahlen

Uli Gleich

Media Perspektiven, issue 5 (2025), 10 pp.

"Voraussetzung dafür, dass (politische) Fake News Wirkung entfalten, sind gewisse Vulnerabilitätsfaktoren auf Seiten der Userinnen und User. Laut den Studien von Daunt und anderen (2023) sowie von Gupta und anderen (2023) gehören dazu zum Beispiel der Glaube an Verschwörungserzählungen, Patriot ... ismus, Konservatismus und die Tendenz zu kollektivistischen Ideen von Gesellschaft. Die Analysen von Schnaudt (2024) zeigen, dass Verschwörungserzählungen nicht nur in den USA, sondern auch in den europäischen Ländern eine Herausforderung für demokratische Prozesse (z. B. Wahlen) darstellen, wenn Menschen die falschen Informationen für glaubwürdig halten. Auch Mauk und Grömping (2024) fanden in ihrer Studie heraus, dass Autoritarismus und Verschwörungsmentalität, also die Neigung, sich die Welt über Verschwörungstheorien zu erklären, das Vertrauen in Wahlen mindern, weil Informationen motiviert, das heißt in Richtung einer bestehenden Voreinstellung, verarbeitet werden. Fake News können diese motivierte Verarbeitung unterstützen und damit einen destabilisierenden Effekt erzeugen. Laut Stachofsky, Schaupp und Crossler (2023) besteht gerade bei Wählergruppen, die ihre Informationen aus Quellen beziehen, die häufig (politische) Fake News verbreiten, eine besondere Anfälligkeit, die Integrität von Wahlen in Zweifel zu ziehen. Besonders interessant ist in diesem Zusammenhang die Erkenntnis, dass die Herausforderung durch Falschinformationen und Verschwörungserzählungen ironischerweise gerade in denjenigen Ländern hoch ausgeprägt ist, in denen die Rahmenbedingungen für demokratische und unbeeinflusste Wahlen objektiv am günstigsten sind (vgl. auch die Studie von Vliegenthart und anderen, 2024). Und selbst wenn keine tatsächlichen Erkenntnisse über Anomalien bei der Durchführung von Wahlen vorliegen, können Informationen über die Wahrscheinlichkeit von Unregelmäßigkeiten die oben erwähnte motivierte Informationsverarbeitung in Gang setzten und das Vertrauen in die Integrität von Wahlen bedrohen (vgl. die Studie von Kuk, Lee und Rhee (2024)). Studien, die den direkten Einfluss von Fake News auf Wahlentscheidungen untersuchen, sind methodisch schwierig und selten zu finden. Iida und andere (2024) konnten nur geringe Effekte feststellen und betonen, dass eine entsprechende Wirkung eher bei Personen entsteht, die keine ausgeprägten politischen Überzeugungen haben und/oder politisch weniger gut informiert sind. Auch Cantarella, Fraccaroli und Volpe (2023) konnten nur kleine Effekte ermitteln, die jedoch signifikant zum Wahlergebnis zugunsten populistischer Parteien in Italien beigetragen haben." (Zusammenfassung, Seiten 1-2) more

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“Votes will not be counted”: Indian election disinformation ads and YouTube

Access Now;Global Witness (2024), 9 pp.

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Microtargeting, voters’ unawareness, and democracy

Freek van Gils, Wieland Müller, Jens Prüfer

Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, issue ewae002 (2024), 20 pp.

"Recent technological developments have raised concerns about threats to democracy because of their potential to distort election outcomes: (a) data-driven voter research enabling political microtargeting and (b) growing news consumption via social media and news aggregators that obfuscate the origi ... more

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Mapping a Surge of Disinformation in Africa

Washington, DC: Africa Center for Strategic Studies (2024)

