A systematic review of worldwide causal and correlational evidence on digital media and democracy

Philipp  Lorenz-Spreen; Lisa  Oswald; Stephan Lewandowsky; Ralph Hertwig

doi:10.1038/s41562-022-01460-1

A systematic review of worldwide causal and correlational evidence on digital media and democracy

Philipp Lorenz-Spreen^*, Lisa Oswald, Stephan Lewandowsky, Ralph Hertwig

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

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Abstract

One of today’s most controversial and consequential issues is whether the global uptake of digital media is causally related to a decline in democracy. We conducted a systematic review of causal and correlational evidence (N = 496 articles) on the link between digital media use and different political variables. Some associations, such as increasing political participation and information consumption, are likely to be beneficial for democracy and were often observed in autocracies and emerging democracies. Other associations, such as declining political trust, increasing populism and growing polarization, are likely to be detrimental to democracy and were more pronounced in established democracies. While the impact of digital media on political systems depends on the specific variable and system in question, several variables show clear directions of associations. The evidence calls for research efforts and vigilance by governments and civil societies to better understand, design and regulate the interplay of digital media and democracy.

Original language	English
Number of pages	30
Journal	Nature Human Behaviour
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01460-1
Publication status	Published - 7 Nov 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We thank S. Munzert for providing his perspective on causal inference and issues specific to political science, D. Ain for editing the manuscript and F. Stock for help in the literature comparison. P.L.-S., S.L. and R.H. acknowledge financial support from the Volkswagen Foundation (grant ‘Reclaiming individual autonomy and democratic discourse online: How to rebalance human and algorithmic decision-making’). S.L. acknowledges support from the Humboldt Foundation through a research award and partial support by an ERC Advanced Grant (PRODEMINFO) during completion of this paper. L.O. acknowledges financial support by the German National Academic Foundation in the form of a PhD scholarship. The authors received no specific funding for this work. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

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© 2022, The Author(s).

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Protecting the Democratic Information Space in Europe
Lewandowsky, S. (Principal Investigator), Westaway, R. M. (Administrator) & Carrella, F. (Researcher)
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abstract = "One of today{\textquoteright}s most controversial and consequential issues is whether the global uptake of digital media is causally related to a decline in democracy. We conducted a systematic review of causal and correlational evidence (N = 496 articles) on the link between digital media use and different political variables. Some associations, such as increasing political participation and information consumption, are likely to be beneficial for democracy and were often observed in autocracies and emerging democracies. Other associations, such as declining political trust, increasing populism and growing polarization, are likely to be detrimental to democracy and were more pronounced in established democracies. While the impact of digital media on political systems depends on the specific variable and system in question, several variables show clear directions of associations. The evidence calls for research efforts and vigilance by governments and civil societies to better understand, design and regulate the interplay of digital media and democracy.",

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A systematic review of worldwide causal and correlational evidence on digital media and democracy

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