2023 Expert Survey Results Synthesis Report 2023.3

The report presents findings from a survey of 289 experts studying 54 countries, defining the information environment as the aggregate of physical, social, and digital surroundings influencing communication. Key findings highlight a consensus that the availability of accurate information is the most critical feature of a healthy environment, while social media platforms and politicians are viewed as the primary threats. The report notes significant disparities based on regime type: experts in democracies are more concerned with foreign interventions and climate misinformation, whereas those in autocracies emphasize threats from local governments and state-backed media. Over half of the experts predict the information environment will worsen in 2024, citing data access and funding as primary research barriers.

• Experts identify the availability of accurate information as the most critical element for a healthy information environment, with 62% ranking it in their top five and 21% ranking it first. Other highly valued features include diversity of voices (50%), information literacy/education (45%), and technical infrastructure reliability (39%).
• Social media platforms and politicians are perceived as the most significant threats to a healthy information environment across all governmental regimes.
• Perceptions of threats vary by regime type: experts studying liberal and electoral democracies view foreign governments as more threatening, while those studying closed and electoral autocracies identify local governments, state-backed media, and local newspapers as greater threats.
• Concerns regarding misinformation topics are split by regime: experts in democracies are significantly more concerned about climate change and environmental misinformation, while those in autocracies find gendered misinformation more relevant.
• The most concerning topics of misinformation globally are inaccurate health information, election integrity, and broad conspiracy theories.
• The primary barriers to researching the global information environment are lack of access to data (72%) and insufficient funding (59%).
• There is widespread pessimism regarding the near future, with over 50% of experts moderately or very confident that the information environment in their country of expertise will worsen in 2024.

APA

Au, H., Elswah, M., Valenzuela, S., Chun, W. H. K., Kim, Y. M., & Howard, P. (2023). 2023 Expert Survey Results Synthesis Report 2023.3. International Panel on the Information Environment. https://www.ipie.info/research/sr2023-3

Chicago

Au, Hubert, Mona Elswah, Sebastián Valenzuela, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Young Mie Kim, and Philip Howard. 2023 Expert Survey Results Synthesis Report 2023.3. International Panel on the Information Environment, 2023. https://www.ipie.info/research/sr2023-3.

Wikipedia

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BibTeX

@techreport{au20232023, author = {Au, Hubert and Elswah, Mona and Valenzuela, Sebastián and Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong and Kim, Young Mie and Howard, Philip}, title = {{2023 Expert Survey Results Synthesis Report 2023.3}}, institution = {International Panel on the Information Environment}, year = {2023}, url = {https://www.ipie.info/research/sr2023-3}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }