Piloting emotion-informed interventions for strengthening digital democratic resilience

Project Details

Project period
Start: 01/08/2026
End: 31/12/2028

Financing
OsloMet - Oslo Metropolitan University

Project owner
Faculty of Social Sciences (SAM)
Oslo Business School

Project manager
Lewend Mayiwar

Disinformation and emotionally manipulative political content are increasingly highlighted as one of the greatest challenges facing democratic societies today.

Rather than focusing solely on facts, the researchers will examine whether simple interventions can make individuals more resilient to emotionally manipulative political content. Through laboratory studies and field studies of how people encounter and respond to political content in digital media, the project will investigate whether such interventions can reduce polarization and strengthen trust in institutions and democratic processes.

The project is part of OsloMet’s strategic research area A Durable Democracy.

Participants

Tine Ustad Figenschou
Eleonora Freddi
Yuri Kasahara
Haroon Khan
Lewend Mayiwar
Malte Runge

Expert Advisory Group

Sander van der Linden, University of Cambridge (Department of Psychology)
Jon Roozenbeek, University of Cambridge (Department of Psychology)
Jonas R. Kunst, BI Norwegian Business School (Department of Communication and Culture)
Lotte Pummerer, University of Mannheim (School of Social Sciences)

More About the Project

Digital media platforms often reward content that provokes strong emotions, leading such material to spread rapidly and reach large audiences. These reactions can influence how people evaluate political information, whom they trust, and how they participate in democratic processes. This project examines whether interventions targeting emotional responses can make individuals more resilient to manipulative political content and help strengthen democratic resilience.

Emotions and Democratic Resilience

Much of today’s work to combat disinformation relies on fact-checking and measures designed to help people assess information more critically. At the same time, research shows that emotional responses play an important role in how people engage with and share political content online.

The project compares different approaches, including emotional regulation strategies and so-called “inoculation” techniques, which prepare individuals to encounter attempts at influence before they are exposed to them.

The aim is to investigate whether such measures can reduce the impact of emotionally manipulative political content and contribute to greater trust in institutions and more robust democratic attitudes.

Political Content in Everyday Life

The project combines laboratory studies and field studies. In the laboratory, researchers examine how people respond to political content presented in different formats, such as text, images, and video.

In the field study, researchers follow participants’ encounters with political content in their everyday lives over time, in order to investigate how these experiences influence emotions, attitudes, and trust.

Key Research Questions

• How does emotionally charged political content affect people’s emotional responses?
• Can interventions targeting these responses make individuals more resilient to manipulative political content?
• Can such interventions contribute to increased trust in institutions and more robust democratic attitudes?