Unravelling Misinformation in Politics: Introduction to the Special
Issue
Misinformation is discussed as one of the most pressing challenges of the digital
age, potentially shaping public opinion and influencing political behaviour across
the globe. In this introduction to a special issue, we report on the analysis of
Scopus search results documenting increasing attention to misinformation (and
related topics) over the past twenty-five years and a focus on the US context. The
contributions to this special issue consider the US context (Gomez & Jenkins
2025; Littrell et al. 2025), but also consider Brazil (Bastos et al. 2025), Germany
(Unger et al. 2025), and several cross-national studies that include other countries
in Europe, the US, and Canada (Holt & Bechmann 2025; Hoffmann & Boulianne
2025; Morosoli & Humprecht 2025). The contributions offer overlapping insights
on the themes of misinformation as a socially constructed phenomenon;
misinformation exposure and engagement; and the power and limitations of
misinformation. We connect these new findings with recently published metaanalyses and systematic literature reviews on misinformation. We conclude with
suggestions for future research that addresses contextual and cultural specificity;
examines the motivations for engagement; explores new angles for the study of
polarisation and partisanship; and new methodologies.
Keywords: misinformation; disinformation; cross-national; conspiracy; politics;
news

From allegations of voter fraud in high-profile elections to coordinated campaigns
targeting climate change debates, misinformation is discussed as one of the most
pressing challenges of the digital age, potentially shaping public opinion and
influencing political behaviour across the globe. For example, the World Economic
Forum (2024) rated mis- and disinformation as the most prominent immediate global
risk. This estimation is based on the perceived pervasiveness of misinformation and
risks associated with misinformation mitigation measures. On the one hand, false or
misleading information is believed to be pervasive and threatens democratic processes
and societal trust. On the other hand, measures against misinformation could endanger

This is an original manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Elections, Public
Opinion and Parties on June 2025, available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/17457289.2025.2520790

civil liberties - especially in light of several open questions around the sources, reach,
and effects of mis- and disinformation (Jungherr 2024). This raises several critical
questions about the power and influence of misinformation - especially in the critical
realm of politics, where the borders between intentional disinformation and
unintentional misinformation can be blurred.
Vraga and Bode (2020) argued that it is often easier to define “misinformation” in
the context of health or science, where deviations from expert consensus or the best
available evidence is clearer compared to politics. However, it is not always clear who
is the expert; the best available evidence is subjective; and expert consensus is not
always available (Vraga & Bode 2020). While we generally understand misinformation
as deviations from the best available evidence for the purpose of this special issue, we
also acknowledge that the perception of a political claim, its (perceived) factuality, and
the maliciousness of its sources is often shaped by the perceivers’ political identities,
preferences, and contexts. The contributions to this issue offer their own perspective
about misinformation and the related concepts of conspiracy, disinformation, and
propaganda (see especially Unger et al. 2025).
Misinformation has received much attention in the past 25 years within the social
sciences. Figure 1 displays the search results from Scopus (February 19, 2025) based on
the following keywords in the article abstract, title, or keywords: misinformation OR
disinformation OR “false information” OR conspir* OR “fake news” OR hoax OR
“information disorder” OR malinformation. The keywords are adapted from Bak et al.’s
(2023) systematic review. While there is typically a general surge in scholarly work
across several areas, Figure 1 shows sharp increases in interest after political world
events such as the general US election in 2016, around the beginning of the COVID-19
pandemic in 2019/2020 and the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

[insert Figure 1 here]
This special issue focuses on misinformation in politics. While misinformation
exists in other domains, such as health and wars/conflict (see especially Holt &
Bechmann 2025), misinformation in politics is the most concerning to citizens,
according to the Digital News Report 2024 (Newman et al. 2024). Misinformation in
politics can refer to different aspects of the communication process: Political actors
spreading misinformation to their voters, other parties or countries, misleading political
content spread by distinct more-or-less institutionalised actors, as well as political
attitudes shaping the perception of and response to misinformation on the side of the
recipients.
Regarding the latter, systematic reviews paint a somewhat mixed picture. On the
one hand, a systematic review of 31 US experiments suggests that political identity is a
key predictor of the ability to distinguish between true and false news headlines (Sultan
et al. 2024). The authors suggest that people may label headlines as true or false
depending on their agreement with the information rather than on the truthfulness of the
information. In short, ideology and/or partisanship shape susceptibility to online
misinformation in the US. However, the systematic review only included US-based
experiments with raw data available online or received from authors upon request,
which limits the sample size for this summary of results. A more global meta-analysis
of 67 experiments suggests that political leanings do not affect the ability to discern true
and false news (Pfänder & Altay 2025). Furthermore, this meta-analysis indicates that
people are better able to identify true versus false news and tend to err on the side of
skepticism (Pfänder & Altay 2025). Political misperceptions are likely complex and
shaped by the characteristics of the sender (e.g., the credibility of a political candidate),
the content (e.g., the plausibility and world-view centrality of a lie), the context (e.g.

