Perceptions of Self-Efficacy with Misinformation
Evolution towards Resilience Among European Citizens (2018–2022)
Copyright (c) 2025 Carlos Rodríguez Pérez, María José Canel
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
Resilience to misinformation has been conceptualised and defined as an intangible resource belonging to a country, a measure of the capacity of its citizens to deploy discerning and cognitive skills to determine the veracity or falsehood of information, as well as be aware of the degree of the problem. This conceptualisation allows for value to emerge from cross-country and cross-time analyses of data on perceptions of self-efficacy in curbing misinformation. Using data from Eurobarometer, this research conducts analyses at whole-country level, and 1. identifies key components of individuals’ perceptions about their resilience to misinformation; 2. produces a factor with which cross-time observations can be operationalised; 3. shows evolution over time (2018–2022) for European citizens from 27 countries. Overall, results disclose a growing trend, and this is so for both specific individual attitudes and skills, as well as the resulting factor as a whole. The causes and implications of the findings are discussed to provide hints on how to improve public policies, such as taking into account self-perceptions of efficacy in fighting misinformation alongside media literacy strategies that engage citizens in curbing misinformation.
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Funding: This research was supported by the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), belonging to the European Commission, Jean Monnet (Erasmus+) “Future of Europe Communication in times of Pandemic Disinformation” (FUTEUDISPAN), Ref: 101083334-JMO-2022-CHAIR. Nevertheless, the authors bear sole responsibility for the content of this article, and the EACEA assumes no liability for the utilisation of the disclosed information. This research was also funded by Universidad de La Sabana (Project code: COMCORP-3-2023 associated with the research group CICCO Centro de Investigaciones de la Comunicación Corporativa Organizacional).