Political Alternative Media as a Democratic Challenge

Abstract

As political alternative media have become increasingly prominent, a key question is whether they are likely to strengthen or weaken how established democracies work. The purpose of this commentary is hence to discuss this question, focusing specifically on whether political alternative media are likely or not to contribute to a more informed citizenry. Although there may be great differences between political alternative media, the overall conclusion is that political alternative media from a democratic perspective represent a problem rather than a solution to democracy’s problem, and that this is due both to the content in them and the motivations people have for using them.

Keywords:

• Democracy
• alternative media
• misinformation
• politically motivated reasoning

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).