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Policy Paper | February 2021
Trust, Democratic Resilience,
and the Infodemic
Lena Frischlich and Edda Humprecht
Facing up to the Infodemic:
Promoting a Fact-Based Public
Discourse in Times of Crisis
Policy Paper Series by the Israel
Public Policy Institute (IPPI)
Authors
Dr. Lena Frischlich
Dr. Edda Humprecht
About this Paper
This policy paper is part of the paper series
“Facing up to the Infodemic: Promoting a Fact-
Based Public Discourse in Times of Crisis.”
Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 crisis,
this paper series explores some of the key
challenges facing democratic societies as
a result of misinformation in the digital
public sphere. It features a unique mosaic
of perspectives and insights by experts
from Israel and Germany that shed light on
different facets of the phenomenon of online
misinformation, with the aim of invigorating a
societal debate on the issue as well as offering
concrete ideas about how to address it.
The series “Facing up to the Infodemic:
Promoting a Fact-Based Public Discourse in
Times of Crisis” was generously supported by
the German Embassy in Tel Aviv. The content
and opinions expressed in the papers are
solely of the authors and do not necessarily
reect the views of the German government
and/or the Israel Public Policy Institute.
About the Project
This paper series is part of the broader project
“Fostering Democratic Resilience in the Digital
Age,” conceptualized and executed by the Israel
Public Policy Institute (IPPI) in collaboration with
the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Tel Aviv.
The objective of the project is to promote
dialogue, exchange of knowledge and
collaboration between researchers and
practitioners from Israel and abroad to enhance
democratic resilience in the context of the
changing media and information landscape in
the digital age.
Please cite as follows:
Frischlich, L. & Humprecht, E. (2021). Trust,
Democratic Resilience, and the Infodemic. Policy
Paper Series by the Israel Public Policy Institute:
“Facing up to the Infodemic: Promoting a Fact-
Based Public Discourse in Times of Crisis.”
Trust, Democratic Resilience,
and the Infodemic
Contents
02
03
04
05
06
07
Rationale
Methodology and Questions
The Spiral of Distrust
Trust and Disinformation during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Preventing the Downward Spiral of Distrust
Concluding Remarks
01 Introduction
Executive Summary
6
4
7
9
7
9
10
17
20
23
11
17
20
13
18
21
14
19
22
16
20
4.1
5.1
6.1
4.2
5.2
6.2
4.3
5.3
6.3
4.4
5.4
Defining Trust
Trust and the COVID-19 Crisis
Trust at the Societal Level: Democratic Institutions and News Media
The Level of Societal Institutions
Countering Inequality, Polarization, Distrust, and Disinformation
Trust at the Intergroup Level: Intergroup Conflicts
The Intergroup Level
Addressing Intergroup Conflicts and Enabling Positive Intergroup Contact
Trust at the Level of the Individual: Distrust and Conspiracy Beliefs
The Individual Level
Empowering Citizens and Providing Certainty and Value
Interim Summary: The Multi-Level Nexus of Trust and Dis- and Misinformation
Interim Summary: COVID-19 Added “Fuel to the Fire”
2.1
2.2
References 24
“Often, not until times of crisis do we realize how
fragile trust relations are.”
1
This policy paper focuses on the nexus between
trust and mis- and disinformation in the context
of the COVID-19 pandemic. First, we use the image
of a spiral to illustrate selected predictors of
distrust at the macro-level of societal institutions
(particularly democratic institutions and the
media), the meso-level of intergroup relations, and
the micro-level of individuals’ generalized distrust
towards power, what might be referred to as the
conspiracy mentality.
At each level, this paper reviews evidence for
the state of (mis-) trust before the pandemic
and how declining levels of trust increase
vulnerability to mis- and disinformation and/or
conspiracy narratives, and show how “polluted
information”
2
can reinforce distrust in the sense
of a downward spiral. Building on this framework,
the paper then moves on to discuss how COVID-19
has impacted the interplay between trust and
polluted information across the three levels
and demonstrates how increased distrust has
endangered successful pandemic-control and
stability. Finally, the paper deduces starting points
to prevent the downward spiral of disinformation
and foster societal resilience at all three levels.
3
To promote societal resilience to mis- and
disinformation, six key-challenges need to be
addressed:
1. Social media architecture and business models
constitute a venue of unprecedented power
for spreading conspiracy narratives, mis-, and
disinformation: publishing and amplifying
content is easy, and users may consume and share
social media posts without careful analyzing the
information they encounter.
2. Polarization, inequality, and misbehavior by
political actors and media representatives are
associated with declining trust in democratic
institutions and the media around the world. Such
developments can increase citizens’ likelihood to
turn towards alternative news sources and become
more vulnerable to mis- and disinformation and
conspiracy narratives.
3. Ongoing intergroup conicts and discrimination
can lead to intergroup distrust over time,
increasing citizens’ susceptibility to ‘polluted’
information. As a result, mis-or disinformation and
conspiracy stories can contribute to violence and
radicalization processes.
4. Basic human cognition and need for a coherent
understanding of socio-political developments,
subjective certainty, and a positive image of oneself
and ones ingroup make people susceptible to
conspiracy stories. A large share of citizens is likely
to believe in conspiracy stories from time to time,
which can increase tolerance for and even the
embracing of violent behavior.
5. Mis- and disinformation and particularly
conspiracy stories often attribute blame to
democratic institutions and outgroups for existing
problems in a society, fueling even more distrust
among the public, and thus contributing to a
downward spiral of distrust and deception.
6. The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced existing
distrust and led to a global ood of mis- and
disinformation and conspiracy stories that are
likely to accelerate the downward spiral of distrust.
Executive Summary
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Trust, Democratic Resilience, and the Infodemic
Thus, there is a need to promote a multi-sector
effort that involves the government,
civil society,
the media, and the policy and science communities,
and which addresses the information disorder in a
coordinated fashion at three levels:
→Democratic institutions: Policymakers
must address the fertile ground of inequality
and polarization on which misinformation
ourishes, but also themselves act in a
trustworthy manner (i.e., benevolently
and competently) and handle information
responsibly. For instance, politicians must
refrain from using misleading information
in their own campaigns. Politicians must
also provide the boundary conditions for
trustworthy journalism and issue policies
that promote responsible information
handling (e.g., obligating platforms to take
such measures or setting up news literacy
programs). This level also includes legacy
media, which must act responsibly and
ensure their trustworthy reputation through
factual, critical, and transparent reporting.
Only if legacy media are generally considered
trustworthy, they can successfully correct
false information. When publishing such a
correction, legacy media should carefully
weigh the need to inform against the risk to
provide the “oxygen of amplication”4 to anti-
democratic actors.
→Intergroup level: Fighting prejudice between
different social groups is necessary to
overcome widespread distrust among future
generations. Enabling positive contact and an
overarching shared identity are promising
approaches at this level. Politics and the media
both play a crucial role for providing the
boundary conditions for such a cooperative
environment.
→Individual level: Citizens must be educated
to evaluate and treat the information they
encounter. This requires the ability to identify
trustworthy information, awareness that some
information is disinformation, reecting about
ones’ own role in the infodemic, i.e., knowing
that the dissemination of information can have
far-reaching consequences, and nally, being
empowered to check information encountered
online.5 At the same time, it is also necessary to
create conditions in which citizens can feel safe
and respected in their social group to reduce
vulnerability to deception.
