tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/post-truth-32226/articlesPost-truth – The Conversation2023-04-12T21:18:39Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2033682023-04-12T21:18:39Z2023-04-12T21:18:39ZThe disturbing trend of state media use of deepfakes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520004/original/file-20230410-14-pmb2rl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C68%2C9144%2C5981&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An image made from video of a fake video featuring former U.S. president Barack Obama showing elements of facial mapping used in new technology that lets anyone make deepfake videos.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Social media has been awash with fake images of a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/style/article/pope-francis-puffer-coat-ai-fashion-lotw/index.html">stylish Pope Francis</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CqyGx2xoUAX/">Elon Musk protesting in New York</a> and <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/03/22/chilling-deepfakes-claiming-to-show-trumps-arrest-spread-across-twitter/">Donald Trump resisting arrest</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520362/original/file-20230411-28-74gkj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="an older white man (the pope) wearing a long white puffer jacket and a white skullcap" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520362/original/file-20230411-28-74gkj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520362/original/file-20230411-28-74gkj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520362/original/file-20230411-28-74gkj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520362/original/file-20230411-28-74gkj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520362/original/file-20230411-28-74gkj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520362/original/file-20230411-28-74gkj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520362/original/file-20230411-28-74gkj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">An AI-generated image of Pope Francis wearing a white puffer jacket went viral online, with users wondering if it was real.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.reddit.com/r/midjourney/comments/120vhdc/the_pope_drip/">(Reddit)</a></span>
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<p>Such AI-generated images and videos, or <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3425780">deepfakes</a>, have become increasingly accessible due to advances in artificial intelligence. As more sophisticated fabricated images spread, it will become increasingly difficult for users to differentiate the real from the fake.</p>
<p>Deepfakes get their name from the technology used to create them: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cviu.2022.103525">deep-learning neural networks</a>. When unleashed on a dataset, these algorithms learn patterns and can replicate them in novel — and convincing — ways.</p>
<p>While this technology can be used for entertainment, it also has dark potential, raising <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=4g1yEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT9&dq=ethical+artificial+intelligence+schoenherr&ots=6fbnULsVRy&sig=nPCglnifLw5daLKARroY-DkIXKU&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">social and ethical concerns</a>.</p>
<p>Unlike simple stories or memes which differ little from propaganda techniques used by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230511101">Nazi Germany</a> and photo editing by <a href="https://shop.tate.org.uk/the-commissar-vanishes/15415.html">Communist Russia</a>, deepfakes have a high degree of realism. Their accessibility to the public and states could erode our sense of reality.</p>
<h2>Fake news anchor</h2>
<p>Beyond the growing concern that <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/epzkwm/artificial-intelligence-art-creatives-ai">AI-generated art threatens human art and artists</a>, deepfakes can be used as the unchecked mouthpieces for organizations and states.</p>
<p>Leading the way, <a href="https://petapixel.com/2023/03/17/chinese-ai-news-anchor-works-24-hours-a-day-365-days-a-year/">China’s state media has experimented with an AI news anchors, named Ren Xiaorong</a>. Ren, although <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/09/worlds-first-ai-news-anchor-unveiled-in-china">not the first AI news anchor developed by China</a>, illustrates both the commitment to the technology and the incremental increases in realism. </p>
<p>Other countries such as <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-65238950">Kuwait</a> and <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sogou-launches-worlds-first-russian-speaking-ai-news-anchor-300865159.html">Russia</a> have also launched AI generated anchors.</p>
<p>When looking at these anchors, we might object that only the most naive viewer would mistake them for real humans, such as <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47981274">Russia’s first robotic news anchor</a>. Yet, these technologies are still in their infancy. We cannot dismiss them.</p>
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<h2>Fabricated news</h2>
<p>China’s transparency in using AI-generated news anchors stands in contrast to Venezuela’s fabricated news coverage. Venezuelan state media presented favourable reports of the country’s progress, purportedly created by international English-language news outlets. However, <a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/02/21/2023/venezuela-uses-ai-avatars-to-disseminate-propaganda">the stories and anchors were fabricated</a>.</p>
<p>The use of these videos in Venezuela is particularly troubling because they are used as external validation for the government’s activities. By claiming the video comes from outside of one’s country, it provides another source to bolster their claims.</p>
<p>Venezuela is not the only country to adopt these methods. Fabricated videos of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60780142">Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy discussing surrender to Russia</a> were also circulated during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. </p>
<p>Fabricated images and videos are merely the tip of the deepfake iceberg. In 2021, Russia was accused of using <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/22/european-mps-targeted-by-deepfake-video-calls-imitating-russian-opposition">deepfake image filters to simulate opponents during interviews with international politicians</a>. The ability to mimic political figures and interact with others in <em>real time</em> is a truly disturbing development. </p>
<p>As these technologies become increasingly accessible to everyone, from harmless meme-makers and would-be social engineers, the boundaries of the real and imagined become progressively indistinguishable.</p>
<p>The proliferation of deepfakes foreshadow a <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2018-12-11/deepfakes-and-new-disinformation-war">post-truth world</a>, defined by a fractured geopolitical landscape, opinion echo chambers and mutual distrust that can be exploited by governmental and non-governmental organizations.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-use-of-deepfakes-can-sow-doubt-creating-confusion-and-distrust-in-viewers-182108">The use of deepfakes can sow doubt, creating confusion and distrust in viewers</a>
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<h2>Disinformation and believable fakes</h2>
<p>The spread of disinformation requires that we understand how ideas, innovation or behaviour spread within a social network, referred to as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1116502109">social contagion</a>.</p>
<p>Cognitive science is concerned with “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(02)00005-0">information</a>” — anything that reduces our uncertainty about the actual state of the world. <em>Disinformation</em> has the appearance of information, except uncertainty is reduced at the expense of accuracy.</p>
<p>Observations that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aap9559">disinformation spreads faster that facts</a> likely stems from the fact that when a message is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.29.1.22">simple</a>, it increases our confidence.</p>
<p>Disinformation spreads for a variety of reasons. It must appear close enough to the “truth” that it is believable. If a new “fact” is incompatible with what we know, we are inclined to reject it even if it is true. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2012.30.6.652">People don’t like the feeling of inconsistency</a> and seek to resolve it. People will also ignore the structure and quality of an argument, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(92)90019-E">focus on the believability of its conclusion</a>.</p>
<p>Deepfakes move us beyond text-based persuasion, because <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315785233">images make a message far more memorable</a> — and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15534510.2016.1157096">persuasive</a> — than abstract concepts alone. Its use in spreading disinformation is therefore far more concerning.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520363/original/file-20230411-917-schgcz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a book is held up with a renaissance style illustration of a woman and a snake on the cover and the words LA VERITÀ VI FARÀ LIBERI" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520363/original/file-20230411-917-schgcz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520363/original/file-20230411-917-schgcz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520363/original/file-20230411-917-schgcz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520363/original/file-20230411-917-schgcz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520363/original/file-20230411-917-schgcz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520363/original/file-20230411-917-schgcz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520363/original/file-20230411-917-schgcz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">In 2018, Pope Francis published his annual social communications message, titled ‘The Truth Will Set You Free,’ after facing unprecedented bad press during his South American tour.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The structure of the environment is also critical. People attend to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.61.2.195">available information</a>, focusing on information that confirms their prior beliefs. By increasing the frequency of images, ideas and other media, we increase people’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.82.5.722">confidence in their own knowledge</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105023">the illusion of consensus</a>.</p>
<h2>Social networks and contagion</h2>
<p>While we look for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2004.tb02547.x">credible sources of information</a> — experts or peers — our memory stores information separately from its source. Over time, this <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.114.1.3">failure of source monitoring</a> results in our retrieval of information from memory without understanding its origin. </p>
<p>Through <a href="https://doi.org/10.1207/s15506878jobem5004_1">product placement</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/technology/zuckerberg-facebook-project-amplify.html">algorithms that control our exposure to media</a>, marketers and <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2018/rise-digital-authoritarianism">governments</a> have exploited these techniques for generations. Most recently, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/25/world/europe/disinformation-social-media.html">social media influencers have been paid to spread disinformation</a>. </p>
<p>The introduction of AI will only accelerate this process by permitting tighter control of the information environment through dark <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3174108">patterns of design</a>.</p>
<h2>Legal, social and moral issues</h2>
<p>Producing, managing and disseminating information grants people authority and power. When information ecosystems become flooded with disinformation, truth is debased.</p>
<p>The accusation of “fake news” has become a tactic used to discredit any argument. Deepfakes are variations on this theme. Social media users have already falsely claimed that real videos of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/62338593">U.S. President Joe Biden</a> and <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/no-that-trump-video-isnt-green-screened">former U.S. president Donald Trump</a> are fake.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fake-news-grabs-our-attention-produces-false-memories-and-appeals-to-our-emotions-124842">Fake news grabs our attention, produces false memories and appeals to our emotions</a>
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<p>Social movements such as <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/the-threat-posed-by-deepfakes-to-marginalized-communities/">Black Lives Matter</a> or claims about <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/xinjiang-footage-sheds-new-light-on-uyghur-detention-camps/a-59880898">the treatment of the Uyghurs in China</a> rely on the compelling qualities of videos. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2007.04.010">Once we form a belief, it is difficult to counter</a>. The time required for verification — especially if left to the user — allows disinformation to propagate. <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/">Private</a> and public fact-checking websites can help. But they need legitimacy to foster trust. </p>
<p>Brazil provides a recent demonstration of such an attempt. After the government launched a verification website, <a href="https://latamjournalismreview.org/articles/brazilian-government-launches-official-fact-checking-website-and-draws-criticism-from-independent-agencies/">critics</a> accused it of pro-government bias. However, <a href="https://en.mercopress.com/2023/04/07/brazilian-gov-t-s-website-not-enough-against-fake-news-pimenta-says">government officials</a> noted that the site was not meant to replace private initiatives.</p>
<p>There is <a href="http://www.jatit.org/volumes/Vol97No22/7Vol97No22.pdf">no simple solution to unmasking deepfakes</a>. Rather than passive consumers of media, we must actively challenge our own beliefs. </p>
<p>The only way to combat harmful forms of artificial intelligence is to cultivate human intelligence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203368/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jordan Richard Schoenherr has previously received funding from Army Research Laboratory and has served as a visiting scholar at the United States Military Academy and has worked as a consultant for the Canadian Department of National Defence.</span></em></p>The use of deepfakes and AI by groups with various interests, including governments and media, is the latest and most sophisticated tool in information and disinformation campaigns.Jordan Richard Schoenherr, Assistant Professor, Psychology, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1474662020-10-07T14:55:47Z2020-10-07T14:55:47ZZuma’s attack on a judge is without merit, but it’s dangerous for South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361831/original/file-20201006-18-1ky53oe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former South African president Jacob Zuma at the Zondo Commission in July 2020.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/post-truth-politics-and-why-the-antidote-isnt-simply-fact-checking-and-truth-87364">“Post-truth”</a> culture is exemplified by the constant negation of fact-finding, expertise and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/14/the-death-of-truth-how-we-gave-up-on-facts-and-ended-up-with-trump">research</a>. Within such a culture, speakers, whether they occupy positions of power or are commenting anonymously on social media, become increasingly comfortable with claiming that reality is whatever they say it is. This, without any need to offer evidence which can be evaluated against objective criteria through <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/list/?speaker=donald-trump&ruling=false">reasoned argument</a>. </p>
<p>Former South African president Jacob Zuma adopted this approach when he recently demanded that Deputy Chief Justice <a href="https://www.concourt.org.za/index.php/13-current-judges/72-deputy-chief-justice-ray-zondo">Ray Zondo</a>, the head of the <a href="https://www.sastatecapture.org.za/">state capture inquiry</a> investigating grand corruption during Zuma’s tenure, recuse himself. He claimed the judge was biased against him. </p>
<p>His lawyer’s letter to the commission <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-09-30-zumas-move-to-recuse-zondo-cynicism-meets-panic-meets-staggering-hypocrisy/">states</a> that Zuma is “of the firm view” that Zondo’s alleged bias against him stems from “personal matters and strained relations that the chairperson ought to have disclosed right at the beginning of the inquiry” and</p>
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<p>the fact that the President and the Chairperson have historical, personal, family and professional relations that ought to have been publicly disclosed by the chairperson before accepting his appointment.</p>
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<p>No evidence is provided of the strained relations, nor of what aspect of Justice Zondo’s and Zuma’s personal dealings could have resulted in bias. Zuma’s “view” alone is sufficient.</p>
<h2>Testing impartiality of judges</h2>
<p>Claiming a right to determine reality by mere say-so is becoming increasingly commonplace, but we should never get used to it. It is dangerous, because it has the potential to destroy two of the foundations of a healthy society: recognising the distinction between facts and opinions, and using reasoned argument, rather than status, to establish the truth.</p>
<p>Since 1999, we have had a test for the impartiality of individual judges from the Constitutional Court case of <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/1999/9.html">President of the Republic of South Africa and Others v South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu) and Others</a>. In this case, the head of the South African Football Union, Louis Luyt, asked five of the judges on the Constitutional Court to recuse themselves because of their personal relationship with Nelson Mandela, the president of democratic South Africa at the time.</p>
<p>Luyt complained that the then Chief Justice <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/chief-justice-arthur-chaskalson">Arthur Chaskalson</a> had attended the wedding of Mandela’s son. He also said other judges had been closely associated with the governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), before their appointment to the Constitutional Court.</p>
<p>The court rejected the application. It held that the test that the applicant had to meet was objective, and that the onus of establishing it rested upon the applicant, who had to show that</p>
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<p>a reasonable, objective and informed person would on the correct facts reasonably apprehend that the judge has not or will not bring an impartial mind to bear on the adjudication of the case, that is a mind open to persuasion by the evidence and the submissions of counsel.</p>
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<p>The judge himself or herself decides the application, although refusals to recuse can be taken on review to higher courts. The court also emphasised the presumption that judicial officers are impartial in adjudicating disputes, because </p>
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<p>legal training and experience prepare judges (to determine) where the truth may lie in a welter of contradictory evidence.</p>
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<p>Finally, the court stressed strongly that the reasonable apprehension must be that “the judicial officer will not decide the case impartially” and not that he or she “will decide the case adversely to one party”.</p>
<p>The question is whether the same impartiality test applies to chairs of commissions of inquiry as well. </p>
<h2>Weighing Zuma’s claim</h2>
<p>In one way, the impartiality of chairs of commissions might appear even more important. That’s because they are actively involved in the collection of evidence, rather than sitting back passively while two sets of lawyers present the evidence of their choice in the adversarial setting of a court case.</p>
<p>On the other hand, commissions of inquiry do not make binding rulings. All they do is to give advice to the office who created them, and their recommendations have no direct effect on persons implicated in the reports. But if we assume that the same, stringent test applies to the chair of a commission, it is likely that Justice Zondo’s past association with Zuma will not be a ground for recusal.</p>
<p>Most importantly, Zuma’s own view of Justice Zondo’s bias – “firm” or not – will simply not be the deciding factor in determining whether Justice Zondo is biased. What will matter is whether a reasonable, objective and informed person would understand that Justice Zondo has not brought, or will not bring, an impartial mind to bear on the evidence.</p>
<p>Zuma has not provided any evidence to prove, as he is required to do, that Justice Zondo would not bring an impartial mind to the task before him. Indeed, some of the “evidence” mentioned in the letter amounts to a complaint that Zuma is not being given preferential treatment. Thus it treats as bias a generally applicable rule announced by Justice Zondo – that the Commission makes the final decision on hearing dates, not the witnesses – and the fact that Justice Zondo did not accept that Zuma was ill on one of the occasions that he did not appear before the Commission.</p>
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<img alt="Deputy Chiec Justice Zondo wearing a black suit, blue tie and specs enters the the State capture commisssion venue" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361828/original/file-20201006-20-1npnwwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361828/original/file-20201006-20-1npnwwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361828/original/file-20201006-20-1npnwwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361828/original/file-20201006-20-1npnwwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361828/original/file-20201006-20-1npnwwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361828/original/file-20201006-20-1npnwwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361828/original/file-20201006-20-1npnwwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Deputy Chief justice Ray Zondo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>In January, Zuma tried to postpone appearing before the <a href="https://www.sastatecapture.org.za/">Commission</a>, <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/site/files/documents/210/SEQ_01.2020_-_02._Answering_Affidavit_-_JGZ.pdf">citing ill health</a>. His affidavit included this revealing <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/site/files/documents/210/SEQ_01.2020_-_02._Answering_Affidavit_-_JGZ.pdf,%20para%2032">statement (paragraph 35)</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I urge the Commission to accept that my views on State Capture answer the various opinions expressed by different individuals who have given their views to the Commission. The Commission and its witnesses are entitled to their views about me, but I am equally entitled to reject them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The letter by Zuma’s lawyers demanding Justice Zondo’s recusal does not even bother to state that Zuma provided sufficient evidence of his illness when he wanted to postpone his hearing in January. He sees it as proof of bias (which he is stating now) that Justice Zondo did not accept his evidence then. </p>
<p>It is up to the Chair to evaluate the evidence brought to the Commission, including evidence that a witness is unable to attend. It is thus not in itself a sign of bias if the Chair finds the evidence insufficient. Again, Zuma seems offended that his own “reality” has not been validated by the person whose job it is to consider all evidence impartially, on its own merits.</p>
<h2>Cynical move</h2>
<p>Facts matter. It’s the job of courts and commissions of inquiry to work out what they are. The statements by other witnesses implicating Zuma in orchestrating grand corruption are not “views”. They are central factual allegations that Zuma must address so that the Commission can determine the extent of corruption and its agents. “Compelling” Zuma to do so through a summons (one of Zuma’s complaints in January) is not a sign of bias or bullying. </p>
<p>It is a sign of a commission doing its job on terms approved by the Constitutional Court. By casting doubt on the impartiality of the Chair, Zuma is probably just buying time. But he is also discrediting a vital institution for ending corruption in South Africa, and undermining the process which South Africa needs for a clean start.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147466/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cathleen Powell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Claiming a right to determine reality by mere say-so is becoming increasingly commonplace, but we should never get used to it.Cathleen Powell, Associate Professor in Public Law, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1448982020-09-14T12:12:32Z2020-09-14T12:12:32ZDemons of the deep state: how evangelicals and conspiracy theories combine in Trump’s America<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357711/original/file-20200911-16-1imsaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=80%2C80%2C3416%2C2306&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In spiritual warfare, the battle against demons is constant. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/florenceitaly-03-26-2020-florence-cathedral-1684979335">Kotroz/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Are demons active forces in American life and politics? That is what a large number of evangelicals in the US believe and are <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/02/19/trump-and-the-christians-evangelical-historian-john-fea-on-decoding-the-great-paradox/">increasingly vocal</a> about. </p>
<p>Since the 1980s, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/american-possessions-9780190205355?cc=us&lang=en&">growing numbers</a> of evangelicals have given the fight against demons a key role in their spirituality and their politics. Known as “spiritual warfare”, this views demons as central actors in world politics and everyday life. While often seen as fringe, belief in spiritual warfare is common across denominational lines, including among evangelicals close to Donald Trump such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiUs9KDrPso">Robert Jeffress</a> and the president’s spiritual advisor, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/06/19/paula-white-donald-trump-orlando-rally-demonic-networks/">Paula White</a>.</p>
<p>A key idea in spiritual warfare is that demons don’t only <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-belief-that-demons-have-sex-with-humans-runs-deep-in-christian-and-jewish-traditions-143589">attack people</a>, as in depictions of demonic possession, but also take control of places and institutions, such as journalism, academia, and both municipal and federal bureaucracies. By doing so, demons are framed as advancing social projects that spiritual warriors see as opposing God’s plans. These include advances in reproductive and LGBTQ rights and tolerance for non-Christian religions (especially <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/27/us/seeing-islam-as-evil-faith-evangelicals-seek-converts.html">Islam</a>). </p>
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<p>In a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2020.1810817">recent article</a> published in the journal Religion, I explore how these ideas about demons combine with the wider Christian nationalism shown to be prevalent among <a href="https://academic.oup.com/socrel/article/79/2/147/4825283#.X0e3lTMiV4s">Trump’s support base</a>. Through a survey of conservative evangelical literature, articles, and television and radio broadcasts released between 2016 and 2018, I analyse how their authors used discourses of spiritual warfare to navigate the changing political reality, and Trump’s victory and presidency in particular. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-belief-that-demons-have-sex-with-humans-runs-deep-in-christian-and-jewish-traditions-143589">The belief that demons have sex with humans runs deep in Christian and Jewish traditions</a>
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<p>The evangelicals whose works I analyse vary in their attitudes to Trump, from <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/God_s_Chaos_Candidate.html?id=u5QXvgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">ardent advocates</a> to <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Donald_Trump_Is_Not_My_Savior.html?id=XQgzuwEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">reluctant supporters</a>. Yet even the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/God_and_Donald_Trump.html?id=aLw6DwAAQBAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y">reluctant supporters</a> interpret his presidency in terms of spiritual warfare, framing Trump’s victory as a divine intervention against a demonic status quo. </p>
<p>Trump’s alleged battle against the “deep state” here adopts cosmic meaning, as not only the US government but undocumented immigrants and Black and LGBTQ people are cast as agents of demonic forces.</p>
<h2>Divine intervention</h2>
<p>The deep state has become a watchword of the Trump era, a term used by his supporters to depict Trump as an outsider fighting a corrupted political system. The deep state is central to the conspiracy movement <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/1/17253444/qanon-trump-conspiracy-theory-4chan-explainer">QAnon</a>, which depicts Trump as at war with a “deep state cabal” of devil-worshipping cannibal paedophiles. </p>
<p>QAnon has many overlaps with spiritual warfare and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-church-of-qanon-will-conspiracy-theories-form-the-basis-of-a-new-religious-movement-137859">its practitioners</a>. It <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/qanon-nothing-can-stop-what-is-coming/610567/">uses similar ideas</a> of religious revival and donning the “armour of God” against unseen foes. </p>
<p>Not all spiritual warriors engage with QAnon. But even for those that don’t, the deep state has come to represent broader ideas of demonic control, as demons are imagined as a “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Deeper_State.html?id=HMPCswEACAAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y">deeper state</a>” working behind the scenes. Demons become the source of economic and environmental regulations and of social welfare programmes. The <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/interactives/tracking-deregulation-in-the-trump-era/">deregulatory ambitions</a> that former White House chief strategist <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/30/politics/trump-bannon-administrative-state/index.html">Steve Bannon called</a> Trump’s “deconstruction of the administrative state” become imagined as a project of national exorcism.</p>
<p>For many spiritual warriors this project began on election night 2016. Trump’s improbable victory <a href="https://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2020/07/16/if_trump_won_in_16_by_a_divine_hand_what_would_a_20_loss_mean_499192.html">stoked narratives</a> of divine intervention. Comparing the red electoral map of Republican victory to “the blood of Jesus” washing away America’s sins, <a href="https://www.charismamag.com/spirit/prophecy/28574-jennifer-leclaire-declares-angels-of-transition-over-america-at-us-supreme-court">one evangelical framed</a> the election as <a href="https://awakeningmag.com/after-massive-jezebel-attack-oprah-repents-for-positive-trump-statement/">overthrowing “Jezebel”</a>, a demonic spirit <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/rag/7/2/article-p240_7.xml?language=en">often depicted</a> as behind reproductive and LGBTQ rights. </p>
<p>Banning abortion is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/08/29/how-female-body-became-scapegoat-white-evangelicals/">central</a> to conservative evangelical politics. Spiritual warriors often go further, framing support for abortion and same-sex marriage as both causing and caused by demonic control. They portray evil spirits and sinful humans as creating reinforcing systems of beliefs, behaviours and policy agendas. The deep state has become a key representation of these systems.</p>
<p>This spiritual war against the deep state can be understood as part of post-truth politics. While sometimes seen as a politics which <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-the-difference-between-lies-and-post-truth-in-politics-a-philosopher-explains-130442">delegitimises truth itself</a>, post-truth can also be understood as a destabilisation of mainstream narratives about society. One that allows new narratives to be pushed. </p>
<p>In spiritual warfare, this new narrative is one where God is retaking control of the US from demonic forces. One where God’s truth is being reasserted over competing truths, which are reframed as demonic lies. Spiritual warfare here becomes a struggle over competing narratives about what America is, or should be. Dismantling the deep state is part of this struggle. But it is not the only one.</p>
<h2>The demons at work</h2>
<p>Spiritual warfare has also come to frame evangelical reactions to ongoing protests. Demonic opposition to Trump has been positioned by spiritual warriors as being behind events from the 2017 <a href="http://www.sacurrent.com/the-daily/archives/2017/04/03/texas-preacher-thinks-womens-march-was-witchcraft">Women’s March</a> to the <a href="https://www.ucdclinton.ie/commentary-content/trumps-rhetoric-fuses-christian-nationalism-with-counter-terrorism">2020 protests</a> sparked by the killing of George Floyd. Stances on immigrants and refugees are also included. </p>
<p>In one book, turned into a <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/8/17941066/the-trump-prophecy-liberty-university-christian-nationalism">part-biopic, part-propaganda</a> film called The Trump Prophecy by the conservative evangelical Liberty University, victory over demons is paralleled with the mass expulsion of undocumented migrants. <a href="https://www.blogtalkradio.com/dailyrenegade/2019/08/15/satans-witches-of-death-arent-hiding-anymore-peck-report-ep-239">Others have framed</a> the central American migrant caravans as carriers of diabolic “witchcraft”.</p>
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<p>Conspiratorial claims that both <a href="https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/06/21/george-soros-conspiracy-theories-protests/3232738001/">the protests</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/a-conspiracy-theory-about-george-soros-and-a-migrant-caravan-inspired-horror/2018/10/28/52df587e-dae6-11e8-b732-3c72cbf131f2_story.html">migrant caravans</a> were funded by the investor/philanthropist George Soros or the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/06/10/trump-archbishop-vigano-letter-deep-state/">deep state</a> close the circle. They cast demonised groups – such as “nasty” women, Black protesters, refugees and undocumented migrants – not just as agents of corrupt deep state forces but avatars of the demonic deeper state behind them.</p>
<p>Spiritual warriors are often keen to separate the demons they battle from the people they claim to be saving from them. But today such deliverance from evil has been shown to never just be about the spiritual salvation of individuals, if it <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814742648/love-the-sin/">ever was</a>. It has profound and lasting material consequences for both those individuals and the nation. </p>
<p>By imagining demons behind social welfare, economic and environmental regulations, or legal protections for marginalised groups, spiritual warriors frame the dismantling of these systems as ridding the US of demons. More than this, they frame the people and groups they see as benefiting from those systems as agents of evil incarnate. Only after such people are removed can there be a national rebirth.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144898/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>S. Jonathon O'Donnell receives funding from the Irish Research Council. </span></em></p>How some evangelicals use spiritual warfare to interpret the presidency of Donald Trump.S. Jonathon O'Donnell, Postdoctoral Fellow in American Studies, University College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1306982020-02-09T19:07:16Z2020-02-09T19:07:16ZThe coronavirus and Chinese social media: finger-pointing in the post-truth era<p>As public health authorities in China and the world fight the novel coronavirus, they face two major communication obstacles: the eroding trust in the media, and misinformation on social media. </p>
<p>As cities, towns, villages and residential compounds have been shut down or implemented curfews, social media have played a central role in crisis communication. </p>
<p>Chinese social media platforms, from WeChat and Weibo, to QQ, Toutiao, Douyin, Zhihu and Tieba, are the lifeline for many isolated and scared people who have been housebound for over two weeks, relying on their mobile phones to access information, socialise, and order food.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314129/original/file-20200207-43128-spk2fd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314129/original/file-20200207-43128-spk2fd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=650&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314129/original/file-20200207-43128-spk2fd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=650&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314129/original/file-20200207-43128-spk2fd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=650&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314129/original/file-20200207-43128-spk2fd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314129/original/file-20200207-43128-spk2fd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314129/original/file-20200207-43128-spk2fd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A meme being shared on WeChat reads: ‘When the epidemic is over, men will understand why women suffer from postnatal depression after one-month confinement upon childbirth.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>These platforms constitute the mainstream media in the war on the coronavirus.</p>
