Media, Disinformation, and Constitutional Design: Can Institutions Guard against Manipulation?
PanelKlemensova 9 Center / Bratislava / Slovakia
10/12/2025, 5pm
Moderator dr. MAGDALENA M. BARAN
Speaker Prof. MACIEJ KISILOWSKI
Speaker Prof. Michal Vašečka
Disinformation and manipulated media environments threaten the integrity of democratic processes and the legitimacy of constitutional orders. This panel probes whether structural design—rooted in a cross-ideological contractarian approach—can shield constitutional processes from manipulation without sacrificing free speech or pluralism. Building on Let’s Agree on Poland: A Case Study of Constitutional Design (Oxford University Press, 2025), the session asks how symmetrical decentralization, robust checks and balances, and transparent governance can create resilient information ecosystems at multiple levels of government.Key questions include: How can contractarian constitutional design operationalize an ethics of information integrity in polarized democracies? Which institutions and rules (media oversight, political advertising transparency, algorithmic transparency, public broadcasting credibility) most effectively guard against manipulation by state and non-state actors? How can subsidiarity and multi-level governance ensure robust information governance at the local level while maintaining national coherence? What metrics and monitoring frameworks can assess resilience to disinformation over time? Methodology: Comparative design analysis informed by the Let’s Agree on Poland framework; scenario testing and cross-ideological dialogue to surface ethical commitments, trade-offs, and practical constraints; translation of normative insights into governance prototypes. Expected outcomes: A transferable design blueprint for constitutional governance that embeds information integrity, legitimacy, and resilience; policy prototypes and evaluation indicators adaptable to varied European contexts.