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1. Introduction
Trust is a complex concept. In everyday life, trust
is often associated with positive expectations,
such as self-condence in one’s ability to
overcome challenges, placing condence in
others, or a general trust that one’s future does
not hold unthinkable misfortune. Scientic
denitions of trust vary across authors and
academic elds, but trust is broadly understood
as a situation in which a truster takes the risk
to trust a trustee. This trustee can be an object
(e.g., a medication), a person such as a doctor, or
politician; a social group, such as the voters of an
opposing political party; a specic organization
such as the New York Times, an institution such
as the government; or an entire societal system
such as the legacy media, science, or democracy.
Different levels of trust can thus be categorized
in a range from the largest macro-level of trust in
societal systems, over the meso-level of intergroup
trust, down to the smallest micro-level of trusting
another individual.6
Trust closes the information gap
and allows for actions under
conditions of uncertainty, thereby
reducing daily life’s complexity to
a manageable level.
Trust is always accompanied by a certain risk
due to a lack of knowledge. If the truster knows
exactly what a trustee will do, he or she does not
need to invest trust.7 Trust closes the information
gap and allows for actions under conditions
of uncertainty, thereby reducing daily life’s
complexity to a manageable level.8 If, for instance,
someone trusts the scientic process behind the
development of a new drug, the government that
recommends it and the doctor who administers it,
the risk of taking the medication appears small.
If, however, that person has low trust and views
the scientic process as faulty, the government
as suspicious, or the doctor as dubious, taking
the same medication would be perceived as
riskier and the person would require additional
information before proceeding.
Nowadays, such an information search is likely
to take place online. Information found online
has become a central part of peoples’ media
diet and in most countries news is increasingly
consumed online.9 In the early days of the
COVID-19 pandemic, people, for instance
in Germany, not only turned to established
news channels such as public broadcasters or
online newspapers, but also consumed more
news via social media, YouTube, and instant
messaging applications. Such online-platforms
not only offer easier access to information, but
fundamentally reshape the information eco-
system thanks to their participatory nature.
They have thus not only partially replaced
traditional media channels, but also altered the
public sphere itself, making it easy for anyone
with Internet access, minimal skills, and an
account to upload a YouTube video or write a
Facebook post that might reach millions without
being subject to editorial scrutiny. On the one
hand, this new and seemingly decentralized
information eco-system has created new
opportunities for democratic participation
while easing information ows. On the other
hand, the “unedited public sphere”10 has also
provided a fertile ground for what has been
dubbed the infodemic, i.e., a digitally inated
“overabundance of information – some accurate
and some not”11, including unintentional spread
of misinformation and strategically conceived
disinformation campaigns, which have
ourished across the globe.12
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How people respond to such mis- and
disinformation varies greatly depending on their
level of trust in the actors disseminating the
information. Conspiracy stories, e.g., about Bill
Gates implementing surveillance chips via the
COVID-19 vaccine are more likely to be rejected
if the institutions that are mandated to prevent
such potential abuse are perceived as trustworthy.
If, however, the same person perceives the
media as a “lying press” that is likely to hide
scandalous events, the conspiracy story comes
to appear more plausible in his or her eyes. The
lack of trust is thus not only likely to motivate
the search for additional information, thereby
increasing the likelihood of encountering mis-
and disinformation,13 but also affects how the
“additional” information itself is perceived.
Whether people bestow trust upon a trustee
depends on their prior experiences and their
perceptions of the trustworthiness of the trustee.
Five antecedents of trustworthiness perceptions
can be distinguished: (1) The perceived
benevolence of the trustees’ motives; for
instance, whether the government is perceived
as acting for the good of the people. (2) Perceived
integrity; for instance, whether a politician
is perceived consistent and fair over time. (3)
Perceived ability to accomplish the task at hand.
For instance, whether a news article is able to
provide the necessary information or a politician
is perceived as being competent. (4) Perceived
reputation of the trustee; for instance, whether
quality media have a superior reputation for
factual reporting compared to tabloid news. (5)
Finally, trustworthiness is also often determined
heuristically based on cues such as an experts’
academic title, a newspaper’s design, or the
number of likes a given post has received.14
Overall, maintaining and restoring trust is a
continuous process, requiring competence,
benevolence, and integrity over time. A
reputation is more easily destroyed than built.15
2. Rationale
2.1. Defining Trust
Modern societies are complex and full of
uncertainties. Citizens make decisions every
day – buying a new smartphone, interacting with
someone from a different societal subgroup, or
voting for a certain political candidate – which
are fraught with myriads of possible outcomes. To
cope with the inherent uncertainty of the modern
world and reduce everyday life’s complexity to a
bearable level, people need trust.16
Trust has been dened differently by different
authors and in different academic elds.
Psychological research tends to emphasize trust
as an individual state, e.g., a person’s propensity
to trust unknown others, whereas sociological
research emphasizes trust as a relationship
between the one who trusts, the truster, and
the object of trust, the trustee. Communication
science combines these different approaches.
Blöbaum17 identied different key characteristics
of this integrative concept, arguing that trust is
a relationship based on a free decision (i.e., trust
cannot be enforced), oriented towards the future
(i.e., trust always relates to future behavior of the
trustee) but rooted in both prior experiences of the
truster (e.g., with a particular government) and his
or her perceptions of the trustee’s trustworthiness.
Different antecedents for this perception exist,
namely the perceived (1) benevolence of the
trustees motives (i.e., whether a politician acts for
the good of the people); (2) the trustee’s integrity
(i.e., whether this politician is perceived as having
a high justice orientation and acting consistently
over time); (3) ability to competently undertake
the task at hand (i.e., whether the health minister
is competent in health-related questions); and
(4) reputation (i.e., how the health minister is
evaluated in society, how he has behaved in
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the past, and so on). (5) Often trustworthiness
is determined heuristically based on learned
cues such as the academic title of a health-
minister to signal expertise, or the typography
of a newspaper signaling factual reporting
(“fake news” that mimic journalistic news but
do not adhere to journalist’ standards of factual
reporting capitalize on these cues).18
Perceived trustworthiness is always estimated:
“Someone who knows all need not trust, someone
who knows nothing cannot reasonably trust
at all.”19 Consequently, trust always entails a
risk which makes the truster vulnerable to
the trustee’s actions (e.g., the health minister’s
policies). Trust is therefore generally easier
destroyed than built,20 and restoring and
maintaining trust requires benevolence, integrity,
and competence over time to ensure a reputation
of trustworthiness.
Although trust is an important
prerequisite for the functioning of
democracies, a healthy skepticism
is necessary in order not to fall for
false information just because it is
spread by authorities.