<p>I experienced the most extraordinary Chinese New Year with my parents in China and witnessed the power of Chinese social media, especially WeChat, in spreading and controlling information and misinformation. </p>
<p>China is not only waging a war against the coronavirus. It is engaged in a media war against misinformation and “rumour” (as termed by the Chinese authorities and social media platforms). </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314125/original/file-20200207-43074-8wxl2z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314125/original/file-20200207-43074-8wxl2z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314125/original/file-20200207-43074-8wxl2z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314125/original/file-20200207-43074-8wxl2z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314125/original/file-20200207-43074-8wxl2z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314125/original/file-20200207-43074-8wxl2z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314125/original/file-20200207-43074-8wxl2z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">This banner being shared on WeChat reads: ‘Those who do not come clean when having a fever are class enemies hidden among the people.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>Information about the virus suddenly increased from January 21, after the central government publicly acknowledged the outbreak <a href="https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-51382117">the previous day</a> and Zhong Nanshan, China’s leading respiratory expert and anti-SARS hero, declared on the state broadcaster CCTV the virus was transmissible from person to person.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-how-health-and-politics-have-always-been-inextricably-linked-in-china-130720">Coronavirus: how health and politics have always been inextricably linked in China</a>
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<p>On <a href="https://theconversation.com/thinking-of-taking-up-wechat-heres-what-you-need-to-know-88787">WeChat</a>, the Chinese all-in-one super app with over 1.15 billion monthly active users, there has been only one dominant topic: the coronavirus.</p>
<h2>Rumour mongers and rumour busters</h2>
<p>In Wired, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-we-should-deescalate-the-war-on-the-coronavirus/">Robert Dingwall wrote</a> “fear, finger-pointing, and militaristic action against the virus are unproductive”, asking if it is time to adjust to a new normal of outbreaks. </p>
<p>To many Chinese, this new normal of fear and militaristic action is already real in everyday life. </p>
<p>Finger-pointing, however, can be precarious in the era of information control and post-truth.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314126/original/file-20200207-43113-ioqy59.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314126/original/file-20200207-43113-ioqy59.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314126/original/file-20200207-43113-ioqy59.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314126/original/file-20200207-43113-ioqy59.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314126/original/file-20200207-43113-ioqy59.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314126/original/file-20200207-43113-ioqy59.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314126/original/file-20200207-43113-ioqy59.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">One of many spoof Cultural Revolution posters being shared on social media to warn people of the consequence of not wearing masks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>On WeChat and other popular social media platforms, information about the virus from official, semi-official, unofficial and personal sources is abundant in chat groups, “Moments”, WeChat official accounts, and newsfeeds (mostly from <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-tencent-became-the-worlds-most-valuable-social-network-firm-with-barely-any-advertising-90334">Tencent News</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toutiao">Toutiao</a>). </p>
<p>Information includes personal accounts of life under lockdown, <em>duanzi</em> (jokes, parodies, humorous videos), heroism of volunteers, generosity of donations, quack remedies, scaremongering about deaths and price hikes, and the conspiracy theory of the US waging a biological war against China. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">TikTok video (shared on WeChat) on the life of a man in isolation at home and his ‘social life’.</span></figcaption>
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<p>There is also veiled <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/technology/china-coronavirus-censorship-social-media.html?utm_source=Daily+Lab+email+list&utm_campaign=fe0831f988-dailylabemail3&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d68264fd5e-fe0831f988-396508151">criticism of the government</a> and government officials for mismanagement, bad decisions, despicable behaviours and lack of accountability.</p>
<p>At the same time, the official media and Tencent have stepped up their rumour-busting effort. </p>
<p>They regularly publish rumour-busting pieces. They mobilise the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/05/19/the-chinese-government-fakes-nearly-450-million-social-media-comments-a-year-this-is-why/">“50-cent army”</a> (<em>wumao</em>) and volunteer <em>wumao</em> (<em>ziganwu</em>) as their truth ambassadors. </p>
<p>Tencent has taken on the responsibility to provide “transparent” communication. It opened a new function through its WeChat mini-program Health, providing real-time updates of the epidemic and comprehensive information – including fake news busting. </p>
<p>The government has told people to only post and forward information from official channels and warned of severe consequences for anyone found guilty of disseminating “rumours”, including permanently blocking WeChat groups, blocking social media accounts, and possible jail terms. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314099/original/file-20200206-43102-1x0dmlr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314099/original/file-20200206-43102-1x0dmlr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314099/original/file-20200206-43102-1x0dmlr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314099/original/file-20200206-43102-1x0dmlr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314099/original/file-20200206-43102-1x0dmlr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314099/original/file-20200206-43102-1x0dmlr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314099/original/file-20200206-43102-1x0dmlr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A warning to WeChat users not to spread fake news about the coronavirus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>Chinese people, accustomed to having posts deleted, face increased peer pressure in their chat groups to comply with the heightened censorship regime. Amid the panic the general advice is: don’t repost anything. </p>
<p>They are asked to be savvy consumers, able to distinguish fake news, half-truths or rumours, and to trust only one source of truth: the official channels. </p>
<p>But the skills to detect and contain false content are becoming rarer and more difficult to obtain.</p>
<h2>Coronavirus and the post-truth</h2>
<p>We live in the <a href="http://theconversation.com/post-truth-politics-and-why-the-antidote-isnt-simply-fact-checking-and-truth-87364">post-truth era</a>, where every “truth” is driven by subjective, elusive, self-confirming and emotional “facts”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/post-truth-politics-and-why-the-antidote-isnt-simply-fact-checking-and-truth-87364">Post-truth politics and why the antidote isn't simply 'fact-checking' and truth</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Any news source can take you in the wrong direction. </p>
<p>We have seen that in the <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/praise-for-chinese-doctors-who-coronavirus-blew-whistle/news-story/eb47484900dbd409099e20784a9dda96">eight doctors</a> from Wuhan who transformed from being rumourmongers to whistleblowers and heroes within a month. </p>
<p>Dr <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/06/asia/li-wenliang-coronavirus-whistleblower-doctor-dies-intl/index.html">Li Wenliang</a>, the first to warn others of the “SARS-like” virus in December 2019, died from the novel coronavirus in the early hours of February 7 2020. There is an overwhelming sense of loss, mourning and unspoken indignation at his death in various WeChat groups.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314102/original/file-20200206-43074-643h6t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314102/original/file-20200206-43074-643h6t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314102/original/file-20200206-43074-643h6t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314102/original/file-20200206-43074-643h6t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314102/original/file-20200206-43074-643h6t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314102/original/file-20200206-43074-643h6t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1065&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314102/original/file-20200206-43074-643h6t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1065&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314102/original/file-20200206-43074-643h6t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1065&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">WeChat users mourning the death of Dr Li Wenliang.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>In the face of this post-truth era, we must ask the questions: what is “rumour”, who defines “rumour”, and how does “rumour” occur in the first place? </p>
<p>Information overload is accompanied by information pollution. Detecting and contain false information on social media has been a technical, sociological and ideological challenge. </p>
<p>With a state-led campaign to “bust rumours” and “clean the web” in a controlled environment at a time of crisis, these questions are more urgent than ever. </p>
<p>As media scholar <a href="http://newsen.pku.edu.cn/news_events/pointsofview/3550.htm">Yong Hu</a> said in 2011, when “official lies outpace popular rumors” the government and its information control mechanism constitute the greatest obstruction of the truth. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>On the one hand, the government has provided an environment conducive to the spread of rumours, and on the other it sternly lashes out against rumours, placing itself in the midst of an insoluble contradiction.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As the late Dr Li Wenliang said: “[To me] truth is more important than my case being redressed; a healthy society should not only allow one voice.”</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314106/original/file-20200207-43108-6a6oza.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314106/original/file-20200207-43108-6a6oza.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314106/original/file-20200207-43108-6a6oza.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314106/original/file-20200207-43108-6a6oza.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314106/original/file-20200207-43108-6a6oza.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314106/original/file-20200207-43108-6a6oza.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314106/original/file-20200207-43108-6a6oza.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A screenshot from WeChat quoting Dr Li Wenliang: ‘[To me] truth is more important than my case being redressed; a healthy society should not only allow one voice.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>China can lock down its cities, but it cannot lock down rumours on social media. </p>
<p>In fact, the Chinese people are not worried about rumours. They are worried about where to find truth and voice facts: not one single source of truth, but multiple sources of facts that will save lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130698/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Haiqing Yu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As cities have shut down and residential compounds have issued curfews, social media in China have become more important than ever. But it is a place of rumours and mistruths.Haiqing Yu, Associate Professor, School of Media and Communication, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1304422020-01-24T09:44:46Z2020-01-24T09:44:46ZWhat’s the difference between lies and post-truth in politics? A philosopher explains<p>If I wrote “The first sentence in this article is a lie”, is this sentence true, or is it a lie? And, if a liar declares “I am lying”, is the liar telling the truth? In philosophy and logic this is known as the <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liar-paradox/">Liar’s Paradox</a>: the liar is a liar, and if the liar is indeed lying, then the liar is telling the truth, which means the liar just lied. </p>
<p>Lies are part of the DNA of modern society, though we often now refer to them with the more dignified terminology of marketing, advertising, propaganda or spin. From unscrupulous sellers of used cars to prime ministers making unsubstantiated declarations about weapons of mass destruction, it seems that many people now make a living from lies.</p>
<p>In the public imagination politicians are professional liars par excellence, or as the writer George Orwell once <a href="https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit/">put it</a>: “Political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-people-vote-for-politicians-they-know-are-liars-128953">Why people vote for politicians they know are liars</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In her essay <a href="https://idanlandau.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/arendt-truth-and-politics.pdf">Truth and Politics</a>, published in The New Yorker in 1967, the philosopher Hannah Arendt was already lamenting the fact that politics and truth don’t mix. But even Arendt was aware that not all lies are the same. There are lies that are minimal forms of deception, a micro-tear in the fabric of reality, while some lies are so big that they require a complete rearrangement of the whole factual texture, a shift to another reality. In today’s terminology, Arendt was alerting us to the difference between a lie, and the 2016 Oxford Dictionaries <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37995600">Word of the Year</a> – “post-truth”.</p>
<p>One way to understand the difference between lies and post-truth, which I’ve written <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0191453719896382">about in a new paper</a>, is that a liar denies specific facts that have precise coordinates in space and time, whereas post-truth questions the very nature of truth. A liar knows the truth, and, by trying to persuade us of an alternative narrative, a liar is paradoxically honouring the truth, whereas post-truth allows no last refuge for the truth. </p>
<h2>Clinton versus Trump</h2>
<p>This distinction between a lie and post-truth becomes more clear by comparing two recent American presidents, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. At <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBe_guezGGc">a White House press conference</a> on January 26 1998, Clinton famously said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I’m going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time; never. </p>
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<p>Clinton’s statement, given the subsequent revelations and a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-happened-to-monicas-dress/">semen-stained blue dress</a>, is disconcerting. It’s possible that Clinton did not consider his intimate interactions with Lewinsky as a “sexual relation”, but that is unlikely – it would require a phenomenal effort of self-deception, or ingenuity, to defend that position with honesty and integrity. Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice, because he lied under oath, but he was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-impeachment/senate-acquits-president-clinton/">ultimately acquitted</a> in a Senate trial. </p>
<h2>Subverting truth itself</h2>
<p>Clinton lied, and that was inexcusable. But Trump’s relationship with truth is even more disturbing, and dangerous. Trump’s incessant <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-term-fake-news-is-doing-great-harm-100406">accusations of fake news</a> against the main media outlets, including the Washington Post, The New York Times, and CNN, reflects a longstanding disdain for the truth. Unlike Clinton, Trump is not simply denying certain facts, instead he is determined to undermine the theoretical infrastructure that makes it possible to have a conversation about the truth. </p>
<p>Trump’s response and demeanour to the impeachment allegations made against him is a typical example of post-truth. By spurning the impeachment proceedings as a “<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1180307952210759687?s=20">charade</a>” and a “<a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1207664621336825856?lang=en">witch-hunt</a>”, his strategy is to create an environment where objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion, where theoretical frameworks necessary to make sense of certain events are scorned, and where scientific truth is delegitimised.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-to-think-when-youre-thinking-about-impeachment-5-essential-reads-130118">What to think when you're thinking about impeachment: 5 essential reads</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This is the major difference between a lie and post-truth. While a lie subverts a specific truth, post-truth tries to subvert truth itself. Trump’s abhorrence of truth is reflected in the remarkable claim by one of his lawyers, Rudy Giuliani, that “truth is relative”. Giuliani was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CljsZ7lgbtw">talking on NBC News</a> about the request by special counsel Robert Mueller for an interview with Trump regarding the Russia investigation. Giuliani raised concerns that Trump could perjure himself because “truth isn’t truth.” </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311572/original/file-20200123-162216-12hvgro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311572/original/file-20200123-162216-12hvgro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311572/original/file-20200123-162216-12hvgro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311572/original/file-20200123-162216-12hvgro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311572/original/file-20200123-162216-12hvgro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311572/original/file-20200123-162216-12hvgro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311572/original/file-20200123-162216-12hvgro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">More devious than a lie.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BNMK 0819/Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Post-truth is a murky concept, but it should not be confused with a lie. Post-truth is much more devious and dangerous to the democratic fabric of our society. The prefix “post” in post-truth refers to the claim that a specified idea has become redundant and therefore can safely be discarded. Post-truth is the belief that truth is no longer essential, that truth has become obsolete. </p>
