Murphy, B. (2023). Disinformation and Democracy. In: Foreign Disinformation in America and the U.S. Government’s Ethical Obligations to Respond. Lecture Notes in Social Networks. Springer, Cham.
Abstract
Across time and cultures, how information is conveyed and the degree to which it is manipulated can have an impact on a healthy democracy. Disinformation is one form of speech that makes up illiberal speech. The various forms of illiberal speech can be synergistic in degrading democratic underpinnings. Disinformation undercuts the structural integrity and inhibits the process of a liberal democracy. The corpus of literature points to the importance of maintaining a degree of popular trust in institutions for liberal democratic stability. Researchers have generally agreed that disinformation on social media has weakened such trust. Russian-driven social media disinformation is a significant danger to bedrock democratic principles. One of the adverse outcomes has been a degradation of the U.S. government’s ability to be seen as reliable domestically and abroad. In addition to hostile nation-states, other actors are capable of and have used disinformation to weaken America.