The trustee can be an object (e.g., a medication),
a person (e.g., a politician), someone from a
specic social group (e.g., a religious minority),
as well as an organization, or institution (e.g.,
the World-Health Organization (WHO)), or an
entire societal system (e.g., legacy media or
democracy). Hence, as explained above, different
trust levels can be distinguished,21 ranging from
the macro-level of trust in societal systems, to the
meso-levels of trust in institutions, organizations,
and social groups, to the micro-level of trust in
another individual. This distinction matters, as
trustors have different expectations with regards
to the output of the trustee (e.g., a politician’s
performance), the relationship with people (e.g.,
with their doctor) or organizations (e.g., their
insurance company) and the relationship with the
system (e.g., how the political system reects the
‘will of the people’). The different levels of trust
(e.g., trust in the legacy media and in democracy)
are interwoven.22
Although trust is an important prerequisite
for the functioning of democracies, a healthy
skepticism is necessary in order not to fall for
false information just because it is spread by
authorities. Established legacy media can make
factual mistakes, scientic papers are sometimes
retracted due to erroneous reports and high
authorities sometimes lie, as the example of
former US President, Donald Trump, shows. Fact-
checkers from the Washington Post who track his
claims have noted over 26,500 false or misleading
claims in the four years before he was voted out
of oce in November 2020.23
Nevertheless, like blind trust, blind distrust is
not functional for a successful navigation of
the complexity of modern society. Citizens will
not benet from the best information when
they consider all news untrustworthy and
thus refrain from considering new evidence in
their everyday decisions. When information is
evaluated primarily through the lens of polarized
and distrustful intergroup relationships or
even conspiracy ideations, fact-based discourse
becomes impossible. Maintaining a societal
discourse rooted in shared conceptualizations
of realities depends on citizens from across the
political spectrum being able to trust at least some
information sources as factual.
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Trust, Democratic Resilience, and the Infodemic
2.2. Trust and the COVID-19
Crisis
Trust is particularly needed in times of crisis such
as the COVID-19 pandemic. During crises, when
uncertainty about the potential risks, measures,
and consequences is high, multiple additional
decisions must be made and, accordingly, people
have a strong need for trustworthy information,
trustworthy relationships, and a trustworthy
political system.24 This enhanced need was highly
visible in the rst year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The usual uncertainties accompanying any crisis
were accelerated by the multiple open questions
around the spread, consequences, and combating
of the new corona virus and the long-term outcome
of policy-decisions aimed at curbing the virus’ toll.
The onslaught of information
disseminated by “unedited”
online-spheres such as social
media offers great opportunities
for participation. At the same time,
it introduces new opportunity
structures for manipulation.
Furthermore, COVID-19 was the rst pandemic
to hit a digitized and networked society.25 A
multi-country survey by the Oxford Internet
Institute showed that 39% to 78% of people
across countries used social media for news
consumption in the early weeks of the crisis and
many of them named social media as one central
gateway to misinformation during that time.26
The onslaught of information disseminated by
“unedited”27 online-spheres such as social media
offers great opportunities for participation. At
the same time, it introduces new opportunity
structures for manipulation. Early in the
pandemic, the WHO declared an infodemic – an
overabundance of information, some trustworthy,
some not, that makes it hard for citizens to nd
the trustworthy information provided by legacy
news media, fact-checkers as well as public
organizations, such as national health authorities
or the WHO.
In the next section, we will shed light on the
nexus between trust, mis- and disinformation in
the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. First, we
use the image of a spiral of distrust to describe
predictors of declining trust on the macro-level
of societal institutions such as politics and legacy
media, the meso-level of intergroup relationships,
as well as the micro-level of an individuals’
propensity to believe in conspiracy narratives. We
then discuss how such a lack of trust is associated
with the receptivity for mis- and disinformation
or conspiracy stories which themselves can fuel
even more distrust, and how this nexus played out
during the rst year of the COVID-19 crisis. From
this we deduce countermeasures fostering societies’
ability to resist and/or oppose the circulating
infodemic and “bounce back” to their cognitive,
emotional, or and behavioral state before the
pandemic hit the world, i.e., measures fostering the
resilience against the spiral of distrust.
3. Methodology and
Questions
We based our arguments on a review of the
social science research literature on trust, mis-
and disinformation, conspiracy beliefs and
countermeasures. While we focused mostly on
peer-reviewed scientic articles and scientic
books, in the context of the COVID-19 crisis, we
note that new evidence has often been generated
in rapid response and is often not formally peer-
reviewed. In addition, data from renowned polling
institutes was also considered; our descriptions
of socio-political events (such as time points of
curfews) rely on legacy news sources. The literature
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Trust, Democratic Resilience, and the Infodemic
database used in the writing of this paper focuses
on Western, democratic, industrialized societies
in European countries or the US, although we
try to highlight ndings from across the globe. If
available, meta-analyses and review articles were
treated preferably as they allow for an overview
about the state of a research eld, providing a
broader perspective than a single article.
In the following pages, this paper sets out to
answer the following questions:
→What are the predictors of declining trust
in societal institutions, social groups, or
conspiracy mentality?
→What was the state of trust before the pandemic?
→How is trust related to the susceptibility for
mis- and disinformation or conspiracy stories?
→How did COVID-19 change the state of trust and
how was this related to pandemic control and
societal peace?
→What potential countermeasures can be deduced?
4. The Spiral of Distrust
The intersection of distrust and mis- and
disinformation can be examined on different,
interwoven levels. In this paper we explore
the aforementioned questions at three central
levels: The societal level of (democratic) state
institutions and the legacy media, the intergroup
level in which societal sub-groups meet each
other, and the individual’s susceptibility to
distrustful and conspiracy ideation promoting
stories. The intersection of distrust and mis-
and disinformation at these three levels could
exacerbate one another, thus contributing to a
downward spiral of distrust.28
Figure 1 illustrates the underlying idea. Starting
on the upper-left panel, our literature research
provides evidence that polarization, inequality,
and misbehavior by politicians and media
representatives can contribute to declining
trust in institutions and the media (upper left-
corner), allowing disinformation to thrive. At the
next level, conicted and distrustful intergroup
Figure 1.
Visualization of the Interplay Between Predictors for Distrust, Dis- and Misinformation
Polarization, ineqality,
and misbehavior
More distrustful emotions,
atitudes, and behaviours
Conflicted intergroup relations Intergroup distrust
and co-radicalization
Declining trust in democratic
institutions and legacy media
Mis - and
disinfo
Human’s basic cognition,
and epistemic, existential
and social needs
Conspiracy beliefs
The predictors are shown on the interwoven macro-level of societal institutions, meso-level of intergroup relations, and the
micro-level of individual conspiracy beliefs.
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Trust, Democratic Resilience, and the Infodemic
relationships contribute to the susceptibility
to polluted information and co-radicalization
processes. Finally, at the micro-level, basic
cognitive biases and social needs of human beings
increase the propensity for conspiracy beliefs.
The spiral image comes to show that mis- and
disinformation, as well as conspiracy stories, not
only thrive on the decline in trust on all three
levels, but also fuel distrust in return.
4.1. Trust at the Societal Level:
Democratic Institutions and
News Media
4.1.1. Relevance and Status of Trust at the
Level of Social Systems
Trust in democratic institutions is a central pre-
condition of the democratic process. Voting is
always a decision that involves uncertainty, as it
is focused on the future. Voting reects citizens’
expectations that the candidates, parties, or
policies they support will fulll their promises,
as well as voters' trust in the political system
itself, i.e., the willingness to stay in a country and
the expectation of being able to live a reasonable
life there. The interplay of these two dimensions
results in the stability of the social order,29 which
is the foundation of democratic system.
The democratic system is intrinsically interwoven
with the concept of a public sphere. To retain
its legitimacy, democracy needs to be perceived
as accountable and responsive to the will of
the citizens in its decision-making process.
Public communication facilitates (or hinders)
this accountability and responsiveness.30
Consequently, journalism plays an important role
in democratic societies.31 A free and unrestricted
media system is a fundamental basis for citizens’
ability to inform themselves, discuss political
issues and formulate their own opinions.32 To
fulll this function, however, citizens need to
trust the news media and journalists need to be
perceived as trustworthy by providing the facts
on which unbiased public opinion is based.
