Assessing Digital Threats to Democracy, and Workable Solutions: A Review of the Recent Literature

Authors

  • Kathleen M. Kuehn Victoria University of Wellington
  • Leon A. Salter Massey University

Keywords:

digital democracy, fake news, filter bubbles, echo chambers, hate speech, surveillance, surveillance capitalism

Abstract

Concerns surrounding the threats that digital platforms pose to the functioning of Western liberal democracies have grown since the 2016 U.S. election. Yet despite a preponderance of academic work in this area, the precise nature of these threats, empirical solutions for their redress, and their relationship to the wider digital political economy remain undertheorized. This article addresses these gaps with a semisystematic literature review that identifies and defines four prominent threats—fake news, filter bubbles/echo chambers, online hate speech, and surveillance—and constructs a typology of “workable solutions” for combating these threats that highlights the tendency to silo technical, regulatory, or culturally embedded approaches. 

Author Biographies

Kathleen M. Kuehn, Victoria University of Wellington

Kathleen M Kuehn is a senior lecturer in media studies at Victoria University of Wellington. Her research and teaching interests include digital/social media, privacy, surveillance, labour and consumer culture.  She is the author of The Post-Snowden Era: Mass Surveillance and Privacy in New Zealand (BWB Texts, 2016). 

Leon A. Salter, Massey University

Leon A. Salter teaches and writes on social movements, education, journalism and digital culture.  Dr Leon Salter, Lecturer in Media and CommunicationBuilding 5, Room 5F49, Massey University, Wellington, Aotearoa, New ZealandDDI 04 979 3544, ext. 63656 Email: l.a.salter@massey.ac.nz

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Published

2020-04-28

Issue

Vol. 14 (2020)

Section

Articles

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