Protecting the "informed citizen" against disinformation to defend democracy: Reflecting on the discourses shaping EU disinformation mitigation policies

Derinöz, Sabri
(2026) EDMO BELUX 2.0 Final conference: Countering disinformation, raising democratic resilience — Location: Brussels (8.September.2026)

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Over the past decade, disinformation has increasingly been framed by European institutions as a major threat to democratic systems, leading to a wide range of discourses and initiatives. These discourses are typically grounded in the assumption that access to information enables citizens to form informed opinions and participate meaningfully in democratic life. In this perspective, disinformation appears as a threat to the conditions that allow citizens to participate in democratic processes. In this paper, we argue that these discourses on disinformation and democracy construct a figure of the “informed citizen” that contributes to shaping public policies aimed at tackling disinformation, both in its problematisation and in the design of solutions. Drawing on Critical Discourse Studies, we analyse key EU documents that constitute a discursive foundation, or a crossroads, on which public policies are built in order to "fight against disinformation" and "defend democracy". By focusing on the construction of the “informed citizen”, the paper highlights the importance of better understanding how citizens become informed in order to act politically in democratic contexts. Such reflection is essential for policy-making, as different assumptions about the relationship between citizens, information, and democracy may lead to different approaches to countering disinformation.
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Derinöz, S. (2026, September 8). Protecting the “informed citizen” against disinformation to defend democracy: Reflecting on the discourses shaping EU disinformation mitigation policies. EDMO BELUX 2.0 Final conference: Countering disinformation, raising democratic resilience, Brussels. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/279933