DiDis – „Digital disruption and disinformation: challenges to institutional legitimacy and trustworthiness“

The project DiDis investigates the impact of disinformation dissemination on political institutions and their legitimacy in order to increase knowledge about the disruption of the digital public sphere and its impact on the institutional dimension of democracy. The empirical analysis refers to four dimensions of digital information: provision, acquisition, dissemination, and accuracy.

In the post-truth era, the value of accurate information takes on new meaning, while so-called "fake news" spreads via digital media and political institutions face increasing polarization and a decline in public trust. Therefore, the project deals with disinformation in the triangular constellation between state, citizens and digital media. To do so, the role of information in digital media will be reconceptualized to link it more closely to the implications on the trustworthiness of information provided by the state and political actors and the legitimacy of political institutions. The project will also conduct an empirical analysis on how different sources of information (official state source, informal political actors and informal non-political actors) produce and disseminate information and how citizens access and assess this information in regards to accuracy and trustworthiness. Through an interdisciplinary collaboration with the Barkhausen Institute, the topic will be considered from the perspective of both political science and electrical engineering, in order to finally bring these two perspectives together.

The project is part of the measure „Disruption and Societal Change“ (TUDiSC) in which disruption will be investigated and elevated as a basic category of social change in its conditions, logics, and effects – both in terms of foundational research and with regards to case-based examples. For this, researchers from different academic backgrounds will work together in an interdisciplinary manner.