The Political Economy of New Media: Challenges and Opportunities Across Democracies and Autocracies

There are several open research questions in the political economy of new media. What role do they play in the spread of “fake news”? What are their effects on voters’ beliefs and behavior, and on the overall level of ideological polarization? What is their impact on citizens’ trust in experts and democratic institutions? Furthermore, we still need to fully understand to what extent new media and digital platforms represent tools to overthrow autocracies or, rather, whether they provide new propaganda and surveillance instruments for such regimes.