Voting reflects citizens’
expectations that the candidates,
parties, or policies they support
will fulfill their promises, as well
as voters' trust in the political
system itself.
Research has shown that trust in the news
media is associated with trust in democratic
institutions, as people who distrust “the media”
also report lower levels of trust with regards
to democratic institutions.33 Further, trust in
democratic institutions is related to support
of democracy, while lower levels of support of
democracy are indicative of lower levels of trust
in democratic institutions and the media across
many countries.34 It is thus of little surprise that
trust in the news media is positively associated
with political trust, and negatively associated
with strong partisanship.35 A recent study on
trust in the EU showed that people who trust their
national governments are more likely to trust the
EU.36 However, this relationship is reinforced by
the variability and tonality of reporting on the
EU in each country, demonstrating the interplay
between democratic institutions and the media.
Given the centrality of trust for social order in
democratic societies, declining trust in democratic
institutions and news media in many has raised
concerns in many countries.37 Despite an overall
trend, cross-national comparisons of different
trust dimensions, such as trust in the media, the
government, or in society more generally, reveal
large differences between countries over time,
raising the question of underlying causes.38 For
example, Northern European countries, such as
Finland, Norway, and Sweden39 persistently show
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high and relatively stable levels of trust in society
and democratic institutions, while citizens from
South America, Eastern and Southern Europe show
lower and declining levels of trust in society and
institutions. One explanation for these differences
is the perception of the economic situation in a
country and individual well-being, but these factors
only partially explain country differences, e.g.,
between European countries.40
Cross-national comparisons
of different trust dimensions,
such as trust in the media, the
government, or in society more
generally, reveal large differences
between countries over time,
raising the question of underlying
causes.
4.1.2. Predictors for Declining Trust
Declining levels of trust in democratic institutions
and journalism have multiple roots. For instance,
perceptions of trustworthiness are dependent on
an institution’s integrity and reputation over time,
making trust vulnerable to misbehaviors and cases
of corruption. Abuse of oce and misconduct by
journalists and politicians have and will contribute
to declining trust levels.
Besides such single case factors, however, there
are also overarching factors associated with
declining levels of trust, such as social inequality41
or political polarization, which increase conicts
between societal groups and can thus reduce
resilience to dis- and misinformation. Social
inequality is associated with social distance
between privileged and underprivileged social
groups in a society. Political polarization can
be understood as “the extent to which different
political parties offer different ideologically
distant policy platforms”42 and is associated
with an affective polarization among the parties’
supporters, i.e., the extent to which they dislike the
other party and potentially also the supporters of
the other parties.43
Polarization threatens trust in democratic
institutions because citizens whose favored party
is not represented in government are more likely
to distrust the government and subordinate
institutions.44 Moreover, individuals with lower
levels of political trust are less likely to participate
in the democratic process by casting their votes.45
Polarization also negatively affects trust in news
media because citizens tend to be dissatised
with their national governments, which feature
prominently in political reporting,46 and because
it decreases tolerance for the variety of views
expressed via news outlets.
Polarization threatens trust in
democratic institutions because
citizens whose favored party is
not represented in government
are more likely to distrust the
government and subordinate
institutions.
4.1.3. Outcomes in the Context of Dis- and
Misinformation
Dysfunctional democracies47 and polarized
societies are particularly vulnerable to mis- and
disinformation. For instance, citizens in highly
polarized environments are more likely to be
receptive to positive information about their own
camp and negative information about the opposing
camp, even if this information is false.48
There is also a direct link between low trust
in news media and vulnerability to believing
disinformation.49,50 Legacy media in many
countries are a contact point for trustworthy
information and they often correct mis- and
disinformation. Perceiving legacy media as
hostile and untrustworthy, however, motivates
the consumption of alternative news sources,
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including hyper-partisan outlets and social media
platforms,51,52,53 which are often a hotbed for news
outlets that perpetuate distrustful worldviews
by challenging journalism’s authority54 and
transmitting anti-elitist and populist slants.55,56,57
Following a reinforcing spiral logic,58 polarization,
distrust, and exposure to misleading information
mutually inuence each other. Exposure to
negative information about another camp can
fuel affective political polarization59 and exposure
to misleading information such as political
“deepfake” videos leads to a decline in trust in
news encountered in social media.60
4.2. Trust at the Intergroup
Level: Intergroup Conflicts
4.2.1. Relevance and Status of Trust at the
Intergroup Level
People have a general tendency to evaluate
information and trustworthiness through the
lens of their group-memberships, their “social
identities.”61 Social identities emerge from people’s
membership in social 'ingroups,' for instance,
identifying as a voter or member of a certain
political party, a religion, or gender.
Evolutionarily speaking, ingroups serve as
“containers of generalized reciprocity”62 -
supporting an ingroup member is likely to pay
out over time, whereas trusting outgroups has
historically been riskier.63 The more central
group-memberships are to peoples’ self-concept
(i.e., how much people see themselves as US-
Americans, as Hindus, or as Republicans), the
more they tend to see their respective ingroup in a
positive light. People want their sports team to be
more successful than the neighboring club, their
religion to be morally superior, and their political
party to be more trustworthy than the opposing
alternatives.
4.2.2. Predictors of Declining Trust
Although people have a general propensity to
be biased in favor of their ingroups, these biases
become exaggerated in times of existential threat,
such as when uncertainty is high or when people
are concerned about the fragility of their lives.64
During such times, being part of a superior and
clearly distinct group helps one symbolically
manage these kinds of threats65 and thus one's
group identity becomes particularly relevant.
Ingroup prejudice is also reinforced in contexts
of past atrocities and intergroup hostilities.
Intergroup distrust at the national or global level
is a signicant obstacle to peaceful coexistence,
as countless examples of enduring conicts show
(e.g., the Israeli-Palestinian66 and Indo-Pakistani67
conicts, or the conict in Northern Ireland).68
Uhlmann et al.69 used a society simulation
(using agent-based modelling) to show how such
distrustful relationships emerge and persist.
Their work highlights the role of the dominant
majority in a given society by showing that even
low levels of initially unfair prejudice from a
dominant majority in a society were associated
with diminished cooperation of that majority with
the rest of society. Via a self-fullling prophecy
logic, members of the minority learned to be
uncooperative and became reluctant to invest in
cooperation. In both the majority and the minority,
new generations learned to distrust the outgroup
and adapted their beliefs in this regard, stabilizing
distrustful relationships over time and across
generations. Such experiences of ostracism and
marginalization can make people more susceptible
to radical ideas and extremist groups.70,71
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4.2.3. Outcomes in the Context of Dis- and
Misinformation
The need to see one’s ingroup in a more favorable
light than outgroups makes people vulnerable to
mis- and disinformation.72 It is easier to accept
stories about misbehavior by others than to
scrutinize information that presents their own
group in a negative light.73,74 In the words of
Corbu and Negrea-Busuioc, misinformation “is
credible exactly because it resonates with prior
stereotypes in people’s mind.”75 Misinformation
accordingly is often shaped by pre-existing rifts
in a society. In a comparative content analysis,
Humprecht showed that mis- and disinformation
in the US and UK often attacks political actors,
while in Germany and Austria false stories about
immigrants are dominant.76
Across the world, dis- and misinformation
that perpetuates prejudices attitudes has been
associated with toxic outcomes: From successful
partisan false news stories in the US,77 to rumor-
inspired mob-violence and lynching in India78 and
false stories targeting the Muslim minority of the
Rohingya in Myanmar,79,80 disinformation relying
on distrustful intergroup relationships has been
associated with physical violence.81
Such hateful and violent escalations reinforce
existing intergroup conicts. Groups that thrive on
intergroup hate, such as extremists, use violence
from the “other side” to legitimate their own
violence as defensive.82 This narrative provides a
fertile ground for further violence,83,84 contributing
to co-radicalization processes. For instance,
an analysis of online content from right-wing
extremists and Islamic extremists in Germany
showed how they used the (accused) atrocities of
the other side to justify their own extremism.85
4.3. Trust at the Level of
the Individual: Distrust and
Conspiracy Beliefs
4.3.1. Relevance and Status of Trust at the
Interpersonal Level
Similar to the macro and meso level, (dis-) trust
at the individual level has multiple causes and
changes over time, depending on the trustees’
behavior (i.e., whether a politician indeed acts
for the good of her or his voters) but also on an
individual’s other experiences in associated areas
(e.g., with politicians in general).86 In what follows,
we will focus on one specic type of distrust
crucial for mis- and disinformation: The conspiracy
mindset or ‘conspiracy mentality.’