<p>We can cope with politicians lying, but we cannot afford the risk of allowing politicians to deligitimise truth.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130442/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vittorio Bufacchi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Post-truth questions the very nature of truth itself – that’s why it’s so dangerous.Vittorio Bufacchi, Senior Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, University College CorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1257552019-10-24T13:50:59Z2019-10-24T13:50:59ZDonald Trump’s war on facts is the latest play in a long-established tradition to create a post-truth reality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298325/original/file-20191023-119449-fx03a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When facts are fiction.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/success?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdownload.shutterstock.com%2Fgatekeeper%2FW3siZSI6MTU3MTg2ODQ5NCwiYyI6Il9waG90b19zZXNzaW9uX2lkIiwiZGMiOiJpZGxfNTE2NTU2NTYxIiwiayI6InBob3RvLzUxNjU1NjU2MS9odWdlLmpwZyIsIm0iOjEsImQiOiJzaHV0dGVyc3RvY2stbWVkaWEifSwidnJleU9rRlNwK25UODMwaHhvN2tJTHg2NHRFIl0%2Fshutterstock_516556561.jpg&ir=true&pi=33421636&m=516556561&src=LRgCMkryRCLEDiYEPVwuJw-1-72">Shutterstock/MIA Studio</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This is the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/global-series-the-post-truth-era-73183">post-truth age</a>”. Over the past few years, politicians from Europe to South America and the US, have been labelled “<a href="https://theconversation.com/post-truth-leaders-are-all-about-their-followers-69020">post-truth leaders</a>”, with US president Donald Trump becoming the standard bearer for this strange new world.</p>
<p>But post-truth leadership is nothing new. Ever since sociologist and political economist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Max-Weber-German-sociologist">Max Weber</a> developed his notion of charismatic leadership in the early 20th century, many societies have been infatuated with the idea that leaders ought not to concern themselves too much with factual reality. In fact, leadership has long been “post-truth”, a topic I explore <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Leadership-and-Organization-A-Philosophical-Introduction-1st-Edition/Spoelstra/p/book/9781138917101">in my recent book</a>.</p>
<p>According <a href="https://aeon.co/ideas/charisma-is-a-mysterious-and-dangerous-gift">to Weber</a> (1864-1920), “charismatic leadership” is a form of authority that derives from the attribution of extraordinary qualities to an individual by his (rarely her) followers, qualities that, in a quite literal sense, do not belong to the normal order. This distinguishes charismatic leadership from the authority of law or tradition, which are ordinary forms of domination that do not rely on an exceptional human individual.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://aeon.co/ideas/charisma-is-a-mysterious-and-dangerous-gift">religious origins</a> of the notion of charisma (from the Greek χάρισμα, meaning “gift of grace”) are not coincidental. Weber elevates the charismatic leader to a sphere that is uncontaminated by the reality and constraints of ordinary life. Weber’s charismatic leader is essentially transgressive, one who oversteps the bounds of the present order and whose supporters take these transgressions as proof of their leader’s extraordinary character.</p>
<h2>The ‘wimp factor’</h2>
<p>Such otherworldly expectations can be difficult for leaders to live up to. Prior to his election, former US president George H W Bush was criticised for a lack of “vision”. Indeed, rather than embracing the idea of becoming a charismatic leader, Bush responded with open contempt for “<a href="http://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2011/01/george-hw-bush-and-vision-thing.html">the vision thing</a>”. Newsweek magazine later spun this comment into a famous cover story that framed a feeble Bush in terms of his battle with the “<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/george-h-w-bush-wimp-766076/">wimp factor”</a>“. This image of a weak leader lacking in vision was to haunt Bush throughout the single term of his presidency.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-surprising-origins-of-post-truth-and-how-it-was-spawned-by-the-liberal-left-68929">The surprising origins of 'post-truth' – and how it was spawned by the liberal left</a>
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<p>The expectation that "real” leaders must have a compelling vision is important for understanding the relationship between leadership and truth. A vision may be seen as a “higher truth” by the leader’s supporters or, alternatively, as a “great lie” by their opponents.</p>
<p>Either way, visions have little to do with facts. A factual statement talks about the actual, about the things that <em>are</em> in the present, or <em>have happened</em> in the past. But the image of the visionary or charismatic leader is of someone who thinks and speaks in grand terms about the <em>future</em>.</p>
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<p>Such future-oriented speech cannot be fact-checked because it belongs to the domain of the potential, the as-yet-unrealised world of what might yet come to be. Martin Luther King’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IB0i6bJIjw">I Have a Dream</a>” speech, for instance, conveys a vision that has come to be seen as a great truth, but it is not, itself, a true or false statement. It is a vision – albeit one of inspiring justice and hope.</p>
<p>More contentious visionary claims, such as Trump’s promise to “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZn8tFbISpo">Make America great again</a>”, are similarly immune to falsification.</p>
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<p>Indeed, it is unsurprising that politicians who want to be perceived as “great” leaders will often avoid statements that can be fact-checked as they focus instead on captivating their audiences with visions of the world to come.</p>
<p>By avoiding the realm of the factual, leaders can demonstrate that their minds are not shaped by the past or the present. Rather, they already – in a sense – inhabit a glorious future and show the rest of us how we can join them. It is a future where Ronald Reagan’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c32G868tor0">Shining City Upon A Hill</a>” will become ever brighter, but will likely also remain ever elusive, a promise that need never be kept.</p>
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<p>And so Trump, as the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html">New York Times wryly observed</a>, is “trying to create an atmosphere in which reality is irrelevant”. For Weber, this is part and parcel of the nature of charismatic leadership: by demonstrating a lack of interest in the past and the present, charismatic leaders create the image that they belong to a higher sphere in order to bring about future change.</p>
<h2>So what’s new?</h2>
<p>While leadership has been a post-truth pursuit for a long time, dating back to well before Weber, there is something strange and new about contemporary post-truth leaders such as Trump. In contrast to Weber’s charismatic leader, who does not concern himself with the factual, Trump and his administration do speak, very frequently, in the language of facts. Of course, these aren’t really facts based in reality, but rather “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSrEEDQgFc8">alternative facts</a>” spun out of a parallel, often fictional, version of how things are.</p>
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<p>Indeed, this is something that has <a href="https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2019/number-of-fact-checking-outlets-surges-to-188-in-more-than-60-countries/">fuelled the rise</a> of fact-checking media. Uncovering the falsehoods of a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?destination=%2fpolitics%2f2019%2f08%2f12%2fpresident-trump-has-made-false-or-misleading-claims-over-days%2f%3f">leader like Trump</a>, who has at least 12,000 to his name according to The Washington Post, is unquestionably a vital task for the preservation of a healthy democracy. But it is equally important to ask what it is he achieves by saying things that are demonstrably false.</p>
<p>The reason why few commentators have asked this question may be because the answer seems to be too obvious to warrant much consideration: by lying about the facts, Trump and other post-truth leaders aim to deceive people into thinking more highly of them and their policies than they deserve. There is, no doubt, some truth to this, but it is not the full story.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fake-news-emotions-and-experiences-not-more-data-could-be-the-antidote-123496">Fake news: emotions and experiences, not more data, could be the antidote</a>
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<p>Trump’s lies are as much a demonstration of power as they are statements that intend to deceive. Trump’s infamous campaign promise to “<a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/455874-lock-her-up-chant-breaks-out-at-trump-rally">lock up</a>” Hillary Clinton if elected was hardly meant to be believed – it was primarily an attempt to create an image of himself as someone whose power stands above the law.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298347/original/file-20191023-119429-133dkmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298347/original/file-20191023-119429-133dkmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298347/original/file-20191023-119429-133dkmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298347/original/file-20191023-119429-133dkmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298347/original/file-20191023-119429-133dkmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298347/original/file-20191023-119429-133dkmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298347/original/file-20191023-119429-133dkmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Obama: a bigger inauguration than Trump. In the real world, at least.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/success?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdownload.shutterstock.com%2Fgatekeeper%2FW3siZSI6MTU3MTg3MTU3NiwiYyI6Il9waG90b19zZXNzaW9uX2lkIiwiZGMiOiJpZGxfNDQ4NjM4NTgwIiwiayI6InBob3RvLzQ0ODYzODU4MC9tZWRpdW0uanBnIiwibSI6MSwiZCI6InNodXR0ZXJzdG9jay1tZWRpYSJ9LCJXUE9tUVhEWWlXNjZXRk9UVTdaaDFBc2ZIbE0iXQ%2Fshutterstock_448638580.jpg&pi=33421636&m=448638580&src=TPLzLHnMpSclrDEZ_XTRtA-1-0">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even the lies that do aim to deceive their audiences, perhaps most famously Trump’s demonstrably false claim that his inauguration attracted a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/06/donald-trump-inauguration-crowd-size-photos-edited">larger audience</a> than that of his predecessor Barack Obama, also show to his constituency that he has no need to conform to the norms according to which ordinary people must abide. In this sense, he is still a characteristic example of the <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2019/june/trump-s-charisma">transgressive Weberian leader</a>.</p>
<p>What is new in post-truth leadership is not its disinterest in reality, but the way in which it demonstrates its otherworldliness: not by avoiding factual statements, but by showing contempt for their importance. This combative approach to facts may be new but its effect is very much in line with traditional charismatic leadership. For, in demonstrating his otherworldliness, a figure like Trump also creates a faith-based world in which he can define what is true.</p>
<p>The present effort to impeach Trump is not merely a power struggle between the Democrats and the Republicans, and nor is it merely a question of the powers of bureaucracy versus a “rogue” leader. The issue is both broader and deeper: it is a test on a grand scale of how deeply ingrained the Weberian notion of leadership is in the Western world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125755/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sverre Spoelstra does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The origins of the post-truth age date back decades, but the real world is now fast fading from view.Sverre Spoelstra, Associate professor, Lund UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1181012019-06-03T17:10:37Z2019-06-03T17:10:37ZIs Robert Mueller an antique? The role of the facts in a post-truth era<p>In just a little over eight minutes – on the morning of Wednesday, May 29th – the post-truth era came to an end.</p>
<p>Or did it?</p>
<p>That’s when <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/us/politics/mueller-special-counsel.html">Special Counsel Robert Mueller took the podium</a> and addressed only the facts concerning his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/mueller-report-sent-to-attorney-general-signaling-his-russia-investigation-has-ended/2019/03/22/b061d8fa-323e-11e9-813a-0ab2f17e305b_story.html">two-year-long investigation into Russian interference</a> in the 2016 presidential election as well as possible collusion and obstruction of justice.</p>
<p>Some might feel that Mueller struck a blow for truth and reality in a world where we are daily surrounded by opinion, spin and commentary. He seemed determined to follow the old rules no matter the madness that surrounded him. </p>
<p>Others, however, might feel that Mueller presented himself more as an antique specimen, and not a particularly useful one at that. How? By refusing to accept the reality that he was giving his address in a world where he knew his statement would be spun, lied about and exploited by others. </p>
<p>What is the role of someone who speaks only of facts in a tornado of partisan bombast? Is it a breath of fresh air? Or an abdication of responsibility to protect the country’s interests?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277689/original/file-20190603-69059-jlgq3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277689/original/file-20190603-69059-jlgq3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277689/original/file-20190603-69059-jlgq3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277689/original/file-20190603-69059-jlgq3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277689/original/file-20190603-69059-jlgq3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277689/original/file-20190603-69059-jlgq3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277689/original/file-20190603-69059-jlgq3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277689/original/file-20190603-69059-jlgq3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It used to be that lies had the power to shock. Now, facts are the outliers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/success?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdownload.shutterstock.com%2Fgatekeeper%2FW3siZSI6MTU1OTYwMzk2MCwiYyI6Il9waG90b19zZXNzaW9uX2lkIiwiZGMiOiJpZGxfMzI2MjQ3NzQ5IiwiayI6InBob3RvLzMyNjI0Nzc0OS9odWdlLmpwZyIsIm0iOjEsImQiOiJzaHV0dGVyc3RvY2stbWVkaWEifSwiQTI0NUM3Q3Rlak5RQ08zczFBR1hleFVBRVFVIl0%2Fshutterstock_326247749.jpg&pi=33421636&m=326247749&src=NNmmW-XRFNEiUm4k74aWag-1-5">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Facts vs post-truth</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.leemcintyrebooks.com/lee.php">I’m a philosopher</a> who studies the rational foundation for belief. In my book, “<a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/post-truth">Post-Truth</a>” (MIT Press, 2018), I explore the idea that “post-truth” actually goes far beyond the Oxford dictionaries’ definition of it as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” </p>
<p>Instead, I offer the idea that post-truth is more usefully understood as the “political subordination of reality,” in which truth is the first casualty on the road to authoritarianism.</p>
<p>If that is right, what are we to think of Mueller’s fact-based statement?</p>
<p>At the start, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/us/politics/mueller-transcript.html">Mueller outlined the parameters and limitations of his investigation.</a> Given <a href="https://fas.org/irp/agency/doj/olc/092473.pdf">Justice Department guidelines</a>, he said, he could not charge a sitting president with a crime (left unsaid: even if he felt that he had committed one). </p>
<p>Furthermore, in the interest of “fairness,” Mueller offered that it would be untoward to accuse someone of a crime when there could be no ultimate determination of guilt or innocence at trial. </p>
<p>Thus, Mueller offered no opinion on whether Trump had committed a crime. (Left unsaid: What would be the point?) As he put it, charging Trump with a crime was “not an option we could consider.” </p>
<p>The two things “left unsaid” would not be “factual” statements, but rather opinions, and he was avoiding those.</p>
<p>But then we get to the most intriguing part of Mueller’s statement, where a brief lesson in logic is in order.</p>
<h2>What Mueller believes</h2>
<p>In deductive logic, there is a relationship called the “contrapositive,” which demonstrates the equivalence between statements like “if P, then Q” and “if not Q, then not P.” Millions of LSAT takers have come to learn this by evaluating the validity of arguments like the following:</p>
<pre class="highlight plaintext"><code>1. Premise: If it's raining, the streets are wet
2. Premise: It's raining
3. Conclusion: Therefore, the streets are wet
</code></pre>
<p>This is a deductively valid argument, indeed famously so. The lesson here: If you buy the truth of the premises there can be no doubt about the truth of the conclusion. This one is a cinch. </p>
<p>Now compare this argument to a second one:</p>
<pre class="highlight plaintext"><code>1. Premise: If it's raining, the streets are wet
2. Premise: The streets are not wet
3. Conclusion: Therefore, it is not raining
</code></pre>
<p>This one, too, is deductively valid, and in fact it follows the form of the contrapositive explained above. If the premises are true, one cannot help but believe the conclusion. It is, in effect, the same type of argument. </p>
<p>But now for the moment of “truth.”</p>
<pre class="highlight plaintext"><code>1. Stated premise: "If we had confidence that the
president clearly did not commit a crime,
we would have said so."
