Disinformation fuels distrust in a functioning modern society – a contribution by professor of applied sciences Marian Adolf to the Media Literacy Report 2025.
Marian Adolf, Senior Researcher at FHWien der WKW, explained in his introduction to the presentation of the 2025 Media Literacy Report by RTR GmbH (authority for broadcast and telecommunications regulation) on November 13, 2025, how disinformation influences coexistence in modern society.
The communications researcher and media sociologist aptly explained:
“Much of what we think we know about the world is actually just what we believe.”
Since we are laypersons in literally all fields, we must trust each other – believe that others are acting to the best of their knowledge. According to Adolf, knowledge and trust are therefore functionally equivalent, and trust is a central cornerstone of communal coexistence. Disinformation strikes precisely at this point, namely at the loss of trust and doubt, thereby destroying coexistence in a modern society in the long term:
“To the extent that disinformation makes us suspicious, it makes us socially dumber.”
Marian Adolf contributed to the Media Literacy Report with his article “It’s about social cohesion – disinformation, fake news, and the crisis of discourse in the digital society.” In his critical analysis, he focuses in particular on the digital attention economy and its effects through incentive systems that systematically favor exaggerated, emotionalizing, or polarizing content, as well as the manipulation of information, including generative AI as an accelerant of the loss of trust even in established media.