Threats to democracy seen in the US are a global issue, but differences in the media and political systems limit their impact in Australia – for now.

It’s almost inevitable a media professor who migrated from the US six years ago to live and work in Australia will be asked to compare the state of democracy — and the threats it faces — in the two countries.

The Australian election will happen just six months after the November election that returned Donald Trump to the White House. Many of the issues, strategies and concerns about misinformation that featured in the US election are likely to appear during the Australian campaign.

In recent years, and especially recent weeks, many who know my background have asked if Australia faces the same threats to democracy now on display in the US.

Democracies must constantly work to maintain their health, so yes, all of what is occurring globally can also happen here.

But there are four fundamental differences between Australian and US media use and political structure that serve Australia well:

The US funds its public broadcasters at an extraordinarily low level and they instead rely heavily on private donations.

Perhaps as a result, US public broadcasting is not as widely used and doesn’t have the widespread trust enjoyed by the ABC and SBS.

Having a widely shared and trusted news source helped Australia weather the COVID-19 pandemic while the US devolved into small-minded debates over the ‘right’ to not wear masks.

Distrust has been weaponised by US commercial media to create significant differences in the news sources trusted, generally splitting between Republicans and Democrats.

As a result, there are fundamentally different understandings of reality across........

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