2. Unstated premise: We did not say so
3. Conclusion: We did not have confidence that the
president did not commit a crime.
</code></pre>
<p>Remove the double negative and you get the implication that – without quite saying it – Mueller believes that Trump committed a crime.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277690/original/file-20190603-69059-1sw5r9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277690/original/file-20190603-69059-1sw5r9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277690/original/file-20190603-69059-1sw5r9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277690/original/file-20190603-69059-1sw5r9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277690/original/file-20190603-69059-1sw5r9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277690/original/file-20190603-69059-1sw5r9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277690/original/file-20190603-69059-1sw5r9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277690/original/file-20190603-69059-1sw5r9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Washington Post says that President Trump has made ‘made more than 10,000 false or misleading claims’ while in office.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Trump-Kim-Summit/8c8d45c381c64349b5afba5518495ede/31/0">AP/Susan Walsh</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Logic chopping? Cheating?’</h2>
<p>Is this message from Mueller post-truth? Cheating? Too clever by half? Or is it, as the attorneys sometimes call it, “<a href="https://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#Logic%Chopping">logic chopping</a>,” the practice of using nitpicky, pedantic logic arguments to avoid dealing with the larger truth?</p>
<p>During his statement, Mueller stood with military bearing, refusing to debase himself by using the outrageous tactics of partisanship, personal attack or even overstatement. </p>
<p>Reading from his carefully prepared script, never wavering from what he has allowed himself to say, Mueller could be a prisoner of war reading a hostage statement, hoping his message will nonetheless get through.</p>
<p>Or perhaps he’s more of a schoolteacher, telling us what to study because – Congress – this will be on the test. </p>
<h2>Does Mueller matter?</h2>
<p>Have Americans’ sensibilities been so dulled by a post-truth environment that they no longer recognize the facts – and what they imply – unless they are presented within the context of politics? </p>
<p>Is America not only post-truth, but also post-logic? </p>
<p>The response to Mueller makes it seem that way. The man-who-stuck-to-the-facts was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/us/politics/mueller-resigns-special-counsel.html">immediately derided</a> as a partisan hack or as a straitjacketed government functionary. About the nicest thing said about him was <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-to-think-about-muellers-statement/">in the nonpartisan publication Fivethirtyeight</a>, where staff writer Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux said “In some ways, Mueller’s statement felt out of sync with the current political moment.” </p>
<p>Perhaps the role of a truth-teller in a post-truth world – the “current political moment” – is simply to play it straight: neither to indulge in false equivalance nor to pick a team just because one side is doing most of the lying. </p>
<p>[<em>Expertise in your inbox.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Sign up for our newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day</a>.] </p>
<p>But telling it straight is only one-half of the equation. Such truth-tellers can insist that we do some of the work ourselves, rather than respond with lazy, thoughtless reflex. They remind us of what we have lost when all is opinion or spin – our independence of mind.</p>
<p>In a post-truth world, where everyone is jockeying for advantage and position, a truth-teller is trying to get our attention. </p>
<p>Is anyone still listening? Are we willing to do the work?</p>
<p>
<section class="inline-content">
<img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248895/original/file-20181204-133100-t34yqm.png?w=128&h=128">
<div>
<header>Lee McIntyre is the author of:</header>
<p><a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/post-truth">Post-Truth</a></p>
<footer>MIT Press provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.</footer>
</div>
</section>
</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118101/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lee McIntyre is a registered Democrat. MIT Press provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.</span></em></p>What’s the role of someone who, like
Robert Mueller, speaks only facts in a tornado of partisan bombast? Is it a breath of fresh air or an abdication of responsibility to protect America’s interests?Lee McIntyre, Research Fellow Center for Philosophy and History of Science, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1109992019-02-06T13:22:11Z2019-02-06T13:22:11ZDeepfake videos could destroy trust in society – here’s how to restore it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257484/original/file-20190206-174880-42oqjz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-face-recognition-biometric-verification-concept-1028052145?src=j2YHKqXCPj1yiGwR-nCHbw-3-60">Andriano.cz/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It has the potential to ruin relationships, reputations and our online reality. “Deepfake” artificial intelligence technology promises to create doctored videos so realistic that they’re almost impossible to tell from the real thing. So far it has mostly been used to create altered pornographic clips <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/12/31/scarlett-johansson-fake-ai-generated-sex-videos-nothing-can-stop-someone-cutting-pasting-my-image/?utm_term=.4c76836a527a">featuring celebrity women’s faces</a> but once the techniques are perfected, deepfake revenge porn purporting to show people cheating on their partners won’t be far behind.</p>
<p>But more than becoming a nasty tool for stalkers and harassers, deepfakes threaten to undermine trust in political institutions and society as a whole. The White House recently justified temporarily banning a reporter from its press conferences using <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/11/12/kellyanne-conway-acosta-video-thats-not-altered-thats-sped-up-they-do-it-all-time-sports/?utm_term=.d26b27571b3b">reportedly sped up genuine footage</a> of an incident involving the journalist. Imagine the implications of seeing ultra-realistic but artificial footage of government leaders planning assassinations, CEOs colluding with foreign agents or a renowned philanthropist abusing children.</p>
<p>So-called fake news has already increased many people’s scepticism towards politicians, journalists and other public figures. It is becoming so easy to create entirely fictional scenarios that we can no longer trust any video footage at face value. This threatens our political, legal and media systems, not to mention our personal relationships. We will need to create new forms of consensus on which to base our social reality. New ways of checking and distributing power - some political, some technological - could help us achieve this.</p>
<h2>Fake scandals, fake politicians</h2>
<p>Deepfakes are scary because they allow anyone’s image to be co-opted, and call into question our ability to trust what we see. One obvious use of deepfakes would be to falsely implicate people in scandals. Even if the incriminating footage is subsequently proven to be fake, the damage to the victim’s reputation may be impossible to repair. And politicians could tweak old footage of themselves to make it appear as if they had always supported something that had recently become popular, updating their positions in real time.</p>
<p>There could even be public figures who are entirely imaginary, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13347-018-0325-3">original but not authentic</a>. Meanwhile, video footage could become useless as evidence in court. Broadcast news could be reduced to people debating whether clips were authentic or not, using ever more complex AI to try to detect deepfakes.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cQ54GDm1eL0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>But the arms race that already exists between fake content creators and those detecting or debunking disinformation (such as Facebook’s planned <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/28/facebook-war-room-fight-fake-news-nick-clegg-eu-elections-dublin-operations-centre">fake news “war room”</a>) hides a deeper issue. The mere existence of deepfakes undermines confidence and trust, just as the possibility that an election was hacked brings the validity of the result into question.</p>
<p>While some people may be taken in by deepfakes, that is not the real problem. What is at stake is the underlying social structure in which we all agree that some form of truth exists, and the social realities that are based on this trust. It is not a matter of the end of truth, but the end of the belief in truth – a post-trust society. In the wake of massive disinformation, even honest public figures will be easily ignored or discredited. The traditional organisations that have supported and enabled consensus – government, the press – will no longer be fit for purpose.</p>
<h2>Blockchain trust</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/deepfake-app-ai-porn-fake-reddit">New laws</a> to regulate the use of deepfakes will be important for people who have damaging videos made of them. But policy and law alone will not save our systems of governance. We will need to develop new forms of consensus, new ways to agree on social situations based on alternative forms of trust.</p>
<p>One approach will be to decentralise trust, so that we no longer need a few institutions to guarantee whether information is genuine and can instead rely on multiple people or organisations with good reputations. One way to do this could be to <a href="https://theconversation.com/blockchain-could-challenge-the-accepted-ways-we-shape-and-manage-society-53647">use blockchain</a>, the technology that powers Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.</p>
<p>Blockchain works by creating a public ledger stored on multiple computers around the world at once and made tamper-proof by cryptography. Its algorithms enable the computers to agree on the validity of any changes to the ledger, making it much harder to record false information. In this way, trust is distributed between all the computers who can scrutinise each other, increasing accountability.</p>
<h2>More democratic society</h2>
<p>We can also look to more democratic forms of government and journalism. For example, <a href="https://demtech.chathamhouse.org/liquid-democracy-could-help-answer-europes-legitimacy-crisis/">liquid democracy</a> allows voters to vote directly on each issue or temporarily assign their votes to delegates in a more flexible and accountable way than handing over full control to one party for years. This would allow the public to look to experts to make decisions for them where necessary but swiftly vote out politicians who disregarded their views or acted dishonestly, increasing trust and legitimacy in the political system.</p>
<p>In the press, we could move towards more <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/18/future-of-journalism-collaboration-panama-papers">collaborative and democratised news reporting</a>. Traditional journalists could use the positive aspects of social media to gather information from a more diverse range of sources. These contributors could then discuss and help scrutinise the story to build a consensus, improving the media’s reputation.</p>
<p>The problem with any system that relies on the reputation of key individuals to build trust is how to prevent that reputation from being misused or fraudulently damaged. Checks such as Twitter’s “blue tick” account verification for public figures can help, but better legal and technical protections are also needed: more protected rights to privacy, <a href="https://webrootsdemocracy.org/kinder-gentler-politics/">better responses</a> to antisocial behaviour online, and better privacy-enhancing technologies built in by design. </p>
<p>The potential ramifications of deepfakes should act as a call to action in redesigning systems of trust to be more open, more decentralised and more collective. And now is the time to start thinking about a different future for society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110999/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Garfield Benjamin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>More democratic forms of politics, journalism and fact-checking will be needed when we can no longer trust any video footage.Garfield Benjamin, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Media Arts and Technology, Solent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1108662019-02-06T11:43:31Z2019-02-06T11:43:31Z3 philosophers set up a booth on a street corner – here’s what people asked<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257265/original/file-20190205-86202-19tymqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Greek philosopher Socrates.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/close-greatest-philosophers-socrates-reflects-on-781224403?src=QKUIfzii67kqmLfQintuLQ-1-8">Nice_Media_PRO/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The life choices that had led me to be sitting in a booth underneath a banner that read “Ask a Philosopher” – at the entrance to the New York City subway at 57th and 8th – were perhaps random but inevitable. </p>
<p>I’d been a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=-Dosh_kAAAAJ&hl=en">“public philosopher”</a> for 15 years, so I readily agreed to join my colleague <a href="http://ianolasov.com/">Ian Olasov</a> when he asked for volunteers to join him at the “Ask a Philosopher” booth. This was part of the latest public outreach effort by the <a href="https://www.apaonline.org/">American Philosophical Association</a>, which was having its annual January meeting up the street.</p>
<p>I’d taught before – even given speeches – but this seemed weird. Would anyone stop? Would they give us a hard time?</p>
<p>I sat between Ian and a splendid woman who taught philosophy in the city, thinking that even if we spent the whole time talking to one another, it would be an hour well spent.</p>
<p>Then someone stopped.</p>
<p>At first glance, it was hard to tell if she was a penniless nomad or an emeritus professor, but then she took off her hat and psychedelic scarf and came over to the desk and announced, “I’ve got a question. I’m in my late 60s. I’ve just had life threatening surgery, but I got through it.” </p>
<p>She showed us the jagged scar on her neck. “I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life,” she said. “I’ve got a master’s degree. I’m happily retired and divorced. But I don’t want to waste any more time. Can you help?”</p>
<p>Wow. One by one, we all asked her to elaborate on her situation and offered tidbits of advice, centering on the idea that only she could decide what gave her life meaning. I suggested that she might reach out to others who were also searching, then she settled in for a longer discussion with Ian. </p>
<p>And then it happened: A crowd gathered.</p>
<p>At first I thought they were there to eavesdrop, but as it turned out they had their own existential concerns. A group of teenagers engaged the philosopher on my right. One young woman, who turned out to be a sophomore in college, stepped away from the group with a serious concern. “Why can’t I be happier in my life? I’m only 20. I should be as happy as I’m ever going to be right now, but I’m not. Is this it?” </p>
<p>It was my turn. “Research has shown that what makes us happy <a href="https://www.randomhouse.com/kvpa/gilbert/excerpts3.html">is achieving small goals</a> one after the other,” I said. “If you win the lottery, within six months you’ll probably be back to your baseline of happiness. Same if you got into an accident. You can’t just achieve happiness and stay there, you have to pursue it.”</p>
<p>“So I’m stuck?” she said.</p>
<p>“No…” I explained. “Your role in this is huge. You’ve got to choose the things that make you happy one by one. That’s been shown from <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/">Aristotle</a> all the way down to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167212436400">cutting-edge psychological research</a>. Happiness is a journey, not a destination.”</p>
<p>She brightened a bit, while her friends were still puzzling over whether color was a primary or secondary property. They thanked us and moved on.</p>
<p>Suddenly, the older woman who had stopped by initially seemed satisfied with what Ian had told her, and said that she had to be on her way as well.</p>
<p>Again it was quiet. Some who passed by were pointing and smiling. A few took pictures. It must have looked odd to see three philosophers sitting in a row with “Ask a Philosopher” over our heads, amidst the bagel carts and jewelry stalls.</p>
<p>During the quiet I reflected for a moment on what had just happened. A group of strangers had descended upon us not to make fun, but because they were carrying around some real philosophical baggage that had long gone unanswered. If you’re in a spiritual crisis, you go to your minister or rabbi. If you have psychological concerns, you might seek out a therapist. But what to do if you don’t quite know where you fit into this world and you’re tired of carrying that burden alone? </p>
<p>And then I spotted her … an interlocutor who would be my toughest questioner of the day. She was about 6 years old and clutched her mother’s hand as she craned her neck to stare at us. Her mother stopped, but the girl hesitated. “It’s OK,” I offered. “Do you have a philosophical question?” The girl smiled at her mother, then let go of her hand to walk over to the booth. She looked me dead in the eye and said: “How do I know I’m real?”</p>
<p>Suddenly I was back in graduate school. Should I talk about the French philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes/">Rene Descartes</a>, who famously used the assertion of skepticism itself as proof of our existence, with the phrase “I think, therefore I am?” Or, mention English philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moore/">G.E. Moore</a> and his famous “here is one hand, here is the other,” as proof of the existence of the external world? </p>
