Political Science · Literature

Research papers on Disinformation and elections

Recent and highly-cited academic work on disinformation and elections, gathered from Semantic Scholar, CrossRef and OpenAlex.

1. Fake news, disinformation, manipulation and online tactics to undermine democracy

   Susan Morgan · 2018 · Journal of Cyber Policy · 202 citations

   The supporting infrastructure of a healthy public sphere is under strain. There are fundamental challenges facing journalism as it seeks a sustainable financial model. Evidence is growing of the so...

   Save this paper

2. Visual Mis- and Disinformation, Social Media, and Democracy

   Viorela Dan, Britt S. Paris, Joan Donovan, et al. · 2021 · Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly · 144 citations

   Save this paper

3. Disinformation in Elections

   Max Bader · 2018 · Security and Human Rights · 23 citations

   In recent years there has been increasing attention to the potentially disruptive influence of disinformation on elections. The most common forms of disinformation in elections include the dissemination of ‘fake news’ in order to discredit opponents or to influence the voting process, the falsification or manipulation of polling data, and the use of fake election monitoring and observation. This article presents an overview of the phenomenon of disinformation in elections in both democratic and undemocratic environments, and discusses measures to reduce its scope and negative impact.

   Save this paper

4. Disinformation, Misinformation, and Democracy

   Ronald James Krotoszynski · 2025 · Cambridge University Press eBooks · 8 citations

   The 2024 presidential election in the USA demonstrates, with unmistakable clarity, that disinformation (intentionally false information) and misinformation (unintentionally false information disseminated in good faith) pose a real and growing existential threat to democratic self-government in the United States – and elsewhere too. Powered by social media outlets like Facebook (Meta) and Twitter (X), it is now possible to propagate empirically false information to a vast potential audience at virtually no cost. Coupled with the use of highly sophisticated algorithms that carefully target the recipients of disinformation and misinformation, voter manipulation is easier to accomplish than ever

   Save this paper

5. Navigating the Nexus of Elections, Technology and Democracy amid Escalating Disinformation and Misinformation Challenges in Kenya

   Victoria Miyandazi, Lucianna Thuo · 2025 · Cambridge University Press eBooks · 8 citations

   Despite Kenya’s transformative and progressive 2010 Constitution, it is still grappling with a hybrid democracy, displaying both authoritarian and democratic traits. Scholars attribute this status to several factors, with a prominent one being the domination of the political order and wielding of political power by a few individuals and families with historical ties to patronage networks and informal power structures. The persisting issues of electoral fraud, widespread corruption, media harassment, weak rule of law and governance challenges further contribute to the hybrid democracy status. While the 2010 Constitution aims to restructure the state and enhance democratic institutions, the tr

   Save this paper

6. Lawfare in the Disinformation Age: Chinese Interference in Taiwan’s 2020 Elections

   Sean P. Quirk · 2021 · SSRN Electronic Journal · 4 citations

   Despite an aggressive disinformation campaign from the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”), Taiwan effectively countered false information coming from the PRC and maintained the integrity of its January 2020 elections. Political warfare between the PRC and Taiwan (the Republic of China) stretches back decades. However, the digital age has catalyzed the range and effectiveness of “disinformation”—the dissemination of false information with the intention to deceive public opinion. During Taiwan’s 2020 elections, PRC disinformation centered on the political unrest in Hong Kong and sought to sway Taiwanese public opinion toward candidates that were sympathetic to Beijing. Taiwan mounted a robust

   Save this paper

7. Is Democracy Broken? Disinformation Wants You to Think That It Is

   Alexandra E. Cirone · 2025 · Cambridge University Press eBooks · 1 citations

   Social media has a complicated relationship with democracy. Although social media is neither democratic or undemocratic, it is an arena where different actors can promote or undermine democratization. Democracy is built on a foundation of norms and trust in institutions, where elections are the defining characteristic of the democratic process. This chapter outlines two ways disinformation campaigns can undermine democratic elections’ ability to ensure fair competition, representation, and accountability. First, disinformation narratives try to influence elections, by spreading false information about the voting process, or targeting voters, candidates, or parties to alter the outcome. Secon

   Save this paper

8. The impact of disinformation generated by AI on democracy case studies: the US presidential elections in 2016 & 2024

   Nourhan Tosson Ibrahim, Nada Adel Hanafi Mahmoud Attia · 2025 · Seikei ronsō/Review of economics and political science · 1 citations

   Purpose The paper studies the impact of disinformation generated by AI on democracy and it takes the US presidential elections in 2016 and 2024 as case studies. Design/methodology/approach The paper depended on analyzing three concepts in order to formulate a theoretical framework, which are “Democracy”, “Artificial Intelligence” and “Disinformation”. The study also used the comparative case study method in order to reach the similarities and differences that could be used to test the study's hypothesis. Findings It was found that there was an increasing impact of AI in the 2024 election than 2016 election and it is likely that its influence would increase more in the next years. Also, it wa

   Save this paper

9. Framing disinformation and malign foreign information influence: A focus on the electoral arena

   Rosanna De Rosa, Annarita Criscitiello · 2025 · Media War & Conflict · 1 citations

   The assault on the Capitol (2021) in Washington, DC – and its replication in Brazil (2023) – has alerted the world to the effects of social media exposure to unverified information bringing (old) unresolved knots back to the attention of global public opinion. Like industrial waste, fake news, misinformation and post-truth contribute to polluting the wells from which democracy is fed – the autonomy of the public sphere and the reliability of the information system. Social media, with their algorithmic logic, have helped to consolidate the disinformation dynamic by exposing open societies to foreign interference. Using a conceptual matrix approach as a methodological tool to systematize the l

   Save this paper

10. Deepfakes and AI-Generated Disinformation: A Threat to Democracy in the 2026 Elections

    Tony T. Williams · 2026 · Physical Education Health and Social Sciences

    Since 2024, the dissemination of electoral disinformation has been radically changed by the rapid emergence of affordable, easy-to-use generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools that can create believable-looking images, audio, and video of candidates and public figures saying or doing things that never actually happened. This paper draws upon recent academic research, government reports, and investigative reporting mostly from the past two years to explore the impact deepfakes and AI-generated disinformation pose to democratic processes as they enter the 2026 election cycle. The paper, based on case studies from the United States, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Canada, Ireland,

    Save this paper