Repository for "Epistemic Vulnerability: Theory and Measurement at the System Level" (Political Communication)

Research about the epistemic crisis has largely treated epistemic threats in isolation, overlooking what they collectively say about the health of news environments. This study integrates the literature on epistemic problems and proposes a broadly encompassing framework that departs from the traditional focus on falsehoods: epistemic vulnerability. This framework is an attempt to more fully capture the erosion of authority and value conferred to political information, which has put stress on the public spheres of many democracies. The study develops the EV index to quantify this phenomenon at the system level in a comparative manner. Using OLS regression, I test the relationships between the EV index and various structural characteristics of political and media systems. Findings are remarkably consistent with established typologies of media systems. Northern European countries exhibit greater epistemic resilience, while the US, Spain, and Eastern Europe are more vulnerable. The study also offers strong evidence that populism, ideological polarization, and political parallelism contribute to higher levels of epistemic vulnerability. Conversely, public media viewership and larger party systems are associated with more epistemically resilient societies.

既往有关认知危机的研究大多将认知威胁孤立看待，忽视了这些威胁共同反映出的新闻环境健康状况。本研究整合认知问题相关学术文献，提出一个涵盖范围更广的研究框架，跳出了传统以虚假信息为核心的研究范式，该框架即认知脆弱性（epistemic vulnerability）。该框架旨在更全面地捕捉政治信息所承载的权威与价值的式微——这一现象已对诸多民主国家的公共领域造成了压力。本研究构建了EV指数，以比较研究的方式在系统层面量化这一现象。本研究采用普通最小二乘（OLS）回归，检验了EV指数与政治及媒体系统的各类结构性特征之间的关联。研究结果与已确立的媒体系统类型学呈现出显著的一致性：北欧国家展现出更强的认知韧性，而美国、西班牙及东欧国家则表现出更高的认知脆弱性。本研究还提供了有力证据，表明民粹主义、意识形态极化与政治平行性会推高认知脆弱性水平。与之相反，公共媒体收视受众规模更大、政党体系更为庞大的社会，其认知韧性更强。