Conspiracy mentality can be understood as
generalized attitude, i.e., a propensity that shapes
the response to different objects, persons, or
contexts, in this case a generally distrustful
attitude towards power87,88 and an openness to
believing in conspiracy myths89 (e.g., the existence
of a ‘new world order’) and conspiracy stories
(such as the new world order having created
the coronavirus).90,91 A conspiracy story is the
explanation of socio-cultural events as being
caused by a conspiracy, the secret collaboration
of a group of people, the conspirators, whose
intention is to achieve a malevolent goal (e.g.,
Jewish billionaire George Soros having caused
the migration crisis). A conspiracy myth is the
overarching narrative connecting different stories
(e.g., anti-Semitism).92 Notwithstanding, real
conspiracies exist (powerful people do sometimes
act maliciously against the common good in secret)
and it is likely that conspiracy mentality has
evolved as a functional adaptation to the human
need to detect such misbehaviors by those in
power93,94 as blind trust in a malicious elite can
have dangerous consequences. The challenge is to
decrease conditions under which people are prone
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to believe in ctional conspiracies, as the general
distrust towards power95 is antithetical to the
successful navigation of the modern world.96
Surveys across countries often nd a substantial
positive reception to conspiracy stories. For
instance, Oliver and Wood97 found that 55% of US-
Americans believed in at least one out of the seven
conspiracy stories presented in the survey, and
a poll in New Jersey found that only six percent
of respondents believed in none of the presented
conspiracy stories.98 In a survey conducted in
Egypt and Saudi-Arabia, the numbers were
comparably high: 67% of respondents thought
that it is at least somewhat accurate that the US is
secretly helping the "Islamic State" jihadist group
to take power in Syria and Iraq.99 These high
numbers underscore the notion that conspiracy
beliefs emerge from basic human cognition such
as the ability to detect patterns in the world or the
vigilance towards potential threats, and cannot
be conated with psychological disorders such as
paranoid thinking.100 Anyone might be prone to
fall for a conspiracy belief now and then.
4.3.2. Predictors of Conspiracy Beliefs
Based on a literature review, Douglas et al.,101
highlighted three central motives for the belief
in conspiracy stories. (1) Epistemic motives, i.e.,
peoples’ desire to build an internally consistent
understanding of the world. Particularly in the
context of large and signicant events, this desire
can make them susceptible to conspiracy theories
seemingly providing an explanation as large and
signicant as the event itself. (2) Conspiracy stories
appeal to existential needs for control and security.
If bad things happen due to bad actors, they
become (theoretically) avoidable and controllable.
Accordingly, conspiracy theories, similar to rumors
and disinformation, have always accompanied
human crises.102 (3) Finally, conspiracy beliefs are
also related (though the causal chain is unclear)
to different social motives such as the need to see
oneself and one’s community in a positive light.103
Besides these more micro-level variables, meso-
and macro-level variables also affect susceptibility
to conspiracy beliefs. Although a comparison of
different European countries and the US concluded
that the national context in which respondents
reside has hardly any effect on their level of
conspiracy mentality,104 trust at the macro-level of
the political system as well as trust in public gures
did signicantly shape participants’ propensity to
fall for conspiracy stories. Accordingly, members of
marginalized minorities are more likely to believe
conspiracy stories.105
4.3.3. Outcomes: The Context of Dis- and
Misinformation
Conspiracy mentality can increase the
susceptibility to mis- and disinformation,106
particularly when the content resonates with
pre-existing distrust.107 Conspiracy beliefs also
make it dicult to convey expert opinions.
People scoring higher on conspiracy mentality
have been found to perceive a bogus medical
drug as being more effective when approved
by a powerless group (in this case: patients) as
compared to approval of the same drug by a
powerful pharmaceutical consortium.108
Conspiracy beliefs have been linked to non-
normative and even violent behavior.109
Representative data from Germany show a link
between violent extremism and conspiracy
beliefs,110 and experimental as well as long-term
data demonstrates that conspiracy mentality is
linked to deviant behavior.111
Consistent to the assumption of reinforcing
processes, experimental studies show that the
exposure to conspiracy stories can further
decrease trust on the macro and meso-levels.
Exposure to conspiracy theories decreases trust
in governmental institutions,112,113 even if the
conspiracy theory itself does not target these
institutions.114 Similarly, it also fosters prejudice
towards outgroups, even if these groups are not
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direct targets of the conspiracy theory.115 Although
a lack of trust in a specic individual, institution, or
context is not equivalent to the generalized distrust
towards power reected in conspiracy mentality,
conspiracy stories seem to activate a distortive lens
which is likely to make those frequently exposed to
such content more susceptible to further mis- and
disinformation that relies on distrust narratives.
4.4. Interim Summary: The
Multi-Level Nexus of Trust and
Dis- and Misinformation
Table 1 summarizes the main aspects discussed
so far. Trust was already fragile and societies
already vulnerable to dis- and misinformation
before COVID-19 hit the world in 2020. Particularly
societies plagued by a high level of polarization
and inequality, and those that had experienced
manipulations by political elites or the media
experienced declining trust in societal institutions.
In such societies, discrimination against minority
members has often been passed down from one
generation to the next, and a large proportion
of citizens has already been led to believe in
conspiracy stories. Factors at several levels emerge,
all of which increase vulnerability to mis- and
disinformation and, in turn, are reinforced by mis-
and disinformation in a vicious cycle. In the next
section, we discuss how the nexus between distrust
and dis- or misinformation played out during the
rst year of the COVID-19 crisis.
Table 1.
