Misinformation Campaigns, Populism, and the Role of Journalism

Alarming messages about the alleged unprecedented and undermining influence of misinformation and fake news abound in popular discourse. Yet, we currently lack clear theorizing and evidence on how misinformation and related delegitimizing discourses affect democracy. In this chapter, we consider the challenges of misinformation embedded in a wider context of distrust, delegitimizing attacks on journalism, and the prevalence of populist beliefs that emphasize a central boundary between ‘honest’ people and ‘deceptive’ others, including widespread attacks on the media considered as an enemy of the people. Crucially, we regard misinformation as a three-faced problem throughout this chapter: It exists as a perception related to the honesty and accuracy of information, a (populist) accusation targeted at the mainstream media or other knowledge disseminators, and an information-based threat related to the dissemination of information that is inaccurate and/or not based on relevant expert knowledge. Together, these three elements of misinformation may contribute to increasing relativism toward factual information, distrust in established information, and polarization related to alternative versions of reality and the truth surrounding key events, such as immigration, climate change, and health-related issues.