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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Brussels:20260526T160000
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DTSTAMP:20260420T101814Z
CREATED:20251204T091346Z
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UID:2493-1779811200-1779818400@brias.be
SUMMARY:Public Lecture – Big Ideas for Democracy: Péter Krekó
DESCRIPTION:Register here\nInformational Autocracies and State-Sponsored Disinformation – On the Possibilities and Limits of Institutionalized Brainwashing\nAbstract\nIn today’s information landscape\, the rise of “spin dictatorships” or informational autocracies shows how state actors\, economic elites\, and digital platforms cooperate to sustain mass persuasion. Instead of relying mainly on repression\, these regimes manage information\, engineer public discourse\, and cultivate perceived legitimacy while preserving a façade of democratic competition. Using advanced digital tools\, they influence public opinion through sophisticated media control and polarization. Despite institutional differences\, the psychological and communicative dynamics of persuasion often converge in different political systems: fragmented media\, partisan echo chambers\, and identity-based mobilization create fertile ground for disinformation.\nGoing beyond a supply-side view of propaganda\, the presentation highlights the demand for deceit. Citizens are not merely passive recipients; many actively embrace narratives that affirm group identities and grievances. In polarized contexts\, information is filtered through loyalty more than accuracy\, reinforcing motivated reasoning. This perspective challenges the democracy-autocracy divide. Informational autocraces emerge fromk democracies when political actors normalize disinformation and erode epistemic standards. Hungary illustrates how media capture and centralized resources can turn political competition into a persuasion machine\, while the United States shows how polarization and market-driven media logics can produce similar distortions without centralized control.\nThe presentation concludes by arguing for a reconceptualization of dictatorship and democracy in the digital age and discussing the general possible cpounterstrategies.   As technological infrastructures increasingly mediate political reality\, the key question is not whether a regime represses dissent\, but how it structures the informational environment in which citizens form beliefs and how much democracies can survive in such an environment.\n\nBio\nPéter Krekó is a behavioral scientist and disinformation expert whose research examines the psychological drivers of belief in disinformation\, its political and institutional consequences\, the dynamics of state-sponsored disinformation\, and effective counterstrategies. He holds a PhD from Eötvös Loránd University\, where he is an Associate Professor and leads the Disinformation and Artificial Intelligence Research Lab. His doctoral dissertation focused on the psychological underpinnings of conspiracy theories.\nHe is a Research Affiliate at the CEU Democracy Institute and a Senior Fellow at the CEU Institute for Advanced Study. He has also been an Engaging Central Europe Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Previously\, he was a PopBack Fellow at the University of Cambridge\, a guest researcher at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna\, a Fellow at iASK Kőszeg\, and an Associate Fellow at the Johns Hopkins SAIS Bologna Center. He has served as a Fulbright Visiting Professor at Indiana University and as a Policy Leader Fellow at the European University Institute.\nKrekó is the owner and director of the Political Capital Institute and leads Hungary’s disinformation hub (HDMO-Lakmusz)\, supported by the European Commission under the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) hosted at the European University Institute.
URL:https://brias.be/event/public-lecture-big-ideas-for-democracy-peter-krako/
LOCATION:BrIAS\, Boulevard Général Jacques 210\, Ixelles\, Brussels\, 1050\, Belgium
CATEGORIES:Programme Events
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