The transnational challenge to define and fight back ‘disinformation’: a research agenda

Abstract

Public spheres are very different objects from those that started the processes of globalization. One of the novel aspects of current public spheres is the growing influence of social media platforms and the disinformation that nurtures in them. In this sense they have become a central element in current political communication and electoral campaigns in particular. This article outlines a research agenda on how to investigate the construction of this new political object, both in the political debate and the regulatory framework. We propose to study this political object as a dispute in the emerging transnational field where disinformation is defined, and suggest theoretical, methodological and normative issues of this agenda. We argue that there are different pre-existing fields (journalism, international security) that are affected by the emergence of the new transnational field of disinformation and that the actors of each field will try to establish the rules of the game, and that it is precisely the pre-existence of these fields which leads the actors present in them to selectively politicize and depoliticize disinformation.