Social Networks - Paving the Way for Misinformation?: A Media Systems Approach

Social networks have paved the way for news, media influence, public opinion and political participation. While the introduction of ‘new media’ in a networked participatory media environment is proven in some cases to be beneficial for democracies, the reverse side of the story shows that in social networks, political actors have found a privileged channel to spread misleading narratives at the expense of society. This thesis integrates economic, political and social theories in the growing debate about misinformation and formulates them into the framework of media systems developed by Hallin and Macini and Hardy. Four components of media systems, i.e., ‘media-party parallelism’, ‘instrumentalization of social media’, ‘government regulatory burden’ and ‘fractionalization of media outlets’, are theorized to impact the dissemination of false and/or inaccurate information. Through a panel data regression and an analysis on democracy, this thesis finds robust evidence in favor of ...Show moreSocial networks have paved the way for news, media influence, public opinion and political participation. While the introduction of ‘new media’ in a networked participatory media environment is proven in some cases to be beneficial for democracies, the reverse side of the story shows that in social networks, political actors have found a privileged channel to spread misleading narratives at the expense of society. This thesis integrates economic, political and social theories in the growing debate about misinformation and formulates them into the framework of media systems developed by Hallin and Macini and Hardy. Four components of media systems, i.e., ‘media-party parallelism’, ‘instrumentalization of social media’, ‘government regulatory burden’ and ‘fractionalization of media outlets’, are theorized to impact the dissemination of false and/or inaccurate information. Through a panel data regression and an analysis on democracy, this thesis finds robust evidence in favor of ‘instrumentalization of social media’. For the remaining three components, some evidence is found, namely within certain democratic regimes.Show less

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Social Networks - Paving the Way for Misinformation? A Media Systems Approach