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

Philipp Lorenz-Spreen (), Lisa Oswald, Stephan Lewandowsky and Ralph Hertwig
Additional contact information
Philipp Lorenz-Spreen: Max Planck Institute for Human Development
Lisa Oswald: Hertie School
Stephan Lewandowsky: University of Bristol
Ralph Hertwig: Max Planck Institute for Human Development

Nature Human Behaviour, 2023, vol. 7, issue 1, 74-101

Abstract: 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.

Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-022-01460-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:nat:nathum:v:7:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1038_s41562-022-01460-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nathumbehav/

DOI: 10.1038/s41562-022-01460-1

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Human Behaviour is currently edited by Stavroula Kousta

More articles in Nature Human Behaviour from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().