digital platforms or national environments) and further susceptibility factors on the side
of the recipient.
The articles in this special issue highlight false information (especially Gomez &
Jenkins 2025) and conspiracy beliefs related to the US elections (especially Littrell et al.
2025), demonstrating the political dimensions of misinformation. Furthermore, the
articles in this issue offer new perspectives about the overlap in exposure to political
content and concerns about misinformation (Hoffmann & Boulianne 2025). In addition,
the articles in this volume reveal cross-national variations in experiences of
misinformation (Holt & Bechmann 2025; Hoffmann & Boulianne 2025; Morosoli &
Humprecht 2025) while also offering deep insights into political misinformation in
Brazil (Bastos et al. 2025), Germany (Unger et al. 2025), and the US (Gomez & Jenkins
2025; Littrell et al. 2025).
While recent scholarship has predominantly examined health-related
misinformation (Bak et al. 2023), this issue emphasizes political contexts, including
elections (Bastos et al. 2025; Gomez & Jenkins 2025; Littrell et al. 2025) and salient
issues like climate change, migration, and COVID-19 (Morosoli & Humprecht 2025).
By exploring misinformation’s modalities, its variable effects, and the demographic
groups most susceptible to its influence, this issue advances an interdisciplinary and
comparative understanding of misinformation’s role in contemporary politics.
Furthermore, we encouraged contributing authors to reflect on whether
misinformation is as powerful as expected (Altay et al. 2023; Benton 2023).
Specifically, scholars were encouraged to be mindful of effect sizes, the limitations of
their sampling frames, and the possibility of null effects (e.g., Boulianne & Humprecht
2023). In launching this special issue, we were acutely aware of the publication biases
within this field of research. The publication bias applies to all scholarship, resulting in

papers reporting null effects being less likely to be published and ending up in a “file
drawer” (Franco et al. 2014). The implications of this bias may be an overestimation of
the effects of misinformation on attitudes and behaviours, as null effects are
systematically excluded as outputs. Our call for papers was open to null effects. As
such, it is not surprising that our special issue includes papers reporting null effects.
Contributing scholars were asked to reflect upon which subgroups may be most
vulnerable to the influences of misinformation, such as those who hold conspiracy
beliefs (De Coninck et al. 2021; Frischlich 2022; Frischlich et al. 2021; Uscinski et al.
2022). Additionally, we encouraged scholars to reflect on how their observed effects
can be translated to other countries or political contexts. Systematic reviews of
misinformation point out the focus on the US context (Broda & Strömbäck 2024, also
see Table 1) with Western European countries becoming more popular focal points
(Bak et al. 2022; Broda & Strömbäck 2024). However, misinformation extends far
beyond Western democracies (Table 1). This special issue builds upon comparative
work in this field (Boulianne et al. 2022; Boulianne & Hoffmann 2024; Boulianne &
Lee 2022; Humprecht et al. 2020, 2023). This comparative approach is important as
meta-analysis studies show that the effectiveness of interventions against
misinformation depends on the cultural context. For example, Huang et al. (2024) found
49 experimental studies about the effects of media literacy interventions for mitigating
misinformation; they found that these interventions were more effective in countries
with high levels of uncertainty avoidance, such as South Korea and Japan, compared to
countries with low levels of uncertainty avoidance, such as the US.
[insert Table 1 here]
Our special issue is distinctive in several respects. First, we include scholarship
from diverse disciplines such as political science, communication, sociology, and

psychology, whereas computer sciences and information studies dominate this field
(Bak et al. 2022). This interdisciplinary approach allows for a comprehensive
understanding of misinformation’s complexities in elections and political issues.
Second, this special issue takes a global approach. Contributing scholars are from North
America, South America, and Europe, providing insights from different political, social,
and cultural contexts. This diversity of perspectives adds richness and depth to our
understanding of misinformation and its impacts on public opinion and political
behaviour. Third, our special issue presents a wide variety of evidence on
misinformation, including experiments, cross-national surveys, computational methods,
and interviews, offering a comprehensive examination of the phenomenon. This diverse
array of evidence contributes to a nuanced understanding of the dynamics of
misinformation in the political realm.

Thematic analysis of contributions
The articles in this special issue overlap on three themes.