<p>Or, make a reference to the movie “<a href="https://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2007/08/04/the-philosophy-of-the-matrix">The Matrix</a>,” which I assumed, given her age, she wouldn’t have seen? But then the answer came to me. I remembered that the most important part of philosophy was feeding our sense of wonder. “Close your eyes,” I said. She did. “Well, did you disappear?” She smiled and shook her head, then opened her eyes. “Congratulations, you’re real.”</p>
<p>She grinned broadly and walked over to her mother, who looked back at us and smiled. My colleagues patted me on the shoulder and I realized that my time was up. Back to the conference to face some easier questions on topics like “Academic Philosophy and its Responsibilities in a Post-Truth World.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110866/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lee McIntyre is a member of the American Philosophical Association. </span></em></p>Three philosophers put up a booth at the entrance to a New York City subway, so people could come to them with questions. They got hit with some real zingers.Lee McIntyre, Research Fellow Center for Philosophy and History of Science, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1060492018-11-19T11:38:05Z2018-11-19T11:38:05ZLies, damn lies and post-truth<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245549/original/file-20181114-194500-15qdygi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Donald Trump speaks to the media outside of the White House.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump/a685593769a14d5084fbe96c2ffd0db8/305/0">AP/Evan Vucci</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/opinion/campaign-stops/all-politicians-lie-some-lie-more-than-others.html">politicians lie</a>.</p>
<p>Or do they? </p>
<p>Even if we could find some isolated example of a politician who was scrupulously honest – <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/403945-former-president-jimmy-carter-trump-is">former President Jimmy Carter</a>, perhaps – the question is how to think about the rest of them. </p>
<p>And if most politicians lie, then why are some Americans so hard on President Donald Trump? </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/11/02/president-trump-has-made-false-or-misleading-claims-over-days/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.df1dbfb544fb">The Washington Post</a>, Trump has told 6,420 lies so far in his presidency. In the seven weeks leading up to the midterms, his rate increased to 30 per day. </p>
<p>That’s a lot, but isn’t this a difference in degree and not a difference in kind with other politicians?</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245620/original/file-20181114-194494-araab3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245620/original/file-20181114-194494-araab3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245620/original/file-20181114-194494-araab3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245620/original/file-20181114-194494-araab3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245620/original/file-20181114-194494-araab3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245620/original/file-20181114-194494-araab3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245620/original/file-20181114-194494-araab3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245620/original/file-20181114-194494-araab3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Women’s March in Toronto, Canada, January 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/toronto-ontario-canada-january-20-2018-1005749914?src=hgt8fR9jX9ZR-icYo4iQFQ-1-2">Shutterstock/Louis.Roth</a></span>
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<p>From my perspective <a href="http://www.leemcintyrebooks.com/">as a philosopher who studies truth and belief</a>, it doesn’t seem so. And even if most politicians lie, that doesn’t make all lying equal. </p>
<p>Yet the difference in Trump’s prevarication seems to be found not in the quantity or enormity of his lies, but in the way that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/05/opinion/beyond-lying-donald-trumps-authoritarian-reality.html">Trump uses his lies in service</a> to a proto-authoritarian political ideology. </p>
<p>I recently wrote a book, titled “<a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/post-truth">"Post-Truth,”</a> about what happens when “alternative facts” replace actual facts, and feelings have more weight than evidence. Looked at from this perspective, calling Trump a liar fails to capture his key strategic purpose.</p>
<p>Any amateur politician can engage in lying. Trump is engaging in “post-truth.”</p>
<h2>Beyond word of the year</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.oxforddictionaries.com/press/news/2016/12/11/WOTY-16">Oxford English Dictionaries named “post-truth”</a> its word of the year in November 2016, right before the U.S. election. </p>
<p>Citing a 2,000 percent spike in usage – due to Brexit and the American presidential campaign – <a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/post-truth">they defined post-truth</a> as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” </p>
<p>Ideology, in other words, takes precedence over reality.</p>
<p>When an individual believes their thoughts can influence reality, we call it “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/magical-thinking">magical thinking</a>” and might worry about their mental health. When a government official uses ideology to trump reality, it’s more like propaganda, and it puts us on the road to fascism. </p>
<p>As Yale philosopher <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/9/19/17847110/how-fascism-works-donald-trump-jason-stanley">Jason Stanley argues</a>, “The key thing is that fascist politics is about identifying enemies, appealing to the in-group (usually the majority group), and smashing truth and replacing it with power.”</p>
<p>Consider the example of Trump’s recent decision not to cancel two political rallies on the same day as the Pittsburgh massacre. <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/413644-trump-incorrectly-cites-stock-market-opening-day-after-9-11-to">He said that this was based on the fact</a> that the New York Stock Exchange was open the day after 9/11. </p>
<p>This isn’t true. The stock exchange stayed closed for six days after 9/11. </p>
<p>So was this a mistake? A lie? Trump didn’t seem to treat it so. In fact, he repeated the falsehood later in the same day. </p>
<p>When a politician gets caught in a lie, there’s usually a bit of sweat, perhaps some shame and the expectation of consequences. </p>
<p>Not for Trump. After many commentators pointed out to him that the stock exchange was in fact closed for several days after 9/11, he merely shrugged it off, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/10/28/no-president-trump-nyse-did-not-open-day-after-sept-attacks/?utm_term=.f648cb2beef1">never bothering to acknowledge – let alone correct – his error</a>. </p>
<p>Why would he do this?</p>
<h2>Ideology, post-truth and power</h2>
<p>The point of a lie is to convince someone that a falsehood is true. But the point of post-truth is domination. In my analysis, post-truth is an assertion of power. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2018/01/why-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin-lie-and-why-they-are-so-good-it">As journalist Masha Gessen</a> and others have argued, when Trump lies he does so not to get someone to accept what he’s saying as true, but to show that he is powerful enough to say it. </p>
<p>He has asserted, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/10/14/trump-60-minutes-cbs-takeaways/1645388002/">“I’m the President and you’re not,”</a> as if such high political office comes with the prerogative of creating his own reality. This would explain why Trump doesn’t seem to care much if there is videotape or other evidence that contradicts him. When you’re the boss, what does that matter? </p>
<p>Should we be worried about this flight from mere lying to post-truth? </p>
<p>Even if all politicians lie, I believe that post-truth foreshadows something more sinister. In his powerful book <a href="http://timothysnyder.org/books/on-tyranny-tr">“On Tyranny,”</a> <a href="http://timothysnyder.org/">historian Timothy Snyder</a> writes that “post-truth is pre-fascism.” It is a tactic seen in “electoral dictatorships” – where a society retains the facade of voting without the institutions or trust to ensure that it is an actual democracy, like those in Putin’s Russia or Erdogan’s Turkey.</p>
<p>In this, Trump is following the authoritarian playbook, characterized by leaders lying, the erosion of public institutions and the consolidation of power. You do not need to convince someone that you are telling the truth when you can simply assert your will over them and dominate their reality. </p>
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<header>Lee McIntyre is the author of:</header>
<p><a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/post-truth">Post-Truth</a></p>
<footer>MIT Press provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.</footer>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>MIT Press provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.</span></em></p>Any amateur politician can engage in lying. President Donald Trump is going further than that. He’s engaging in ‘post-truth’.Lee McIntyre, Research Fellow Center for Philosophy and History of Science, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1050562018-10-19T08:44:52Z2018-10-19T08:44:52ZWhy journalists in South Africa should do some self-reflection<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241224/original/file-20181018-67185-wv0tdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Media should be held to the same accountability standards they demand, especially from public representatives. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is fitting that the <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/news/2018-10-13-we-got-it-wrong-and-for-that-we-apologise/">apology</a> by the editor of Sunday Times, South Africa’s biggest newspaper, for its serious lapses in editorial independence and judgement came at the start of a week in which the country celebrates <a href="https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/government-commemorates-media-freedom-day">Media Freedom Day</a>. </p>
<p>Also known as <a href="http://www.saha.org.za/news/2011/November/a_black_wednesday_for_apartheid_sa_and_a_black_tuesday_for_democratic_sa.htm">“Black Wednesday”</a>, the event commemorates the day, in 1977, when the apartheid government arrested, detained and banned anti-apartheid activists and shut down three newspapers. The attack on the media was sustained throughout the 1980s, including two <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/state-emergency-south-africa-1960-and-1980s">States of Emergency</a> which severely curtailed freedom of speech.</p>
<p>When celebrating Media Freedom Day in post-apartheid South Africa, it is customary to recall the resistance offered by critical newspapers during apartheid, and rejoice in the freedom now entrenched in the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-1">Constitution</a>. The vital work done by today’s investigative journalists to expose corruption, <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-09-14-00-definition-of-state-capture">state capture</a> and corporate malfeasance is <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-investigative-journalists-helped-turn-the-tide-against-corruption-in-south-africa-93434">rightly féted</a>. </p>
<p>But often forgotten or underplayed is the shadowy side to media history – and contemporary parallels.</p>
<h2>The historical resonances</h2>
<p>Sunday Times editor Bongani Siqoko was apologising for the excesses of his immediate predecessors. These included false allegations about a police “hit squad” in the KwaZulu-Natal province. Another was about a “<a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2018-10-16-the-sars-rogue-unit-not-unlawful-says-judge-robert-nugent/">rogue unit” at the South African Revenue Services</a>. The apologies stemmed from the fact that the journalists who wrote the articles had not done the proper checks on their sources. And that they were led by the nose to further the agendas of particular politicians wanting to weaken state institutions.</p>
<p>There are historical resonances. The most egregious example of media capture during apartheid was the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/information-scandal">“Information Scandal”</a> in which the then governing National Party attempted to buy the Rand Daily Mail newspaper in order to provide propaganda. When that failed it launched The Citizen, using a secret slush fund. </p>
<p>The Nationalist government could also count on the support of the Afrikaans media, especially the media giant Naspers. As former editor and journalism professor Anton Harber has <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-10-08-ton-vosloos-book-has-lessons-for-todays-political-journalists-who-actively-take-sides/">pointed out</a>, the </p>
<blockquote>
<p>gravest sin of the Afrikaans media was not what it said but what it systematically hid from its public: the forced removals, the prison torture, the slave working conditions, the censorship, the petty segregation, the daily humiliations – all the conditions that defined apartheid and made it so horrifying to the rest of the world.</p>
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<p>Naspers <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-03-03-a-cultural-weapon-how-afrikaans-arts-journalists-found-breathing-space-in-apartheid-sa/">refused to testify</a> before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission about their role under apartheid, leading to a group of renegade journalists <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/media%5C1997%5C9709/s970926g.htm">submitting their own affidavits</a>. An apology for the newspaper group’s complicity with successive apartheid regimes was only made at the <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Naspers-apologises-for-its-role-in-apartheid-20150725">company’s centenary</a> in 2015.</p>
<p>Although the mainstream English-language press were more critical of apartheid, theirs was often a liberal opposition aligned with mining capital, and offered <a href="https://www.mediamonitoringafrica.org/images/uploads/trc.pdf">from a white perspective</a>. The Black press and alternative media, often harassed, sued, threatened and driven underground, were the ones that paid the highest price for their principles.</p>
<h2>Crisis of conscience</h2>
<p>South African journalism again faces a crisis of conscience. <a href="https://www.news24.com/Tags/Companies/the_new_age">The New Age</a> newspaper and its <a href="https://theconversation.com/axing-ann7-in-south-africa-may-send-wrong-signal-for-media-freedom-91180">sister channel ANN7</a> were widely seen as an attempt by the controversial Gupta-family to <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2018-07-05-the-new-age-experiment-governments-attempt-to-control-the-media-has-done-industry-no-favours/">extend their state capture agenda</a> to the media sphere. And the close relationship between the executive chairman of Independent Media, Iqbal Survé, and members of the African National Congress, has repeatedly <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/news/2017-05-14-iqbal-surv-canned-editor-over-brian-molefe-article/">raised questions</a> about editorial independence at the group’s publications. </p>
<p>Added to the extremely serious ethical lapses by the Sunday Times is the ongoing concern that South Africa’s mainstream media does not listen to and reflect closely enough the <a href="https://theconversation.com/voices-of-the-poor-are-missing-from-south-africas-media-53068">voices of the poor</a>. What gives these issues a global backdrop is the rise of a <a href="https://www.news24.com/Columnists/GuestColumn/in-the-twitter-trenches-how-fake-news-influences-journalism-20170126">“post-truth” era</a> where politicians have used the public’s distrust in the media to serve their own agendas.</p>
<p>In this context, media <a href="https://www.oeaw.ac.at/cmc/research/media-accountability-media-change/media-ethics-and-media-accountability/mapping-media-accountability-international-trends-and-perspectives/">accountability and transparency</a> are key. If journalists demand accountability from the state and politicians, they too should be accountable to the public. </p>
<h2>Investigation into editorial integrity</h2>
<p>Apologising to the public and parting ways with the <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2018/10/14/sunday-times-parts-ways-with-mzilikazi-wa-afrika-and-stephan-hofstatter">offending journalists </a> was the honourable thing for the Sunday Times to do. Without action a press code can become merely a smokescreen. More needs to be done. </p>
<p>Instead of exchanging the usual platitudes about the Fourth Estate and patting one other on the back, journalists should do some soul searching. In view of this, the three Sunday Times journalists responsible for the series of contentious stories would do well to heed <a href="https://www.news24.com/Columnists/MaxduPreez/the-case-for-sunday-times-journalists-to-come-clean-20181016">calls</a> by experienced investigative <a href="https://www.news24.com/Columnists/GuestColumn/exposing-the-puppet-masters-behind-the-sunday-times-scandal-20181016">journalists</a> to reveal their sources. </p>
<p>At first glance, the call might go against established journalistic ethos. But this ethical rule is meant to protect vulnerable whistleblowers, not manipulative crooks. The fear is that naming sources might have a chilling effect on future investigations. But this doesn’t quite apply here. Those who fed the journalists lies were driven by sinister motives. They imperilled, rather than advanced the public interest. Exposing them might be the only way to get to the root of a much wider political rot – which is at the core of what good journalism should be doing anyway. </p>
<p>The South African National Editors’ Forum has announced that it will <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/2023805/sanef-to-start-probe-over-sunday-times-fake-news/">launch an investigation</a> into editorial integrity at the Sunday Times. It has rightly emphasised its preference for self regulation over statutory regulation. But, for self regulation to work well enough to restore public trust, this investigation should extend beyond the Sunday Times to consider the state of ethical awareness and practice across newsrooms. The extensive body of academic research on ethics and journalism practices would also be a valuable resource.</p>
