Political Noise and Disinformation in Southeast Asia: A Systematic Literature Review of Impacts on Democratic Discourse and Governance
Jhonmark Munsad, Asterio Olandria
Received: 01 August 2026; Revised: 28 September 2026; Accepted: 06 October 2026; Published: 12 October 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.66074/C5B8K6X3V
Abstract
Digital political communication in Southeast Asia has expanded rapidly, but evidence on how political noise and disinformation affect democratic discourse and governance is dispersed across disciplines, countries and publication types. To synthesize evidence on the forms, actors, platforms and mechanisms of political noise and disinformation in Southeast Asia (2010–2025) and their reported impacts on democratic discourse and governance. Methods. Searches of academic databases and Google Scholar, structured with the Population–Exposure–Outcome framework and reported against PRISMA 2020, retrieved 700 records. After the removal of 49 duplicates, 651 unique records were assessed against the eligibility criteria, and, following re-screening of records initially excluded due to an overly narrow geographic criterion, 104 studies were included. Screening and extraction were carried out by a single reviewer. Findings were synthesized narratively; frequency counts are keyword-based coding frequencies, not prevalence estimates. The evidence is concentrated in Indonesia (n = 47), the Philippines (n = 44) and Malaysia (n = 21), is largely qualitative, and is mostly recent (81% published 2020–2025). Studies document identity-based hoaxes, propaganda, and coordinated troll, buzzer and bot activity, circulating mainly on social media and increasingly in encrypted messaging. Reported effects on democratic discourse include polarization, lower trust, distorted electoral communication and self-censorship among journalists and critics, alongside some evidence of pluralizing effects. Governance findings center on a tension between counter-disinformation regulation and threats to free expression, with little evaluation of effectiveness. The evidence supports recurring associations rather than established causal effects. Gaps include causal designs, understudied states, evaluation of countermeasures, and the clear operationalization of political noise, which the included studies rarely treat as a distinct construct.
Keywords: Civic trust, democratic discourse, democratic participation, electoral integrity, governance, information disorder, misinformation, political noise, political polarization, Southeast Asia
Author Information: Davao Oriental State University, Mati City, Philippines; jhonmarkmunsad631@gmail.com
Volume 2, Issue 4, December 2026