"Disinformation campaigns have targeted every region of the continent. At least 39 African countries have been the target of a specific disinformation campaign. Disinformation tends to be concentrated. Half of the countries subjected to disinformation (20 of the 39) have been targeted three or more ... times, up from just seven countries meeting that threshold in 2022. African countries experiencing conflict are subject to much greater levels of disinformation—facing a median of 5 campaigns– highlighting the connection between instability and disinformation. Countries confronting disinformation typically face multiple disinformation actors. At times, these actors amplify one another’s misleading narratives, while at others, they clash or stay in separate lanes. Nearly 60 percent of disinformation campaigns on the continent are foreign state-sponsored—with Russia, China, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, and Qatar as the primary sponsors. Russia continues to be the primary purveyor of disinformation in Africa, sponsoring 80 documented campaigns, targeting more than 22 countries. This represents nearly 40 percent of all disinformation campaigns in Africa. These 80 campaigns have reached many millions of users through tens of thousands of coordinated fake pages and posts. Aggressively leveraging disinformation is a mainstay of Russia’s use of irregular channels to gain influence in Africa. Russia has promulgated disinformation to undermine democracy in at least 19 African countries, contributingto the continent’s backsliding on this front. African elections provide prime opportunities for disinformation. Some employ mercenary disinfo-ops teams. One private Israeli group, dubbed “Team Jorge,” has reportedly implemented disinformation campaigns to disrupt over 20 African elections since 2015. Domestic actors have also increasingly integrated disinformation into their political playbooks, notably during Kenya’s 2022 and Nigeria’s 2023 election. African countries that uphold presidential term limits (i.e., those with stronger checks and balances) are less exposed to foreign sponsored disinformation, with an average of 1.5 campaigns compared to an average of over 3 campaigns for countries without term limits. This underscores the common aim of foreign disinformation to prop up authoritarian actors." (Highlights) more

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Checking verifications during the 2022 Brazilian run-off election: How fact-checking organizations exposed falsehoods and contributed to the accuracy of the public debate

Regina Cazzamatta, Augusto Santos

Journalism, volume 25, issue 10 (2024), pp. 2022-2043

"This study observes content-related indicators of the editorial decisions made by factcheckers during the 2022 Brazilian run-off election. Specifically, it aims to investigate factcheckers’ outputs regarding verification genres, scrutinized actors, types of verified falsehoods, and inspected plat ... more

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Social media and mis/disinformation in electoral context in the DRC

Pierre N'sana, Patient Ligodi, Pierre Bahati Ndamwenge et al.

USAID;FHI 360;Internews (2024), 57 pp.

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Political Economy of Covert Influence Operations in the 2022 Philippine Elections
Top Insights

Fatima Gaw, Jon Benedik A. Bunquin, Samuel Cabbuag, Jose Mari H. Lanuza, Noreen H. Sapalo, Yusoph Al-Habbyel B.

Internews (2023), 168 pp.

"This report investigates the political economy of covert influence in the 2022 Philippine Elections, with a focus on social media influencers involved in covert political campaigning. This interdisciplinary research (1) examines political influencers and peripheral actors in the field engaged in po ... more

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Dissemination of disinformation on political and electoral processes in Nigeria: An exploratory study

Idayat Hassan

Cogent Arts & Humanities, volume 10, issue 2216983 (2023), 11 pp.

"Increasingly, social media has become a major source of fake news, with disinformation used as a tool in manipulating public opinion and delegitimizing opposing voices. This study explores the influence of the content of social media on traditional media, and the proliferation of disinformation in ... more

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Preserving trust in democracy: The Brazilian Superior Electoral Court's quest to tackle disinformation in elections

Rafael Rubio, Vitor de Andrade Monteiro

South African Journal of International Affairs, volume 30, issue 3 (2023), pp. 497-520

"Trust is the foundation on which democracy is built. Not coincidentally, it is the main victim of attacks by disinformation merchants bent on undermining the electoral process and the democratic environment. This article outlines the efforts of the Brazilian Superior Electoral Court (TSE) to tackle ... more

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Towards a model that measures the impact of disinformation on elections

Jonáš Syrovátka, Nikola Horejš, Sarah Komasová

European View, volume 22, issue 1 (2023), pp. 119-130

"Disinformation represents a danger to the integrity and legitimacy of the electoral process. From our research based on the 2021 Czech parliamentary elections, we introduce a model for measuring the resilience of citizens to disinformation. This model is then used to draw conclusions about the impa ... more

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Survey on the impact of online disinformation and hate speech
Quick Overview

Paris: UNESCO;Ipsos (2023), 35 slides

"On average in the 16 countries surveyed, 56% of internet users frequently use social media to stay informed about current events, far ahead of television (44%). However, it is worth noting that differences exist among population groups: television is the primary source in the most developed countri ... more

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Eleições, direitos digitais e desinformação: Desafios e aprendizagens a partir da experiência brasileira em 2022

Anna Bentes

Derechos Digitales (2023), 128 pp.

