The Research Corpus
The "Troubled Democracy" thesis is built upon a foundation of over 3,000 academic sources, spanning communications, political science, AI ethics, and global governance. Below are the core academic pillars informing this assessment.
3,095+
Verified academic sources in the full metadata library.
2023
Year of peak scholarship representation (676+ entries).
74%
Scholarship focused on Global North; highlighting the "Invisibility Gap".
News
Digital news integrity and platform dependency as leading themes.
In January 2025, the Observatory on Information and Democracy published its first research synthesis, focusing on data governance infrastructures, media ecosystems, and artificial intelligence, with misinformation and disinformation as cross-cutting issues. Hosted by the Forum on Information and Democracy, the Observatory, aims to bridge research and policymaking by convening a global network to uphold transparency, accountability, and democratic values in the governance of the digital sphere.
This report has also been updated and adapted as an Open Access Book, published by Nordicom, the centre for Nordic media research at the University of Gothenburg under the title "Information Ecosystems and Troubled Democracy: State of Knowledge on News Media, AI and Data Governance".
The book forces synthesis across case studies and jurisdictions, exposes methods to peer scrutiny, and survives election cycles and platform pivots. It also broadens audiences beyond policy insiders to scholars, journalists, and other stakeholders, anchoring agenda-setting and future updates.
Access the Complete Corpus
The dataset below is for the original report and is being hosted by the Observatory on Information and Democracy here.