<p>The editors’ forum would be well-advised to ensure that its investigation involves members of the public to establish participatory and “open” <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1461670X.2014.950882?journalCode=rjos20">ethics</a>. Thankfully, the <a href="http://www.presscouncil.org.za/">Press Council of South Africa</a>, the independent co-regulatory body set up to safeguard ethical journalism, has significant public representation. This signals the importance of co-regulation as a public good rather than an insider-only affair. </p>
<p>The public has a right to know why these lapses occurred, why those that spoke up against them were silenced, and why the basic journalistic rule of corroborating sources was not followed. Siqoko deserves praise for his apology. It might sting now, but it is bound to pay off in the long term. Integrity does not come cheap.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105056/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Herman Wasserman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South Africans have a right to know why the lapses at Sunday Times occurred and why those that spoke up against them were silenced.Herman Wasserman, Professor of Media Studies and Director of the Centre for Film and Media Studies, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1027472018-09-18T11:31:39Z2018-09-18T11:31:39ZDeepfakes: what fairies and aliens can teach us about fake videos<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236839/original/file-20180918-158225-whxsfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/deepfake-procedural-person-man-young-learning-1020952429?src=54h4QHDg3RlPY-eh61yRxQ-1-0">Meyer_solutions/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“<a href="https://theconversation.com/detecting-deepfake-videos-in-the-blink-of-an-eye-101072">Deepfake</a>” is the name being given to videos created through artificially intelligent deep learning techniques. Also referred to as “face-swapping”, the process involves inputting a source video of a person into a computer, and then inputting multiple images and videos of another person. The neural network then learns the movements and expressions of the person in the source video in order to map the other’s image onto it to look as if they are carrying out the speech or act. </p>
<p>This practice was first used extensively in the production of fake pornography in late 2017 – where the faces of famous female celebrities were swapped in. Research has consistently shown that pornography <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23785961?casa_token=9pXczfovMowAAAAA:75DEzX5FQ6boaz4StkmiiXLxkWPXlG1VLIS7tanV9lkzeCSksdMYLqh-s6LJzl02saVw9IT4XSWWY_LX6E_8dpR1fZ9OABGN8WRabS4BuxIwes2IgQ&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">leads the way</a> in technological adoption and advancement when it comes to communication technologies, from the Polaroid camera to the internet. </p>
<p>Deepfaking has also been used to manipulate and subvert political speeches: early experimentation with this technology undertaken by <a href="https://www.washington.edu/news/2017/07/11/lip-syncing-obama-new-tools-turn-audio-clips-into-realistic-video/">researchers at the University of Washington</a> used speeches by Barack Obama as their source material, and appear plausible at first glance.</p>
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<p>Prior to the emergence of AI-enabled face-swapping in pornography, similar principles and techniques had already been well tried and tested in filmmaking, although through very labour intensive and lengthy processes involving huge teams of film production specialists, equipment and software. Take for example <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2820852/">Furious 7</a>, in which Paul Walker, the actor playing the lead role, died during production. Post production experts Weta Digital <a href="https://www.wetafx.co.nz/films/filmography/furious-7/">meticulously completed</a> Walker’s performance using CGI and advanced compositing techniques.</p>
<p>Now, however, deep learning and machine vision technologies have advanced to such a stage that the relevant software has become <a href="https://www.deepfakes.club/openfaceswap-deepfakes-software/">publicly accessible</a> and can be used on a normal computer. As a consequence, fears have been justifiably <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fake-news-is-about-to-get-so-much-more-dangerous/2018/09/06/3d7e4194-a1a6-11e8-83d2-70203b8d7b44_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c2fd6ebd5374">expressed</a>. There are concerns that deepfakes will soon become widespread, saturating all of our everyday encounters with moving images, to the point where we no longer be able to discern which videos are real and which are fake.</p>
<p>A moment looking back through history, and examining the moments of the introduction or popularisation of all preceding new media – from photography to the world wide web – is useful here. Because there has always been a period of uncertainty and confusion as audiences grapple with the apparent blurring of the lines between their reality and fiction. </p>
<p>The recent emergence of the “deepfakes” phenomena can be understood within this media continuum. It is simply the latest in a lineage of examples throughout history where the interrelationship between technologies and illusion is tightly woven.</p>
<h2>A history of fakery</h2>
<p>Take for example <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dgLEDdFddk">The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat</a>, one of the first pieces of moving image cinematography, created by Auguste and Louis Lumière. Contemporary news reports described people running <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=kp69nbHxZvAC&oi=fnd&pg=PA221&dq=lumiere+brothers+steam+train+people+running&ots=SVQg00P2VZ&sig=ZU6CA8Pr2Dtu5Pmpu3oGU3JjIvo#v=onepage&q&f=false">screaming from the screen</a> as the fast steam train approached them during its first public screening in Paris in 1895.</p>
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<p>Or the infamous Cottingley Fairies photographs, taken in 1917, which were believed to be authentic by some for over six decades. The perpetrators <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4289319?casa_token=eP2waXWkpfEAAAAA:otRmmXLhwXjbQ2qJ49EyXLPZLI8bM6JYyIm5rtgeB5Us7IaKuh6u47t6SXlsKSWv30zMFC4vGhy_ovvSyzp9YWecSPwFEFU_TbdmYcqnrexrEDYnZA&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">finally admitted</a> they were fake in the 1980s.</p>
<p>Then there’s the 1938 radio play broadcast of <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/36/36-h/36-h.htm">The War of the Worlds</a>, the first radio play to use the method of fictional news reporting. Newspapers reported that thousands of Americans fled their homes on listening to the play. Apparently, they believed a Martian invasion was unfolding.</p>
<p>In 1999, during the advent of the internet, <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/poetics-today/article-abstract/25/2/305/20822">research</a> showed that audiences of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185937/">The Blair Witch Project</a> genuinely believed the reports of missing film students represented in a documentary and the <a href="https://www.blairwitch.com/project/">accompanying website</a> to be true. </p>
<p>2007’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX_ZJkwvKR8">The Truth about Marika</a> was a mixed reality transmedia story of a missing person, Marika. Reports of her disappearance were broadcast on the Swedish Public Service network, leading some sections of the audience to believe this to be real.</p>
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<h2>The AI media age</h2>
<p>While these instances may beggar belief today, if you think about them in the context of technological developments they become more understandable. All were part of watershed moments in the evolution of media forms with much in common – they all situated a fictional story in what was originally trusted to be a factual context. It is also true that all of the associated accounts in the media were, to some extent, exaggerated. </p>
<p>Hindsight shows us that all of these examples are representative of a transitional moment. These types of projects only occur once at the advent of the new media form. After this point, audiences become literate and are able to effectively discern between fact and fiction – they don’t get caught out twice. This is a cyclical phenomena in which “deepfakes” are simply the most recent manifestation. So perhaps current fears are overstated.</p>
<p>But it is also true that due to the rapidity of technological innovation, the potential exponential propagation of video across multiple online spaces, and the potential scope for exploitation and subversion, we find ourselves at a fairly unique moment. This time, the distinction between what is real and what is fake could actually become imperceptible. At such a point, all screen-based media will be assumed to be fake.</p>
<p>And so while research advances into counter technologies and <a href="https://theconversation.com/detecting-deepfake-videos-in-the-blink-of-an-eye-101072">deepfake detection</a>, platforms will have to carefully manage content. Despite this, current modes of political delivery and news reporting may well become entirely unreliable. New ways for effective communication will no doubt have to evolve.</p>
<p>One thing is certain: deepfakes are symptomatic of modern media entering an era of artificial intelligence. They will take their place in media history as an intrinsic facet of the post-truth, fake news landscape that characterises our current moment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102747/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Atkinson receives funding from InnovateUK and the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).</span></em></p>Will we soon no longer be able to discern which videos are real and which are fake?Sarah Atkinson, Senior Lecturer in Digital Cultures, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1030652018-09-12T10:39:59Z2018-09-12T10:39:59ZOur shared reality is fraying<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235920/original/file-20180912-144464-bo3gsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Have we lost our grip on the truth?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/damaged-rope-tension-stress-risk-concept-1011813580">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The concept of truth is under assault, but our troubles with truth aren’t exactly new.</p>
<p>What’s different is that in the past, debates about the status of truth primarily took place in intellectual cafes and academic symposia among philosophers. These days, uncertainty about what to believe is endemic – a pervasive feature of everyday life for everyday people.</p>
<p>“Truth isn’t truth” – Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s lawyer, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/19/politics/rudy-giuliani-truth-isnt-truth/index.html">famously said</a> in August. His statement wasn’t as paradoxical as it might have appeared. It means that our beliefs, what we hold as true, are ultimately unprovable, rather than objectively verifiable.</p>
<p>Many philosophers <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Michel-Foucault">would agree</a>. Nevertheless, <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2004-21682-000">voluminous</a> <a href="https://www.springer.com/us/book/9780306430787">research in psychology</a>, my own field of study, has shown that the idea of truth is key to humans interacting normally with the world and other people in it. Humans need to believe that there is truth in order to maintain relationships, institutions and society.</p>
<h2>Truth’s indispensability</h2>
<p>Beliefs about what is true are typically shared by others in one’s society: fellow members of one’s culture, one’s nation or one’s profession. </p>
<p>Psychological research in a forthcoming book by <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=yPKejiIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Tory Higgins</a>, “Shared Reality: What Makes Us Strong and Tears Us Apart,” attests that shared beliefs help us collectively understand how the world works and provide a moral compass for living in it together.</p>
<p>Cue our current crisis of confidence.</p>
<p>Distrust of the U.S. government, which has been <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2017/12/14/public-trust-in-government-1958-2017/">growing since the 1960s</a>, has spread to nearly all other societal institutions, even those once held as beyond reproach.</p>
<p>From <a href="https://www.salisburypost.com/2018/09/04/ted-koppel-the-medias-runaway-role/">the media</a> to the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4513492/">medical</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/08/27/researchers-replicate-just-13-of-21-social-science-experiments-published-in-top-journals/?utm_term=.53697c5f745e">scientific communities</a> to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/as-crisis-envelops-catholic-church-is-pope-francis-facing-a-watershed-moment/2018/09/03/497e54c8-af81-11e8-8b53-50116768e499_story.html?utm_term=.16f2a875643d">Catholic Church</a>, there is a gnawing sense that none of the once hallowed information sources <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/12/08/mixed-messages-about-public-trust-in-science/">can be trusted</a>. </p>
<p>When we can no longer <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X17302841?via%3Dihub">make sense of the world together</a>, a <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Psychology_of_Closed_Mindedness.html?id=64ayJ9S1B50C">crippling insecurity ensues</a>. The internet inundates us with a barrage of conflicting advice about nutrition, exercise, religion, politics and sex. People <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/americans-are-in-the-midst-of-an-anxiety-epidemic-stress-increase">develop anxiety</a> and confusion about their purpose and direction. </p>
<p>In the extreme, a lost sense of reality is a defining feature of psychosis, <a href="https://www.everydayhealth.com/depression/psychotic-depression-losing-touch-with-reality.aspx">a major mental illness</a>. </p>
<p>A society that has lost its shared reality is also unwell. In the past, people turned to widely respected societal institutions for information: the government, major news outlets, trusted communicators like Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley or Edward R. Murrow. Those days are gone, alas. Now, just about every source is suspect of bias and serving interests other than the truth. In consequence, people <a href="https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/soco.2015.33.2.104">increasingly believe</a> what they wish to believe, or <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11031-014-9436-z">what they find</a> pleasing and reassuring.</p>
<p>In the quest to restore peace of mind, people scramble for alternative sources of certainty. Typically this means narrowing one’s circle of confidants to one’s tribe, one’s side of the aisle, one’s ethnicity or one’s religion.</p>
<p>For example, in his monumental work on the “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25717/25717-h/25717-h.htm">Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire</a>,” Edward Gibbon, the British historian recounts how the shattering of the Roman common worldview facilitated the emergence of a host of alternative religions – including Christianity, which finally prevailed over other faiths and belief systems that also sprung up at that time.</p>
<p>Then, as now, the fraying of our shared reality portends a fragmentation of society, an unbridgeable polarization in which distrust reigns, outsiders are demonized and collective action to address problems comes to a standstill. </p>
<h2>Back to a shared reality</h2>
<p>Philosophers in the 20th century, known as part of a “<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-postmodernism-20791">post-modernist</a>” movement in Western thought, eschewed the idea that objective truth is attainable. </p>
<p>That school of philosophy was critical of the modern notion that science, through its methods, is able to conclusively prove its claims and theories. </p>
<p>Instead, post-modernist authors stressed that human knowledge is ultimately subjective and relative rather than absolute. The post modernist movement ushered a sense of irreverence and freedom into culture and society. It stressed alternative ways of knowing through feeling and image thus impacting the communication industry and encouraging imagination. </p>
<p>Even major defenders of science like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Karl-Popper">Karl Popper</a> maintained that truth is but a guiding ideal for scientific inquiry that can never be realized or proven for certain. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-S-Kuhn">Thomas Kuhn believed likewise</a>. What these philosophers perhaps did not anticipate is what would happen to societies if skepticism and relativity – unconstrained belief systems in which nearly anything can be sustained – became widespread.</p>
<p>How can this dynamic be reversed? </p>
<p>Rebuilding a sense of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X17302841?via%3Dihub">shared reality</a> among different segments of our society isn’t going to be easy, especially as it seems forces such as politicians and Russian trolls are working towards just the opposite goal. Also, deeply committed advocates and true believers from both sides are making it difficult for to rebuild that invaluable common ground that shared reality rests upon.</p>
<p>Psychological <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2004-21682-000">research suggests</a> that such an about-face would require a willingness to “unfreeze” our entrenched positions that demonize the opinions of others, and often are based on narrow interests of one’s tribe or class. </p>
<p>In a forthcoming book I’m co-authoring with colleagues, “Radicals’ Journey: German Neo-Nazis’ Voyage to the Fringe and Back,” we tell the story of an arson attack against a synagogue in the German city of Düsseldorf in 2000. The German chancellor at the time, Gerhard Schröder, issued a public call for a “<a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aufstand_der_Anst%C3%A4ndigen">rebellion of the decent</a>.” </p>
