"Post-truth" in a Global Context: Popularity, Heuristic Value and Ontological Essence
Abstract
The author calls for a critical analysis of the term “post-truth” and for avoiding it both in academic discourse and in journalistic publications, since this lexeme contains not only a logical, but also an ontological error, which surprisingly remains uncorrected. The word “post-truth” denotes a fundamentally important essential substitution: truth loses its absolute status and is placed on a par with things temporary, limited, conventional as post-communism, post-totalitarianism, postmodernism, post-secularism, etc. Truth as a relativistic reality, blurring the boundaries between truth and falsehood are positioned as a stages of historical process: there was one truth, but now there are many and different. Author suggests that the acceptance of this situation can entail disastrous consequences both for the journalism itself and for media studies.
Downloads
References
Ball, J. (2017). Post-truth: How bullshit conquered the world. Biteback Publishing.
Bystritskiy, A. (2020–2021). Universal Dead-end in a Global Wormhole. The Need to Regulate Modern Communications. Baku Dialogues, 4(2), 132–143. https://bakudialogues.ada.edu.az/media/2020/12/16/final_bd_2020_-_5_no_bleeds.pdf
Davies, N. (2009). Flat Earth News: An Award-Winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media. Vintage.
Davis, E. (2017). Post-truth: Why we have reached peak bullshit and what we can do about it. Little, Brown.
d’Ancona, M. (2017). Post-truth: The new war on truth and how to fight back. Ebury Press.
Farkas, J., & Schou, J. (2019). Post-Truth, Fake News and Democracy: Mapping the Politics of Falsehood. Routledge.
Fuller, S. (2018). Post-truth: Knowledge as a power game. Anthem Press.
Habermas, J. (2006). Religion in the public sphere. European Journal of Philosophy, 14(1), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0378.2006.00241.x
Kachkaeva, A., Kolchina, A., Shomova, S., & Yarovaya, E. (2020). Trust, but verify: problems of formation of media literacy and critical thinking of Russian students, Media Practice and Education, 21(3), 200–211. https://doi.org/10.1080/25741136.2020.1752569
Kakutani, M. (2018). The death of truth: Notes on falsehood in the age of Trump. Tim Duggans Books.
Keyes, R. (2004). The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life. St. Martin's Press.
Lakoff, R. (2017). The hollow man: Donald Trump, populism, and post-truth politics. Journal of Language & Politics, 16(4), 595–606. https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.17022.lak
McIntyre, L. (2018). Post-truth. MIT Press.
McNair, B. (2018). Fake news: Falsehood, fabrication and fantasy in journalism. Routledge.
Tesich, S. (1992/2014). A government of lies. The Free Library. https://www.thefreelibrary.com/A+government+of+lies.-a011665982
Thurston, I. (2018). Everything is permitted, restrictions still apply: A psychoanalytic perspective on social dislocation, narcissism, and post truth. Routledge.
Арендт, Х. (2014). Между прошлым и будущим. Восемь упражнений в политической мысли (Д. Аринсон, пер.). Изд-во Института Гайдара.
Захаренко, Е. Н., Комарова, Л. Н., и Нечаева, И. В. (2008). Новый словарь иностранных слов: свыше 25000 слов и словосочетаний. Азбуковник.
Ильченко, С. (2019). Как нас обманывают СМИ. Манипуляция информацией. Питер.
Мовчан, А. (2019a). Россия в эпоху постправды. Здравый смысл против информационного шума. Альпина Паблишер.
Мовчан, А. (2019b, 31 мая). Андрей Мовчан о постправде. Альпина-книги. https://alpinabook.ru/blog/andrey-movchan-o-postpravde/
Ожегов, С. И., и Шведова, Н. Ю. (1997). Толковый словарь русского языка (4-е изд.). Российская академия наук. Институт русского языка имени В. В. Виноградова. Азбуковник.
Попова, О. В. (ред.). (2017). Политика постправды в современном мире. Материалы Всероссийской научной конференции с международным участием «Политика постправды и популизм в современном мире». Скифия-принт. https://rapn.ru/library.php?d=761&n=35&p=0
Хомский, Н. (2015). Создавая будущее. Оккупации, вторжения, имперское мышление и стабильность. Альпина нон-фикшн.
Чугров, С. В. (2017). Post-truth: трансформация политической реальности или саморазрушение либеральной демократии? Полис. Политические исследования, (2), 42–59. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2017.02.04
Шариков, А. В. (2021). Глобальное информационное онлайн-пространство в 2020 году: динамические характеристики. Мониторинг общественного мнения: экономические и социальные перемены, (2), 445–463. https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/globalnoe-informatsionnoe-onlayn-prostranstvo-v-2020-g-dinamicheskie-harakteristiki
