Demagoguery, technology, and cognition: addressing the threats to democracy

Numerous indicators suggest that democracy is under threat, including in Europe. In 2020, The Economist’s democracy index determined that one EU member state, Hungary, was no longer a democracy. Throughout Europe, populist movements –mainly, but not exclusively, on the political right– have pitted “the people” against a presumed “elite” that is variously constructed as including mainstream media, politicians, experts, scientists, and academics. The COVID-19 pandemic has put further pressure on societies by requiring restrictions on social behaviours to control the pandemic that are unprecedented in democracies and that may facilitate autocratization. Although symptoms and causes of these trends are intertwined and difficult
to tease apart, there is little doubt that wilful disregard of evidence and expertise, accompanied by a flood of misinformation –on social media, in hyperpartisan news sites, and in political discourse– are at the heart of the challenge to democracies. Misinformation matters: Exposure has been shown to make a causal contribution to populist voting in Italy, to triggering ethnic hate crimes in Germany and Russia, and it has been shown to set political agendas. Misinformation is particularly problematic because it has longer-term consequences: false information lingers in memory even if people acknowledge, believe, and try to adhere to a correction. Lingering misinformation, in turn, can be politically consequential, for example when corrections of politicians’ falsehoods do not affect people’s feeling about the politician or their voting intention. Misinformation, however, does not exist in a vacuum: misinformation is disseminated
(sometimes intentionally, in which case it is best referred to as disinformation) and it is consumed and shared by the public. To understand the effects of misinformation on democracy thus requires an understanding of the processes of dissemination and consumption. In this chapter, I focus on two
important drivers of misinformation spread and how they interact with human cognition: First, I examine the role of demagogues; that is, political leaders who rely on false claims and promises, and emotive exploitation of people’s prejudices, in order to gain power. How do they exercise power, and why do people
accept demagoguery? Second, I examine the role of social media, focusing in particular on the role of algorithms. How does social media capture human attention? Why do people participate in sharing of misinformation?