Powered by innovation, derailed by disinformation: A multi-country analysis of the influence of online political disinformation on nations' innovation performance

Pramukh Nanjundaswamy Vasist and Satish Krishnan

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2024, vol. 199, issue C

Abstract: A nation's development is determined by its predisposition for innovation and commitment to fostering innovation ecosystems. However, the political structures and disinformation within them represent a significant threat to innovation endeavors. Despite disinformation's far-reaching repercussions, its role in stifling innovation remains largely unknown. Anchored on the need to shed light on its debilitating effects, the current study examines the influence of social media disinformation from the government, political parties, and foreign governments in derailing nations' innovation performance. Drawing upon complexity theory and configurational analysis, the results of a cross-country examination based on data from 2021 to 22 and encompassing 131 nations indicate that the spread of disinformation by governments and political parties poses an increasing threat to innovation performance, surpassing the influence exerted by foreign disinformation. The supplemental analysis reinforces this finding but emphasizes that the risk of foreign disinformation remains a persistent concern for innovation efforts in developed countries. The results have implications for the emergent body of technology research on the dark side of social media and the escalating crisis of false information over the past few years while also extending recent claims regarding the role of political systems in influencing the innovation ecosystem within countries.

Keywords: Disinformation; Fake news; Qualitative comparative analysis; Social media; Innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004016252300714X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:199:y:2024:i:c:s004016252300714x

DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2023.123029

Access Statistics for this article

Technological Forecasting and Social Change is currently edited by Fred Phillips

More articles in Technological Forecasting and Social Change from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().