This is a very comprehensive report, thanks for posting.
Given that education is seen as a strong predictor of populist attitudes, it is interesting that many interventions listed on the demand side seem to target highly educated people (e.g. Our World in Data, Factfullness, Journalism, Fact checking in general, BPB). The Youtube channel Kurzgesagt and some things Last week tonight comes up with (e.g. the wrestler John Cena warning against conspiracy theories) seem a bit better. You mention research how they might affect policy, but it would also be interesting how they affect the attitudes of the broader audience in general.
Still, information spreading explicitly and effectively targeted towards people at risk of populist attitudes (older, less educated) seems kind of rare? Where are the civic education memes that can be shared in boomer facebook groups? E.g. to combat conspiracy theories, I see a lot of videos with experts explaining the issue in simple terms, when this is exactly the kind of people that populists consider to be the elite not to be trusted.
I think there’s a continuum going from highly educated to those that are most at risk of populism.
I haven’t researched this carefully but my hunch is there are actually lots of translation of civic education memes to people who are at risk of populism (not only from experts). It seems to me that on the margin, high-quality, easily -accessible information for educated people is more neglected.
This is a very comprehensive report, thanks for posting.
Given that education is seen as a strong predictor of populist attitudes, it is interesting that many interventions listed on the demand side seem to target highly educated people (e.g. Our World in Data, Factfullness, Journalism, Fact checking in general, BPB). The Youtube channel Kurzgesagt and some things Last week tonight comes up with (e.g. the wrestler John Cena warning against conspiracy theories) seem a bit better. You mention research how they might affect policy, but it would also be interesting how they affect the attitudes of the broader audience in general.
Still, information spreading explicitly and effectively targeted towards people at risk of populist attitudes (older, less educated) seems kind of rare? Where are the civic education memes that can be shared in boomer facebook groups? E.g. to combat conspiracy theories, I see a lot of videos with experts explaining the issue in simple terms, when this is exactly the kind of people that populists consider to be the elite not to be trusted.
Excellent point.
I think there’s a continuum going from highly educated to those that are most at risk of populism.
I haven’t researched this carefully but my hunch is there are actually lots of translation of civic education memes to people who are at risk of populism (not only from experts). It seems to me that on the margin, high-quality, easily -accessible information for educated people is more neglected.
related citation: IQ of the top 5% better at predicting GDP—does that suggest that increasing the epistemics of the TOP 5% is better than combating fake news? Cognitive Capitalism: The Effect of Cognitive Ability on Wealth, as Mediated Through Scientific Achievement and Economic Freedom
Stefan Schubert also thinks about this this sometimes:
https://stefanfschubert.com/blog/2020/10/20/fake-news-fighting-can-harm-elite-debates
https://stefanfschubert.com/blog/2020/12/22/legitimate-epistocracy