Misinformation as a Socially Constructed Phenomenon
Using qualitative interviews, Unger et al. (2025) examine how different sectors (media,
politics, government, and business) understand disinformation dissemination. Bastos et
al. (2025) examine the iterative process through which misinformation is co-constructed
by grassroots activists and political elites during the 2022 Brazilian general election.
Their study emphasizes the participatory nature of misinformation production and the
bidirectional influences between elites and the public.

Exposure and Engagement

Holt and Bechmann (2025) analyze Facebook data from 27 EU member states and the
UK, revealing demographic and regional variations in misinformation exposure and
user engagement. Their findings challenge assumptions about who is most vulnerable,
showing that women aged 35 to 44 were most exposed during key events like the
COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war. Morosoli and Humprecht (2025) also
demonstrate different patterns of engagement with misinformation but also reveal that a
significant majority ignore such posts based on samples from Belgium, Switzerland,
Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Their finding challenges
narratives emphasising widespread susceptibility in the broader population and
highlight the need for nuanced perspectives on misinformation’s reach and influence.
While Hoffmann and Boulianne (2025) set out to understand concerns about
misinformation, they document that perceived exposure to misinformation on social
media is high. Furthermore, perceived exposure strongly correlates with concerns about
misinformation on Instagram across the US, Canada, the UK, France, and Germany.

The Power and Limitations of Misinformation
Gomez and Jenkins (2025) exposed respondents to a one-sided mock news story about
voter fraud. They did not find a significant effect of the story on perceptions of voter
fraud. While the main effects were not significant, they show that news consumption
and political homophily were important predictors of views about voter fraud.
Likewise, Littrell et al. (2025) exposed US respondents to a short text stating that
many Americans believe that the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia during the
2016 election. Like Gomez and Jenkins (2025), they do not find a significant main
effect of their experiment on beliefs about Russian interference. Instead, participants’

beliefs were primarily associated with following politics, partisanship, and pre-existing
beliefs, such as conspiracy thinking, ideology, and job approval ratings for Trump.

Future research
The articles in this special issue collectively advance the study of misinformation while
highlighting areas for future exploration. Bastos et al. (2025) emphasize the need to
study misinformation within broader cultural narratives and social rituals rather than as
isolated falsehoods. Morosoli and Humprecht (2025) advocate examining engagement
motivations beyond agreement or disagreement, suggesting behavioural tracking over
self-reports. Similarly, Hoffmann and Boulianne (2025) call for web tracking data to
provide more objective insights into misinformation exposure and sharing behaviours.
Gomez and Jenkins (2025) highlight the importance of disentangling the effects of
message content, personal predispositions, and media consumption, encouraging
research in less polarized contexts. Finally, Holt and Bechmann (2025) stress the value
of comparative, longitudinal studies to track evolving exposure patterns across different
media environments.
Beyond the future research recommendations from these studies, we echo some
of the calls for future research generated from systematic reviews. In particular, Bak et
al. (2022) call for more research on misinformation across different platforms,
comparative election studies, and longitudinal research on who spreads misinformation.
Broda and Strömbäck (2024) completed a systematic literature review of more than
1,200 studies on misinformation, disinformation, and fake news. They also call for more
research that compares platforms, studies beyond Western democracies, and more
attention to culture and system-level factors influencing the spread and vulnerability to
misinformation.

Conclusion
The articles in this special issue demonstrate that misinformation’s impacts are neither
universal nor monolithic. They underscore the importance of examining
misinformation’s effects through contextual, demographic, and methodological lenses,
aligning with the special issue’s focus on nuanced, interdisciplinary, and comparative
approaches. The insights advance our understanding of how misinformation functions
across different media systems, demographic groups, and political contexts, providing a
richer foundation for mitigating potentially noxious societal impacts.

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Table 1. Scopus search (February 19, 2025).
Figure 1. Number of Scopus documents related to misinformation from 2000 to 2024.
Table 1. Scopus search (February 19, 2025)
misinformation OR disinformation OR “false information” OR
conspir* OR “fake news” OR hoax OR “information disorder” OR
malinformation in Article Abstract, title, and keywords
Within “social sciences”
Top 12 countries (Scopus Classification) “within social sciences”
United States
United Kingdom
Spain
United Kingdom
Germany
Australia
Canada
Italy
India
China
Netherlands
Brazil
Note: Search terms are adapted from Bak et al. (2023)

Number of
documents
52,384
19,379
6,205
2,147
1,116
2,147
874
855
787
590
542
536
499
496

Figure 1. Number of Scopus documents related to misinformation from 2000 to 2024