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Information Integrity to Sustain Peace during Electoral Processes. Sustaining Peace during Electoral Processes (SELECT) Project

New York: UNDP (2023), 48 pp.

"The purpose of this report is to gain a better understanding of the pertinent dynamics and to bolster the design of programming to support the information ecosystem around elections. In aid of this, UNDP sought information through a number of channels, in a review of the relevant literature, a seri ... more

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State-Sponsored Online Disinformation: Impact on Electoral Integrity in Thailand

Korbkusol Neelapaichit, Ekmongkhon Puridej (eds.)

Bangkog: Asia Centre (2023), vii, 42 pp.

"[This publication] outlines how organised disinformation campaigns or Information Operations have become the latest variable to impact the quality of elections in the kingdom [...] Drawn from past evidence, the report identifies four forms of state-sponsored disinformation campaigns that are likely ... more

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Exploring Disinformation in Fragile States: Iraq as a Case Study of Influence of International Political Actors

Rawand Faeq

Tokyo: Toda Peace Institute (2023), 18 pp.

"This paper examines the influence of international political actors in perpetuating disinformation in fragile states, using Iraq as a case study. The advent of modern technology and social media has transformed the global information landscape, providing new avenues for the dissemination of disinfo ... more

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Regulating misleading political advertising on online platforms: An example of regulatory mercantilism in digital policy

Benjamin Farrand

Policy Studies, volume 45, issue 5 (2023), pp. 730–749

"Since its Joint Communication on Hybrid Threats, the EU has publicly recognized the risks to its security posed by non-traditional means aimed at undermining its legitimacy. The propagation of disinformation including misleading political advertising serves as a key example of how the Commission’ ... more

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From Disinformation to Influence Operations: The Evolution of Disinformation in Three Electoral Cycles

Rossine Fallorina, Jose Mari Hall Lanuza, Juan Gabriel Felix, Ferdinand Sanchez, Jonathan Corpus Ong, Nicole Curato

Internews (2023), 56 pp.

"How has the Philippine disinformation landscape evolved since 2016? How different was the 2022 presidential election from previous electoral cycles? And what lessons can we learn from electoral triumphs and defeats often associated with disinformation? This report goes to the heart of these questio ... more

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Liquid Disinformation Tactics: Overcoming Social Media Countermeasures through Misleading Content

Ricardo Ribeiro Ferreira

Journalism Practice, volume 16, issue 8 (2022), pp. 1537-1558

"Social media have led to profound transformations in the media ecosystem and new communication dynamics. Such platforms have become a competitive source of information and played a decisive role in facilitating the dissemination of false or misleading content, with a particular impact on recent ele ... more

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Talking to Trolls—How Users Respond to a Coordinated Information Operation and Why They’re so Supportive

Darren L. Linvill, Patrick L. Warren, Amanda E. Moore

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, volume 27, issue 1, zmab022 (2022), 19 pp.

"Through this research we gained insight into tactics employed by state-backed social media disinformation. With that goal, we explored user interactions with inauthentic Twitter accounts. We used multiple procedures to measure the ways in which users talked with and about the accounts employed by t ... more

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Youth and Disinformation in Malaysia: Strengthening Electoral Integrity

Korbkusol Neelapaichit, Ekmongkhon Puridej, Pemtat Chanhom (ed.)

Bangkog: Asia Centre (2022), vii, 44 pp.

"In 2022, internet penetration and social platform usage reached an all-time high – 43.4% of the total population who use the internet are youth aged between 15-24 years. Youth voters have explicitly become a major target of political parties and their campaign messages. We can expect social media ... more

Political Economy of Covert Influence Operations in the 2022 Philippine Elections Top Insights

Survey on the impact of online disinformation and hate speech Quick Overview

Political Economy of Covert Influence Operations in the 2022 Philippine Elections
Top Insights

Survey on the impact of online disinformation and hate speech
Quick Overview