Predictors, State, Outcomes, and Reinforcing Components of
the Trust/Disinformation Nexus
Selected predictors of
declining trust
State before the
pandemic
Selected outcomes in
the context of mis- and
disinformation
Reinforcing
component
→Misbehavior
→Inequality
→Polarization
→Declining levels
of trust in political
institutions and legacy
media
→Higher susceptibility for mis-
and disinformation
→Less contact to debunking via
information authorities
→Increased
polarization
→Decrease in trust in
news on social media
→Intergroup biases, amplified
by existential threats
→Discrimination by majority
members
→Histories of intergroup
conflict
→Higher susceptibility to mis-
and disinformation
→Hateful and violent
escalations of enduring
tensions
→Co-radicalization
→Legitimization of
violence as defensive
→Cognitive need to form a
coherent understanding of
the world, enhanced in the
context of significant events
→Existential need for
uncertainty reduction and
(illusion of) control
→Social need for positive self-
and group image
→Large proportion of
the population eager
to fall for at least some
conspiracy stories
→Propensity to fall for mis- and
disinformation matching the
distrustful perspective on
power
→Propensity to rate
authoritative information
as credible as lay-peoples’
opinion
→Increased acceptance of non-
normative and even violent
behaviors
→Decreased trust in
societal institutions
→Increased prejudice
towards outgroups
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5. Trust and
Disinformation during the
COVID-19 Pandemic
During crises, uncertainty about the potential
risks, measures, and consequences is high, and
accordingly, people have a strong need for reliable
information.116 Moreover, successful management
of crisis often crucially depends on citizens’
willingness to follow public advice, i.e., to trust in
the good intentions of implemented measures, the
probability that they will alleviate the crisis, and
the integrity of those instituting them.
During crises, uncertainty about
the potential risks, measures,
and consequences is high, and
accordingly, people have a strong
need for reliable information.
COVID-19 was accompanied by an unprecedented
global ow of mis- and disinformation.117
Frischlich et al. found that 16% of Germans had
been exposed to at least one conspiracy story
circulating at that time; 34% recalled medical
misinformation.118 Single conspiracy stories, such
as the positing of a link between the pandemic
and 5G technology, circulated across the globe,
resulting in nearly 90,000 posts on Facebook
alone between January 1 and April 12, 2020.119 A
substantial share of the circulating misinformation
and conspiracy stories draw from already existing
storylines (e.g., a distrust towards political elites,
new technologies, or social minorities), making
it even more likely that this kind of content will
resonate with pre-existing societal breaking points.
Continuing this line of exploration, in the next
sections we will consider these societal breaking
points in greater detail by examining the impact
COVID-19 had on trust at the level of societal
institutions, social groups, and the individual’s
propensity to believe in conspiracy stories. We will
then review evidence for direct negative effects of
distrust on pandemic control and democracy.
5.1. The Level of Societal
Institutions
5.1.1. Changes with Regards to Trust in
Democratic Institutions and News Media
COVID-19 became a polarizing topic in numerous
countries. For instance, well into the pandemic,
US President Donald Trump denied the danger
of the virus and even mocked those wearing
protective masks.120 Similar statements were
made by Brazil’s president Jay Bolsanero121 and,
initially, UK’s president Boris Johnson122 – three
countries with the largest number of daily new
infections in January 2021.123 In the UK and the
US, initially high levels of trust in the government
had fallen substantially over the course of the
summer, reaching levels below 50% by summer
in both countries.124,125 In Brazil, trust levels were
more stable, with 60% of the citizens trusting
the president’s statements at least sometimes.126
However, cross-country comparisons showed
that Brazilians were amongst those most
dissatised with their government’s handling of
the pandemic.127
In other countries, the government took the
virus more seriously as the example of New
Zealand shows, where travel restrictions were
implemented as early as February, weeks
before the rst case was noted in the country.128
Although New Zealand also witnessed a loss
of trust when the second lockdown had to be
implemented in August, 79% of New Zealanders
continued to trust that their government was
handling the pandemic appropriately.129 In
Germany, measures were implemented later,
but, nevertheless, the overall level of trust in the
government remained relatively stable.130
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Similar to trust in the government, trust in news
media varied over time and across countries.
While US- and UK citizens lost their trust in the
news media over the course of the year,131,132
Germans reported initially slightly higher
but overall stable levels of media trust.133 Not
only trust in news media, but also the use of
news media changed over the course of 2020.
Many countries witnessed an increase in news
consumption during the rst months of the
pandemic,134 a development typically observed
after signicant events and during crises.135 A
survey from the UK showed a rapid increase in
news avoidance only few months later.136
5.1.2. Polarization and Distrust Endanger
Successful Pandemic Control
Political leaders’ response to the pandemic was
reected in voters’ attitudes towards pandemic-
control measures, as illustrated by the US example.
In June 2020, the Pew Research Center showed that
fewer than half of Republicans (45%) but more
than two-thirds of Democrats (77%) were very or
somewhat concerned that they might unknowingly
spread the coronavirus.137 One month later, a
Gallup poll showed in another representative
sample that while six out of ten Democrats (61%)
always used masks outside of their home, only two
out of ten Republicans reported a similar strict use.
Three out of ten Republicans (27%) stated that they
would never use masks – a sharp contrast to only
one in hundred Democrats stating the same.138
Citizens may fail to comply with pandemic control
behaviors due not only to political leaders’ negative
modeling, but also due to an overall lack of trust
in the government. In Germany, trust in the
government was a relevant predictor for citizens’
willingness to accept and adopt the government’s
protective regulations139 and governmental trust
has been linked to acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines
across the world.140
5.2. The Intergroup Level
5.2.1. Changes with Regard to Intergroup
(Dis-) Trust
As already discussed, intergroup biases are
exacerbated in times of uncertainty, increasing
the likelihood for distrustful relationships towards
outgroups. COVID-19 was no exception. For
instance, Hungary’s current president Viktor Orbán
used the pandemic to fuel xenophobic and anti-
migrant rhetoric,141 and President Donald Trump
frequently called the coronavirus the “Chinese
virus,” spreading bigotry as he linked the disease
with its place of origin.
Preliminary evidence shows that
news about COVID-19 fueled
prejudice towards a range of
groups, particularly towards
citizens of countries struggling the
hardest with the pandemic.
Of little surprise, Anti-Asian prejudice has
ourished in the U.S. over the course of the year,142
but has also been on the rise in other countries.
The toxic effect of the pandemic on intergroup
relationships is also not restricted to a single target
group: Preliminary evidence shows that news
about COVID-19 fueled prejudice towards a range
of groups, particularly towards citizens of countries
struggling the hardest with the pandemic.143
5.2.2. Prejudice and Discrimination Might
Destabilize Society for a Long Time
Prejudice against social minorities should not
be taken lightly as they can easily lead to biased
societies over time (see section 4.2), though the
consequences of hardened intergroup barriers
and increasingly distrustful relationships between
social groups due to the pandemic are likely
to emerge only in subsequent years.144 Steven
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Vertovec of the Max Planck Institute for the Study
of Religious and Ethnic Diversity warns that
such prejudice can even transform into stigmatic
suspicion of people perceived as Asian, as well as
migrants and refugees, thus increasing the risk
of ethnic proling, institutional discrimination,
geographical segregation and impaired
intergroup interactions.145
5.3. The Individual level
5.3.1. Changes with Regards to Conspiracy
Stories and Beliefs
As explained before (see section 4.3), conspiracy
theories ourish under conditions of uncertainty
and during crisis. For instance, in 2008, 25% of US
citizens believed that the nancial crisis at that
time was “secretly orchestrated.”146 Similarly,
more than a decade later, 25% of US-Americans
believed that the COVID-19 outbreak had been
“intentionally planned by powerful people.”147
Although concrete concerns of economic
disadvantages through COVID-19 (e.g., a lurking
recession)148 were associated with the propensity
to fall for conspiracy stories, repeated surveys in
Germany found little evidence for an overall higher
share of the population believing in COVID-19
related conspiracy stories: In May 2020, 18% of the
population believed either that COVID-19 was a
hoax and/or a man-made bioweapon. In November
that share slightly decreased to 15%.
