The sharing of disinformation in cross-national comparison: analyzing patterns of resilience

ABSTRACT

Although the problem of disinformation is on the rise across the globe, previous research has found that countries differ in the extent of widespread disinformation. In this study, we examine the willingness to disseminate disinformation across six countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S.). We use a model by Humprecht et al. (2020) to study to what degree various systemic-structural factors influence individual behavior and contribute to resilience to disinformation. We draw on uniformly collected primary survey data and use regression analyses to examine which factors may explain citizens’ decisions to not further propagate disinformation. The results of our cross-national study show that resilience factors are country-specific and are highly dependent on the respective political and information environments. While in some countries extreme ideology weakens resilience, in others low education can have such an effect. Cross-national resilience factors include heavy social media use, the use of alternative media, and populist party support. We discuss what kind of tailored measures in combating online disinformation are needed to improve social resilience across different countries.

KEYWORDS:

• disinformation
• resilience
• comparative research
• social media

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Research Foundation - Flanders (Grant No. 100017L_182253).

Notes on contributors

Edda Humprecht

Edda Humprecht is senior research and teaching associate in the Department of Communication and Media Research, University of Zurich. Her research focuses on digital communication in cross-national perspective.

Frank Esser

Frank Esser is professor of International & Comparative Media Research in the Department of Communication and Media Research at the University of Zurich. His research focuses on cross-national studies of news journalism and political communication.

Peter Van Aelst

Peter Van Aelst is a research professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Antwerp and a founding member of the research group ‘Media, Movements and Politics’ (M2P). His research focuses on political communication.

Anna Staender

Anna Staender is a PhD student n the Department of Communication and Media Research, University of Zurich.

Sophie Morosoli

Sophie Morosoli is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Antwerp.