FROM SCREENS TO STREETS : When and How Disinformation Triggers Citizen-Perpetrated Election Violence

Sammanfattning

In recent years, disinformation in elections has attracted increasing scholarly attention, yet its effects on public attitudes and behaviour remain poorly understood. While some have proposed that disinformation can foster violent dispositions among citizens, evidence remains weak. This study addresses that gap by investigating the research question: How does online disinformation influence election violence? Hypothesising that a higher prevalence of disinformation on social media increases the likelihood of citizen-perpetrated election violence, this study develops a dual-mechanism framework: At the attitudinal level, false narratives exploit and amplify pre-existing grievances. At the organisational level, social media facilitates the formation of politically homogeneous networks. Together, they explain how ordinary citizens develop both greater motivation and expanded capabilities for violence. The thesis employs a structured focused comparison of the 2018 and 2022 Brazilian general elections, mapping variation in online disinformation against incidents of citizen-perpetrated violence. The findings support the proposed theory. The 2022 disinformation campaign, marked by widespread diffusion of false information and a salient electoral fraud narrative, drove political intolerance and enabled the co-ordination of post-election unrest, culminating in the insurrection in Brasília on 8 January 2023. More broadly, this study highlights the online-offline nexus through which disinformation translates into real-world electoral violence.