5.3.2. Conspiracy Beliefs Endanger
Successful Pandemic-Control
The proliferation of COVID-19-related conspiracy
stories and myths has had multiple undesirable
consequences from the perspective of pandemic
control. People who believed in the conspiracy
story that the virus was a hoax were less likely
to engage in preventive behaviors,149 more
likely to reject vaccines,150 more likely to take
part in demonstrations where preventive
measures were not observed,151 and less willing
to follow government recommendations.152
Other studies found a link between believing in
conspiracy stories and the acceptance of violence
– for instance, destruction of 5G pylons falsely
presumed to contribute to the virus’ spreading
in a prominent conspiracy story that travelled
the globe in 2020.153 In Germany, experimental
research demonstrated that even brief exposure
to a conspiracy story about the virus decreased
trust in the government,154 indicating that future
infodemics might benet from their predecessors.
People who believed in the
conspiracy story that the virus
was a hoax were less likely to
engage in preventive behaviors,
more likely to reject vaccines,
more likely to take part in
demonstrations where preventive
measures were not observed, and
less willing to follow government
recommendations.
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5.4. Interim Summary:
COVID-19 Added “Fuel to
the Fire”
At all three levels, COVID-19 exacerbated pre-
existing societal breaking points, such as ones
resulting from political polarization, distrust in
the government, the reinforcement of intergroup
biases, and culminating in the heightened need for
explanations seemingly answered by conspiracy
stories. Particularly, lack of trust in societal
institutions coupled with conspiracy beliefs were
also demonstrated to directly impair successful
control of the pandemic. Still, the fall-out of
heightened discrimination may prove to be the
most severe outcome in the long run.
Without detracting from the gravity of this state
of affairs, it was encouraging to nd that changes
were often not dramatic at the macro- and micro-
level: Governments handling the pandemic more
successfully witnessed a lower decline in trust,
and the share of those believing in conspiracy
narratives remained relatively stable over the
course of the year.
Due to the fact that the pandemic was overall
accompanied by raised levels of prejudice
and polarization, increasing the likelihood of
a downward spiral of distrust and rendering
our societies more vulnerable to future crises,
in the nal section of this paper we offer
recommendations on ways to help circumvent the
negative trajectory and increase societal resilience
to mis- and disinformation in the long run.
Governments handling the
pandemic more successfully
witnessed a lower decline in
trust, and the share of those
believing in conspiracy narratives
remained relatively stable over
the course of the year.
6. Preventing the
Downward Spiral of Distrust
6.1. At the Level of Societal
Institutions: Counter Inequality,
Polarization, Distrust, and
Disinformation
As argued before, an important prerequisite
for trust in democratic institutions is support of
democracy. Such support can only be generated if
the separation of powers is properly maintained,
and the pillars of democracy stand on solid
ground. This includes ensuring that all citizens can
benet equally by combating economic and social
inequality to weaken the foundations of distrust
(see section 4.1).
Politicians should refrain from
contributing to the spread
disinformation and affective
polarization in order to pursue
their short-term goals, for example
during pre-election periods.
Individual politicians bear a great responsibility.
As leaders and shapers of public opinion leaders,
they reach a particularly large number of people
with their communicative efforts and thus have
a substantial inuence on opinion formation,
apparent, for instance, in the polarized attitudes
towards measures to curb the pandemic in the US.
Negligent handling of the truth on the part of public
representatives can have detrimental consequences
for democracy, undermine public support of
institutions, and fuel distrust and disinformation.
Politicians should refrain from contributing to the
spread of disinformation and affective polarization
in order to pursue their short-term goals, for
example during pre-election periods.
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In a similar vein, professional journalism as
practiced by most legacy news media has a
responsibility regarding the way topics are
prepared, facts are checked, and actors are
presented. This refers to news reporting in general
but also dealing with mis- and disinformation. For
instance, research by the Engaging News Project
demonstrates that transparency about investigative
processes in general, and the process resulting in
a given news article, can increase the perceived
trustworthiness of news articles.155 Transparent
reporting is thus one approach to maintain and
restore trust in the media. Legacy media also
have a responsibility to report on disinformation
and conspiracy stories in an appropriate way.
While it is their responsibility to correct such
information, they need to react with caution
and refrain from spreading unvetted personal
opinions due to various considerations. Repeating
conspiracy theories or misleading statements can
foster an ‘illusory truth’ effect in which people
perceive the statement as more trustworthy
simply because they are already familiar with it
– even when its content is highly implausible.156
In a recent essay, Tsfati and colleagues thus
called for an intensied examination of legacy
media’s role in (unintentionally) raising
awareness of specic disinformation pieces and
contributing to the infodemic.157
Legacy media can be enabled
to possibly reduce the feeling of
citizens that their voices are not
represented and contribute to an
overall more fruitful environment
for trust at the societal level.
Last, but not least, the interconnectedness of
trust in news media and democratic institutions
makes news media a relevant factor for trust in
institutions such as national health authorities and
international organizations, e.g., the WHO, which
play a key role during the pandemic. However,
journalism’s normative function does not include
creating trust but providing factual reporting
and holding those in power accountable. As such,
journalistic independence must be guaranteed,
for example by ensuring sucient funding
for independent or public media. By doing so,
legacy media can be enabled to possibly reduce
the feeling of citizens that their voices are not
represented and contribute to an overall more
fruitful environment for trust at the societal level.
6.2. At the Level of Social
Groups: Address Enduring
Intergroup Conflicts and Enable
Positive Intergroup Contact
As established above, prejudice ourishes in times
of crisis (see section 4.2) and endangers social
peace and citizens’ well-being. Accordingly, means
of combatting prejudice and ensuring inclusion,
and constant engagement against prejudice,
discrimination and historically conicted
relationships are needed to bolster societal
resilience against mis- and disinformation.
One social psychological approach that has
been well-established for improving intergroup
relationships is based on the contact hypothesis by
Allport.158 The contact hypothesis postulates that
a positive interaction (e.g., a project, a joint game,
or a shared festival) between members of different
social groups reduces prejudice. However, this so-
called positive contact requires some preconditions:
First, members of different groups need to have an
equal status in the contact situation (for instance,
all being students, or members of a sports team).
Second, the situation should require them to
cooperate with one another to achieve a common
goal (for instance, to engage in joint community
work), and the relevant authorities, whether a
sports trainer or the government, laws, and societal
norms in general, should treat all equally and
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support the cooperation.159 Ample evidence has
shown that such contact can reduce anxiety with
regard to the “others,” allowing people to learn
more about the other side, and feel more empathy
towards them. Positive contact can help to blur
intergroup boundaries, thus fostering resilience to
disinformation.160
As van Bavel et al. concluded in a recent think-
piece: “the pandemic not only highlights a
common identity with individuals all facing the
same risk but could also foster a sense of shared
fate. By highlighting an overarching identity,
politicians, the media, and opinion leaders could
help reduce political division around the issue.”161
New Zealand’s central campaign ‘unite against
COVID-19’ tries to employ such an inclusive
“we.” As trustworthiness perception depends on
perceived integrity and reputation, however, these
and similar attempts must be seen as implemented
honestly in the political echelon.
