Executive Summary

Trust and social capital have long been declining in Europe and the US, and fake news and disinformation have accentuated these dangerous trends, thus enhancing our collective vulnerabilities. Social media channels and new technologies have lowered geographical divides, and yet they also contributed to social polarization in local communities and the cheap and easy use of disinformation to persuade the public.

Societal resilience, the collective ability to recover from a crisis, is being put to the test harder than ever before. It is more important than ever to understand the interdependencies between current and older threats and the best ways to diagnose them and effectively counter them in our societies today.

The primary data presented in this report was collected through a representative population survey applied in Romania, in December 2021 by Reveal Marketing Research, as part of the „Tackling Disinformation Resilience in Romania: mapping the risks, and implementing innovative mitigation measures” project.

As part of the project „Tackling Disinformation Resilience in Romania: mapping the risks, and implementing innovative mitigation measures”, we explore societal resilience in Romania by means of a representative population survey applied in Romania, in December 2021 by Reveal Marketing Research. The total number of respondents was 2216, with an equal distribution across all Romanian counties, as well as gender and age balanced.