Introduction: History of Media and Information Distribution

The exponential increase in the availability and reach of online information has increasingly shaped democracies around the world. In recent decades, social media platforms have transformed how citizens consume and share information, fostering information access, public debate, and political awareness. At the same time, they have facilitated the spread and consumption of online disinformation, undermining citizens’ ability to make informed decisions about who to trust and vote for, thereby threatening democracies and raising doubts about the integrity of democratic processes.

Throughout history, information has been increasingly crucial to human society, with its distribution evolving through oral storytelling, the printing press, and beyond. The printing press, for example, democratized knowledge in the 16th and 17th centuries, expanding public access to information and enabling people to influence public policy.1 However, this also paved the way for the dissemination of misleading information. Subsequent advancements like the proliferation of newspapers in the 17th and 18th centuries and the advent of radio and television in the 20th century continued to shape public opinion and democratic participation.2 These forms of media not only increased information accessibility but also introduced new avenues for spreading inaccurate information.