University of Helsinki
On the 8th of June, next week’s Wednesday, we will have our next ElMaRB seminar with Max Grömping, Lecturer with the School of Government and International Relations at Griffith University, Australia. Dr. Grömping will give a talk “Online Disinformation and (Mis)Perceptions of Electoral Integrity”. Max Alyukov, Research Fellow at the King’s College, UK, will serve as a discussant.
The seminar will start at 10:00 sharp and can be attended via Zoom https://helsinki.zoom.us/j/61887773936?pwd=MDczaFNuWGlWY3lQQVpWMjBPeUFIZz09
Disinformation campaigns, sowing doubts about the procedural fairness of elections aim at the heart of citizens’ trust in democracy. At the same time, autocrats deploy disinformation to whitewash deeply fraudulent contests. This paper investigates the drivers of public perceptions and misperceptions of electoral integrity by linking public opinion data from 82 national elections with expert survey data on disinformation and de facto electoral integrity. Building on theories of rational belief updating and motivated reasoning, it argues that disinformation campaigns are efficacious in undermining belief accuracy among both winners and losers. The results cast doubt on recent advances in disinformation research that emphasize limited exposure and minimal effects. This contributes a cross-nationally comparative perspective to studies of (dis)information processing and belief updating, as well as attitude formation and trust surrounding highly salient political institutions such as elections.