Political Misinformation in the Digital Age

Digital misinformation is threatening contemporary democracies. From Europe-wide no-mask protests of COVID-19 deniers to growing opposition to 5G antennas amid ungrounded fears of health risks, it is hard to downplay the detrimental consequences of political misinformation on the quality of democratic decision-making. What makes citizens vulnerable to political misinformation in the digital age? And how can we develop better corrective interventions to limit misinformation? Two challenges currently prevent us from addressing these questions: first, existing concepts, explanations, and corrective strategies tackle the production rather than the consumption of misinformation; second, established notions are swiftly losing grip over algorithmic-driven misinformation. DIGIMIS aims to overcome these challenges, changing how scholars and policy-makers think about misinformation in the digital era. To accomplish this, DIGIMIS will: 1) formulate and test an encompassing theoretical model accounting for heterogeneous cognitive vulnerabilities to political misinformation and related typical forms of misinformation consumption, 2) apply these new conceptual tools to investigate real misinformation networks and cascades, 3) identify how algorithmic decisions can shape the consumption of political (mis)information, 4) develop a new class of misinformation's corrective interventions targeting causal misperceptions. DIGIMIS relies on a comparative multi-method empirical design mixing traditional and computational social science methods, including smartphone-driven data collection with embedded experiments. DIGIMIS is groundbreaking in 1) developing innovative measures mapping misinformation and news literacy in the digital age, 2) pioneering innovative empirical strategies involving fine-grained behavioral data in an experimental setting, 3) developing next-generation correctives to limit misinformation effects.