SODAS Lecture with Lena Frischlich

In an age of generative AI, poly-crises, and global political elites that care very little about evidence-based communication, the impact of mis- and strategic disinformation has become a growing concern. The Global Economic Forum rated it as the most significant global risk for 2025–20261, and others calling it a substantial threat to democracies, a virus or intensified information warfare. Yet, others argue that the threats of misinformation are misunderstood, and that dramatic warnings have more severe consequences than misinformation itself.

We recently suggested that to understand misinformation dynamics and account for it, we must account for the complex system through which misinformation perpetuates and move beyond simple analogies that conceptualize misinformation as a "virus" or "weapon in the information warfare". In the talk, I will present insights from a just finished project in which we studied (a) which aspects of the complex system of misinformation gained most attention in the scientific literature so far through a scoping review; (b) where suggested and recently implemented interventions against misinformation are mostly situated in this framework (and which gaps remain); and (c) conducted a large conjoint experiment in which we studied citizens preferences for interventions to foster democratic resilience beyond the individual level - and how these preferences vary as a function of citizens' susceptibility to misinformation.