Steering Information Disorder Nexus: A Power Theorisation

Abstract Information disorders such as disinformation, misinformation, polarization, and conspiracy theories on social media pose severe challenges for platforms, users, and institutions at large. There is a limited understanding of how power imbalances govern users’ interpretation of information on social media platforms. We address this asymmetry using Foucault’s power-knowledge lens and systemic episodic view of power. Using inductive top-down theorizng we identify reinforcing and resistance mechanisms at the individual, platform, and institutional level. Our propositions explain the mechanisms behind information acceptance, believability, and amplification, followed by resistance mechanisms, such as information evaluation and rejection. Our study advances IS scholarship by explaining bottom-up and top-down power embedding at the platform and institutional level. We also identify specific power techniques leveraged by authoritarian and democratic countries, through implicit and explicit application of power. Our study proposes policymakers and platforms as a collaborative unit to design robust interventions that minimize interpretation biases and information amplification.