Purpose. This study investigates how social media environments shape evaluations of political information, focusing on whether nuanced viewpoints are devalued relative to more outspoken, radical expre...

Over the last decade, conspiracy theories and beliefs in them have become a more pressing social and political problem. Despite different media being the main channels through which conspiracy theo...

What drives affective polarization? A systematic literature review

Der Rechtsextremismus wird immer mehr zur Bedrohung für die Demokratie als Ganzes. Rechtsextreme Parteien wie die AfD haben sich in den letzten Jahren immer weiter radi­kalisiert, gleichzeitig erlebe...

A neuroscientist dares to argue that old-fashioned psychoanalysis holds the key to curing mental illness.

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Technical Papers - Resilience and Vulnerability to Misinformation and Disinformation in Political Information Environments: A Comparative Review of Ten Indexes

Several decades of work in both philosophy and psychology acutely highlights our limitations as individual inquirers. One way to recognize these limitations is to defer to experts: roughly, to form...

The report examines the evolving impact of digital technologies on European democracy. In an era of a global struggle to control the information space, this report offers critical insights into the fracturing of perceived realities, the rise of the ”fantasy-industrial complex,” and the systemic risks posed by the attention economy. It exposes how platforms algorithmically prioritise engagement over accuracy, reinforcing ideological echo chambers and amplifying mis- and disinformation that erode democratic resilience. The report highlights how structural incentives and foreign control of the most important players in the information space undermine information integrity, collective knowledge and civic discourse. In response, the report presents a number of recommendations from fostering alternative public spaces and crowd-sourced knowledge systems to reforming business models, restoring user agency, and advancing EU digital sovereignty through decentralised infrastructure.

Different commentators are often invited in the media in order to discuss medical and health-related advances, such as the deployment of new vaccines or prevention tests. How do the expertise and opin...

This study investigates how Germany’s anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine protest movement, led mainly by the Querdenken network, allied with conspiracist and far-right groups, utilized scientific authorit...