Abstract
Recent evidence shows that European citizens often display inaccurate perceptions of the social and political facts around them. On many key issues, they perceive a reality that is distant from factual accounts. For instance, non-EU immigrants comprise 4.2% of the population resident in the EU. However, according to a 2018 Eurobarometer survey, citizens believe the percentage is about 4 times higher. This chasm between perceptions and reality has relevant consequences in terms of how citizens think about salient political issues, how they evaluate political leaders and their proposals, how they assess policy priorities and their propensity to engage in different forms of political participation (i.e. electoral and unconventional). In short, misperceptions play a relevant and potentially distortive role throughout the whole political process. Elites (both politicians and media professionals) play an unquestionable role in shaping the lens through which citizens assess political facts, although their role is not always explicitly investigated in social and political research. MiMeSys centres on information disorder and ideological and affective polarisation as crucial sources of misperceptions among citizens and targets the effects of these misperceptions on relevant political attitudes and behaviours. It does so by studying perceptions on a set of critical issues that are, and will likely remain, paramount challenges both in Italy and Europe, including migration, health, climate change, inequalities. The project aims to achieve these goals through a cutting-edge and multi-method research design based on a panel survey including experiments, an elite survey addressed to journalists and politicians, social and traditional media analysis. Thus, MiMeSys will significantly advance scientific knowledge on the causes and the political implications of misperceptions generating high-quality results that will benefit not only the academic community but also media professionals, and the public-at-large. The project will impact and strengthen research in this domain in three main ways. First, it will complement current concerns for citizens’ awareness of the functioning of institutions and their political knowledge by investigating the accuracy of beliefs on issues that may shape political attitudes and participation. Second, it will establish a multi-actor perspective on the issue of misperceptions by considering not only lay citizens but also media and political elites, and allowing for a comparison between these levels. Third, it will expand the focus beyond the current US-centred approach as it will address poorly investigated contexts such as Italy. Additionally, the project will function as a knowledge hub, spreading reliable information on main sources of misperceptions and contributing to educate citizens, especially young adults, to critically approach information.
Dettagli del progetto
Responsabile scientifico: Filippo Tronconi
Strutture Unibo coinvolte:
Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali
Coordinatore:
Università degli Studi di MILANO(Italy)
Contributo totale Unibo: Euro (EUR) 44.872,00
Durata del progetto in mesi: 24
Data di inizio
15/10/2023
Data di fine:
28/02/2026