6.3. At the Level of the
Individual: Empower Citizens,
Provide Certainty, and Value
As described above (see section 4.3), the human,
epistemic need to form a coherent understanding
of the world can be exploited by mis- and
disinformation or conspiracy stories. Information
literacy addressing this need is thus important in
combatting the information disorder. Trust alone
is not enough, but must be accompanied by citizen
awareness of the pervasiveness of misleading
information, ongoing, active reection ones’ own
role in the infodemic (i.e., that one’s digital actions
such as liking or sharing can have far-reaching
consequences), and empowerment to scrutinize
content encountered online.162 Different studies
have highlighted the role of analytical thinking in
citizen empowerment against conspiracy stories,163
disinformation in general,164 and regarding
COVID-19 in general.165 Platform design can play an
important role here: In September 2020, the micro-
blogging service Twitter presented a new approach
to curb the ood of disinformation by encouraging
users to read articles and comment on a tweet
before sharing it.166
Other studies have highlighted the relevance of
“inoculating” people by providing them with weak
“doses” of the arguments employed in mis- and
disinformation and warnings that they fall prey
before they encounter them.167 Such inoculation
can be highly entertaining: The creators of the
game “Bad News,”168 which allows users to
actively create their own “fake news,” showed
in several studies that playing the game enabled
participants to detect common misinformation
techniques including conspiracy ideations and
attempts to fuel polarization.169
Different studies have highlighted
the role of analytical thinking in
citizen empowerment against
conspiracy stories, disinformation
in general, and regarding
COVID-19 in general.
News literacy alone, however, is not enough.
Conspiracy beliefs are also driven by cognitive
needs for certainty and perceived control.
Therefore, policy measures to reduce personal
economic uncertainties170 and provide people
with a sense of control fosters their resilience
towards conspiracy stories.171 In a related vein,
measures addressing peoples’ social needs,
such as their need for a positive self- and group
image, are needed to eliminate docking points for
conspiracy stories. For instance, laboratory studies
show that offering individuals an armation of
their values reduces their beliefs in conspiracy
stories.172 Societies providing such an armation
of their citizens’ values and allowing them to feel
like valuable members of society are thus likely to
be less vulnerable to mis- and disinformation or
conspiracy theories.
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Trust, Democratic Resilience, and the Infodemic
7. Concluding Remarks
Taken together, erosion of trust at the level of
societal institutions such as politics or the media,
between social groups, or individuals’ conspiracy
beliefs, increases societies vulnerability to mis-
and disinformation, endangers social stability,
and substantially impairs successful control of
public crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fostering societies’ resilience, i.e., the ability
to “bounce back” and retain their democratic
structure in face of the inherent uncertainty
during times of crisis is possible, but this effort
requires taking long-term developments such
as polarization, inequality, and intergroup
conicts as well as personal uncertainties into
consideration. Furthermore, the different actors
in the information eco-system, including state
institutions, politicians, scientists, the media
as well as the internet platforms must ensure
reliable information, act transparently, and build
a reputation of being trustworthy over time.
Finally, citizens must be empowered to handle
information responsibly. In this context,
platform policies aimed at limiting the spread
of misleading information can contribute to
a healthier information eco-system and help
prevent reinforcing processes of distrust through
the consumption of mis- and disinformation.
Just as a society is more than the sum of its parts,
facing up to the infodemic needs to be a joint
effort by all parts of our increasingly digitized and
networked societies.
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Trust, Democratic Resilience, and the Infodemic
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8
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140 Lazarus, J. V., Ratzan, S. C., Palayew, A., Gostin, L. O.,
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143 Sorokowski, P., Groyecka, A., Kowal, M.,
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About the Authors
Lena Frischlich is the principal investigator
of the junior research group DemoRESILdigital
– Democratic Resilience in Times of Online
Propaganda, Fake News, Fear and Hate Speech” at
the University of Münster, Germany, and currently
works as an interim professor for Communication
Science with a special focus on media change at the
Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. In her
research, she studies the impact of media change
and technological innovations with a special
focus on the emergence of opportunity structures
for manipulation-oriented communication such
as extremist propaganda, disinformation, and
hate speech, and how resilience against such
manipulation attempts can be fostered. Lena has
been (co-) principal investigator on multiple third-
party funding projects including “Propaganda 2.0”
(2011–2013) and “Counter-Narratives?” (2014–
2016). Her work has been published in the central
outlets of the eld, as well as in different book
chapters and conference proceedings. She has
co-edited two books. Her work has been awarded
multiple top paper awards by the International
Communication Association. In 2020, she was
elected as the rst communication scholar by the
prestigious interdisciplinary young college (“Junges
Kolleg”) of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy
of Sciences, Humanities, and the Arts.
Edda Humprecht is a Senior Research and
Teaching Associate at the Department of
Communication and Media Research at the
University of Zurich and is currently leading
a project funded by the Swiss National
Science Foundation on resilience to online
disinformation in a comparative perspective. She
specializes in international comparative research
on digital journalism and digital political
communication and focuses on topics such as
online disinformation, news user comments and
hate speech, fact-checking and journalism, and
the digital transformation of media systems.
She is a member of the Digital Society Initiative
at the University of Zurich and has been (co-)
principal investigator of projects on online news
performance and comparative media systems.
Her work has won numerous awards and been
published in the eld's leading journals. She
speaks and writes regularly about her research
in the news media and appears at public events.
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Trust, Democratic Resilience, and the Infodemic
Israel Public Policy Institute (IPPI)
The Israel Public Policy Institute (IPPI) is an independent policy
think-and-do-tank and a multistakeholder dialog platform at the
intersection of society, technology and the environment. Through
its research activities, knowledge sharing, networking and public
outreach, IPPI contributes to the innovation of public policy with the
goal of understanding, guiding, and advancing the transformation
process of our societies towards a sustainable and democratic
future. IPPI works with a global network of actors from government,
academia, civil society, and the private sector to foster international
and interdisciplinary crosspollination of ideas and experiences.
Heinrich Böll Foundation Tel Aviv
The Heinrich Böll Foundation is an independent global think-
and-do-tank for green visions. With its international network
of 33 international oces, the foundation works with well over
100 project partners in more than 60 countries. The foundation’s
work in Israel focuses on fostering democracy, promoting
environmental sustainability, advancing gender equality, and
promoting dialog and exchange of knowledge between public
policy experts and institutions from Israel and Germany.
German-Israeli Dialog Program of the
Heinrich Böll Foundation
The German-Israeli Dialog Program of the Heinrich Böll
Foundation was established to foster cooperation and exchange
of knowledge between public policy communities from Germany
and Israel with the aim of generating new actionable insights in
support of democratic values and sustainable development. The
program is home for a range of projects and activities that provide
unique collaborative spaces for researchers and practitioners
from government, academia, tech and civil society to meet, debate
and formulate innovative policy-oriented solutions to societal
questions and challenges shared by both countries.
Project Partners: Fostering Democratic
Resilience in the Digital Age
The paper series is published as part of the broader project “Fostering Democratic Resilience
in the Digital Age," conceptualized and executed by the Israel Public Policy Institute (IPPI) in
collaboration with the Heinrich Böll Foundation Tel Aviv.
Published under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0),
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The views expressed in this paper are those of the author/s and do
not necessarily reflect the views of the German government, the
Israel Public Policy Institute and/or the Heinrich Böll Foundation.
Israel Public Policy Institute
oce.israel@ippi.org.il
www.ippi.org.il
Heinrich Böll Foundation
Tel-Aviv
info@il.boell.org
www.il.boell.org
German Embassy Tel Aviv
pr-s1@tela.diplo.de
tel-aviv.diplo.de/il-de
Release date: February 2021
Design: www.tinker.co.il
Cover: www.danielgoldfarbart.com
