The Three D’s: Digital Campaign, Disinformation and Detachment of Democracy

Digital universes have the strongest potential to both threaten and nurture democracy. Social media is a virtual space that can encourage political engagement and civic participation in public debate. However, it also poses challenges to democratic governance, given its power to influence public opinion and the agenda-setting. Most notably, digital propaganda and misinformation, spread by malicious or foreign actors, can undermine the integrity of, and trust in, electoral and democratic processes. Furthermore, misinformation is hardly countered by journalists and media organizations through fact-checking and debunking and politicians and pundits struggle to control the flow of dis/misinformation and sometimes falling for it when it serves their own purposes. As a result, innovative normative solutions to protect electoral processes elections, preserve open democratic debate and update digital safeguards have become a hot topic around the world. Ahead of the 2024 European Parliament elections, the European Commission reviewed the implementation of the European Democracy Action Plan, which aims to empower citizens and build more resilient democracies, by strengthening media freedom, countering disinformation and preventing foreign interference and extremism. The panel aims to tackle the complex phenomenon of online political propaganda during election campaign and the challenges it poses to the foundations of representative democracy.
We are looking forward to contributions that address the issue of misinformation and possible solutions to improve the transparency of the electoral campaigns, the accountability of democratic institutions and to restore citizens’ trust in democratic processes from an interdisciplinary perspective, with particular focus on:
- Information disruption and polarization dynamics in the digital public sphere during election campaigns;
- The impact of platformization on political engagement and on electoral campaigns;
- The analysis of private funding flows for online propaganda;
- Assessing regulatory responses to potential foreign interference and misinformation in election campaigns.
Contributions may be theoretical, empirical or methodological, using qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods approaches. We particularly welcome comparative studies that offer cross-platform and cross-national insights into online campaigning and risks to democracy.</p>