Democracy Dysfunctions and Citizens’ Digital Agency in Highly Contaminated Digital Information Ecosystems

Juan Herrero (), Hazal Dilan Erdem, Andrea Torrres and Alberto Urueña
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Juan Herrero: Department of Psychology, Universidad de Oviedo, 33003 Oviedo, Spain
Hazal Dilan Erdem: Department of Psychology, Universidad de Oviedo, 33003 Oviedo, Spain
Andrea Torrres: Department of Psychology, Universidad de Oviedo, 33003 Oviedo, Spain
Alberto Urueña: Department of Organization, Business Administration and Statistics, ETSI Industriales, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28006 Madrid, Spain

Societies, 2025, vol. 15, issue 7, 1-21

Abstract: Social media platforms have been recognized as significant contributors to the dissemination of polarizing content, the spread of disinformation, and the proliferation of far-right populist discourse. While certain political actors deliberately seek to disseminate disinformation, a more nuanced understanding is necessary to elucidate why users consume and accept this biased content. Using data from over 120,000 participants across five European and Spanish surveys, we empirically examined the relationships between social media use, disinformation, false news, users’ digital agency, far-right ideology, and far-right voting. We postulated that a lack of users’ digital agency is a significant contributor to this phenomenon and found a significant association between users’ low digital agency and the adoption of far-right ideologies (odds ratio [OR] = 1.16, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.08–1.23). This association remained after controlling for trust in social media news, psychological and social factors, sociodemographic variables, and response bias.

Keywords: far-right ideology; trust in news from social media; digital agency; far-right voting behavior; nationally representative sample (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 A14 P P0 P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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