Disinformation - An existential threat to European democracy?

Abstract: In recent years the unprecedented spread of disinformation on online platforms, along with declining trust in government, journalism, and institutions, has consequently led the EU to regard disinformation as an urgent threat to democracy. To address the threat the EU decided in 2022 on the groundbreaking Digital Services Act (DSA) legislation, targeting digital platforms. However, the complexity of enforcing measures against disinformation without impacting freedom of expression raises questions of how the EU reached this policy decision. By applying the theory of securitisation and the discourse analytical WPR-approach this paper explores how the EU has attempted to securitize disinformation as a threat to democracy in the policy discourse, and what has been left unproblematized in the framing of the threat. The findings show the EU has collectively attempted to securitize disinformation as an existential, predominantly external threat to democracy. However, as the DSA and other related measures do not meet the theory’s requirements of being extraordinary, it led to the conclusion that this does not constitute a successful case of securitisation. The findings further show how the problematization of foreign disinformation, particularly concerning Russia as the primary threat, has overshadowed and left the role of domestic disinformation rather unproblematized in the policy discourse.