Summary
The diffusion of misinformation, propaganda, and conspiracy theories on social media are threating democratic values worldwide. Malevolent use of social media is not only eroding public trust in mainstream media but is also reducing citizens’ trust in democratic institutions. This decline in trust (and often in concert with unfounded claims) has led to protests and even violent rioting, illustrating a growing divide between citizens and their democratic institutions. Although several interdisciplinary solutions have been developed to gauge and control the cascade of misleading information, the threat persists and is only predicted to deteriorate. Previous research has pointed out that, thus far, little attention has been paid to the individuals’ behaviours when consuming news. In this interdisciplinary work, we set out to harness insights from emerging paradigms in cognitive science, social psychology, collective behaviour and computational social science to better understand the sociological, cultural, and psychological factors that influence individuals’ choices when consuming and sharing misinformation; and how these choices cascade throughout their social circles and communities. The project aims to gain insights into individuals’ online behaviour on three key dimensions, 1) visual attention, 2) conversational affordances, and 3) temporal information diffusion. By combining these insights with computational social science and statistical methods, and by applying them to large-scale digital trace data of EU citizens, we aim to provide new insights into the sociological and psychological factors that make individuals more susceptible to trusting misinformation. The project aims to contribute to the EU’s democracy plan of developing policies to defend EU citizens against misinformation, disinformation, and foreign interference.
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More information & hyperlinks
| Web resources: | https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101111447 |
| Start date: | 01-06-2024 |
| End date: | 14-08-2026 |
| Total budget - Public funding: | - 189 687,00 Euro |
Cordis data
Original description
The diffusion of misinformation, propaganda, and conspiracy theories on social media are threating democratic values worldwide. Malevolent use of social media is not only eroding public trust in mainstream media but is also reducing citizens’ trust in democratic institutions. This decline in trust (and often in concert with unfounded claims) has led to protests and even violent rioting, illustrating a growing divide between citizens and their democratic institutions. Although several interdisciplinary solutions have been developed to gauge and control the cascade of misleading information, the threat persists and is only predicted to deteriorate. Previous research has pointed out that, thus far, little attention has been paid to the individuals’ behaviours when consuming news. In this interdisciplinary work, we set out to harness insights from emerging paradigms in cognitive science, social psychology, collective behaviour and computational social science to better understand the sociological, cultural, and psychological factors that influence individuals’ choices when consuming and sharing misinformation; and how these choices cascade throughout their social circles and communities. The project aims to gain insights into individuals’ online behaviour on three key dimensions, 1) visual attention, 2) conversational affordances, and 3) temporal information diffusion. By combining these insights with computational social science and statistical methods, and by applying them to large-scale digital trace data of EU citizens, we aim to provide new insights into the sociological and psychological factors that make individuals more susceptible to trusting misinformation. The project aims to contribute to the EU’s democracy plan of developing policies to defend EU citizens against misinformation, disinformation, and foreign interference.Status
SIGNEDCall topic
HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01-01Update Date
31-07-2023
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