<p>It was a call to find a way to coalesce around common values and listen to each other’s concerns; to find forgiveness instead of rejoicing at each other’s misfortunes and mistakes. </p>
<p>Schröder’s plea triggered one of the largest funding schemes for counter violent extremism programs on the federal, state and community levels across all of Germany. It mobilized the entire German nation to stand together against the forces of divisiveness.</p>
<p>Wisdom from the field of psychology hails Schröder’s advice. The alternative to finding our lost common ground may be our self-destruction as a community and as a nation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103065/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arie Kruglanski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A psychologist explains what can happen to individuals and societies that lose their grip on the truth.Arie Kruglanski, Professor of Psychology, University of MarylandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1001652018-07-23T20:06:41Z2018-07-23T20:06:41ZWhy the world should be worried about the rise of strongman politics<p>Back in 2016, The Financial Times’ Gideon Rachman advanced the view in a commentary for <a href="http://www.theworldin.com/article/10504/macho-men">The Economist</a> that the “strongman” style of leadership was gravitating from East to West, and growing stronger. “Across the world – from Russia to China and from India to Egypt – macho leadership is back in fashion,” Rachman wrote.</p>
<p>In light of subsequent developments around the world, he understated the “macho” phenomenon, driven by rising populism and growing mistrust of democratic systems.</p>
<p>That commentary was published before Donald Trump prevailed in the US presidential election and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/will-donald-trump-destroy-the-presidency/537921/">turned upside-down</a> assumptions about how an American president might behave.</p>
<p>Whether we like it or not, the most powerful country in the world – until now, an exemplar of Western liberal democracies and global stabiliser in times of stress – is ruled by an autocrat who pays little attention to democratic norms.</p>
<h2>Spread of authoritarianism</h2>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/07/17/629862434/transcript-obamas-speech-at-the-2018-nelson-mandela-annual-lecture">lecture</a> delivered just a day after Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-putin-fallout-inside-the-white-houses-tumultuous-week-of-walk-backs/2018/07/20/7cfdfc34-8c3d-11e8-8b20-60521f27434e_story.html?utm_term=.6b188f47094d">appeared to take</a> Russian President Vladimir Putin’s side over America’s intelligence agencies on the issue of Russian meddling in the 2016 US elections, Barack Obama drew attention to the new authoritarianism.</p>
<p>Without referring directly to Trump, Obama issued his most pointed criticism yet of the nativist and populist policies adopted by his successor on issues like immigration, protectionism and climate change.</p>
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<p>The politics of fear and resentment … is now on the move. It’s on the move at a pace that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago. I am not being alarmist, I’m simply stating the facts. Look around – strongman politics are on the ascendant.</p>
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<p>Trump, therefore, is not an aberration. He is part of a strengthening authoritarian trend more or less across the globe.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-growing-mistrust-in-democracy-is-causing-extremism-and-strongman-politics-to-flourish-98621">A growing mistrust in democracy is causing extremism and strongman politics to flourish</a>
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<p>In the Middle East, the Arab Spring has given way to the entrenchment of dictatorships in places like Syria, where Bashar al-Assad <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10202544/Face-the-truth-about-President-Bashar-al-Assad-hes-not-going.html">has reasserted</a> his grip on power with Russian and Iranian help, and in Egypt, where strongman Abdel Fattah al-Sisi continues to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/egypt-jailed-journalists-numbers-180502195324128.html">curtail press freedom</a> and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-election-season-kicks-off-rivals-to-egypts-leader-are-sidelined-1515431555">incarcerate political rivals</a>.</p>
<p>In Europe, the <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/147102/opportunistic-rise-europes-far-right">rise of an authoritarian right</a> in places like Hungary, Austria and now Italy are part of this trend. In Italy, the bombastic <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/23/italy-elections-as-left-splinters-berlusconi-waits-in-wings">Silvio Berlusconi</a> proved to be a forerunner of what is happening now.</p>
<p>In China, Xi Jinping’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/world/asia/xi-jinping-thought-explained-a-new-ideology-for-a-new-era.html">“new era”</a> is another example of a strongman overriding democratic constraints, with term limits on his leadership having recently been removed.</p>
<p>In the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte is using his war on drugs for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/opinion/dutertes-descent-into-authoritarianism.html">broader authoritarian purposes</a> in the manner of a mob boss.</p>
<p>In Thailand, the army <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/will-thailand-actually-hold-election">shows little inclination</a> to yield power it seized in a military coup in 2014, even if there was public clamour for a return to civilian rule (which there is not).</p>
<p>In Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan is continuing to strengthen his hold on the country, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/24/world/europe/turkey-election-erdogan.html">expanding the powers of the presidency</a> and locking up political rivals and journalistic critics. As a result, Turkey’s secular and political foundations are being undermined.</p>
<p>In Brazil, 40% of those <a href="https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2015/03/25/nearly-half-of-brazilians-support-coup-if-corruption-is-high-lapop/">polled by Vanderbilt University</a> a few years back said they would support a military coup to bring order to their country, riven by crime and corruption.</p>
<p>And in Saudi Arabia, a young crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/07/princes-top-officials-remain-jailed-saudi-arabia-report-180705160815801.html">has detained</a> the country’s leading businessmen and extorted billions from them in return for their freedom. This took place without censure from the West.</p>
<h2>The death of truth</h2>
<p>Genuine liberal democrats are in retreat as a populist tide laps at their doors.</p>
<p>In Britain, Theresa May <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-does-theresa-may-cling-to-power-heres-the-secret-to-her-success-96302">is hanging on to power</a> by a thread against a revanchist threat from the right.</p>
<p>In France, Emmanuel Macron <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/23/macrons-centrism-is-coming-apart-at-the-seams/">is battling</a> to transform his welfare-burdened country against fierce resistance from left and right.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/post-truth-politics-and-why-the-antidote-isnt-simply-fact-checking-and-truth-87364">Post-truth politics and why the antidote isn't simply 'fact-checking' and truth</a>
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<p>In Germany, Angela Merkel, the most admirable of Western liberal democratic leaders, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-08/angela-merkels-migrant-problem/9953192">is just holding on</a> against anti-immigration forces on the right.</p>
<p>In Australia, Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten, the leaders of the established centre-right and centre-left parties, are similarly under pressure from <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-39111317">nativist forces on the far right</a>.</p>
<p>What Australia and these other countries lack is a Trump, but anything is possible in an emerging strongman era, including the improbable – such as the emergence of a reality TV star as leader of the free world.</p>
<p>In a recent <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/are-we-losing-faith-democracy">Lowy Institute opinion survey</a> only 52% of younger Australians aged 18-29 years believed that democracy was preferable to other alternative forms of government.</p>
<p>In all of this, truth in particular is among the casualties. All politicians bend the truth to a certain extent, but there is no recent example in a Western democracy of a political leader who lies as persistently as Trump.</p>
<p>Like the character Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Trump lives in his own make-believe reality TV world where facts, it seems, are immaterial.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-putin-and-the-new-international-order-71269">Trump, Putin and the new international order</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Inconvenient information can be dismissed as <a href="https://variety.com/2018/politics/news/trump-north-korea-media-1202844311/">“fake news”</a>. Those who persist in reporting such inconvenient truths are portrayed as “<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/21/opinions/both-parties-should-unite-around-freedom-press-weinberg/index.html">enemies of the people</a>”.</p>
<p>This is the sort of rhetoric that resides in totalitarian states, where the media are expected to function as an arm of a dictatorship or, failing that, journalists are simply disappeared. In Putin’s Russia, journalist critics of the regime <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/04/21/604497554/why-do-russian-journalists-keep-falling">do so at their peril</a>.</p>
<p>In his lecture in South Africa, Obama dwelled at length on the corruption of political discourse in the modern era, including a basic disrespect for the facts.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>People just make stuff up. They just make stuff up. We see it in the growth of state-sponsored propaganda. We see it in internet fabrications. We see it in the blurring of lines between news and entertainment. We see the utter loss of shame among political leaders where they’re caught in a lie and they just double down and they lie some more. It used to be that if you caught them lying they’d be like, ‘Oh man.’ Now they just keep on lying.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the digital era, it had been assumed technology would make it easier to hold political leaders to account. But, in some respects, the reverse is proving to be the case, as Ian Bremmer, author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Us-vs-Them-Failure-Globalism/dp/0525533184">Us vs. Them: The Failure of Globalism</a>, wrote in a <a href="http://time.com/5264170/the-strongmen-era-is-here-heres-what-it-means-for-you/">recent contribution</a> to Time. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A decade ago, it appeared that a revolution in information and communications technologies would empower the individual at the expense of the state. Western leaders believed social networks would create ‘people power’, enabling political upheavals like the Arab Spring. But the world’s autocrats drew a different lesson. They saw an opportunity for government to try to become the dominant player in how information is shared and how the state can use data to tighten political control.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In his conclusion, Bremmer has this sobering observation: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Perhaps the most worrying element of the strongman’s rise is the message it sends. The systems that powered the Cold War’s winners now look much less appealing than they did a generation ago. Why emulate the US or European political systems, with all the checks and balances that prevent even the most determined leaders from taking on chronic problems, when one determined leader can offer a credible shortcut to greater security and national pride? As long as that rings true, the greatest threat may be the strongmen yet to come.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100165/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tony Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The ideals of liberal democracies are under threat – and not just in the US and Russia.Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/956152018-05-03T04:52:42Z2018-05-03T04:52:42ZFake news has always existed, but quality journalism has a history of survival<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217291/original/file-20180502-153873-1tjph0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/las-vegas-nevada-december-14-2015-353100986">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Donald Trump’s insistence that any challenges to the actions and utterances of the president are “fake news” is particularly chilling because it resembles a tactic used by authoritarian regimes seeking ways to silence independent reporting.</p>
<p>Malaysian authorities looking for new ways to criminalise critical news reporting now include <a href="https://cpj.org/2018/04/malaysia-issues-first-fake-news-conviction.php">fake news charges</a>. In Egypt – dubbed “one of the world’s biggest prisons for journalists” by the <a href="https://cpj.org/about/video.php">Committee to Protect Journalists</a> – being accused of spreading fake news can come with serious sanctions for national news journalists. In March 2018, it was an accusation used increasingly as a means to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-politics-media/ahead-of-contentious-vote-egypt-sets-sights-on-fake-news-idUSKCN1GU063">intimidate and deter foreign media</a> in the run up to the presidential election.</p>
<p>While attempts to diminish the civil standing of journalism within the US has not led to censorship by bullet (though there are <a href="https://pressfreedomtracker.us">reports of attacks and arrests</a> of journalists, exclusion from press calls and seizure of equipment), they are still destructive in their intention to undermine the crucial playing out of dissent and agreement within the civil sphere. Obstructing independent and dissenting journalism is a serious problem in an era where a growing number of news providers see their audiences as partisans rather than citizens. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LceVAOiVGgg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">RSA/YouTube.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Audiences who invest in highly partisan news that disconnects itself from truth telling, objectivity and investigative rigour respond positively to the endless pledges of loyalty by news providers, which in turn generate trust from them. These news providers seek to represent and confirm rather than challenge their audience’s beliefs and values. Such is the diminishment of public discourse and the proliferation of what author of the 2017 study <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/19/post-truth-matthew-dancona-evan-davis-reiews">Post Truth</a>, Matthew D’Ancona calls “incommensurable realities”, where “prudent conduct consists in choosing sides rather than evaluating evidence”.</p>
<p>These days the scale and speed of the way highly partisan news and falsehoods circulate is unprecedented. So far <a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Enyhan/fake-news-2016.pdf">the evidence</a> in the USA has suggested that it is mainly pro-Trump supporters that visit fake news sites.</p>
<p>In his new book <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/mar/04/the-people-vs-democracy-review-trump">The People vs Democracy</a>, political theorist <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/mounk/biocv">Yascha Mounk</a> warns that the populists who have exploited new technology effectively and without constraint have “been willing to say anything to get elected – to lie to obfuscate and to incite hatred”.</p>
<p>Equally ominous are the findings of an <a href="https://www.media.mit.edu/publications/the-spread-of-true-and-false-news-online/">MIT study</a> which noted that resistance to bias and fakery requires real effort, simply because there is a huge appetite for news that is fun, accessible, that reinforces prejudices, is easy to consume and is amusing to share. And while “robots accelerated the spread of true and false news at the same rate… false news spreads more than the truth because humans, not robots, are more likely to spread it”. Or as a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/largest-study-%20ever-fake-%20news-mit-twitter/555104/">story in the Atlantic</a> put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Falsehoods almost always beat out the truth on Twitter, penetrating further, faster and deeper into the social network than accurate information… [perhaps because] false stories inspired fear, disgust, and surprise… [while] true stories inspired anticipation, sadness, joy, and trust. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Partisan and fake news is nothing if not exciting.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wJxxQM7GxJA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">USA Today/YouTube.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A history of survival</h2>
<p>For many it’s beginning to seem as if fake news is more of a threat than ever and that “the bad” seems to be edging ahead – but so far it hasn’t won. Quality journalism still displays “civil resistance” and a history of survival is on its side. </p>
<p>The historical reality is that news providers who try to provide truth-telling news have always done so in a hostile climate. And how toxic it is, is just a matter of degrees. Benign and malign news is unchanging in its co-existence, disagreement and fundamental rivalry. </p>
<p>What remains true then and now is how fraudulent news activities succeed so well in engaging their audiences, being shared and recycled in no small part because they so destructively masquerade as genuine news. Truthful news was just as difficult to verify in the era of the invention of the <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/johannes-gutenberg-and-the-printing-press-1991865">Gutenberg printing press</a>.</p>
<p>As author <a href="http://www.kenanmalik.com/top/cv.html">Kenan Malik</a> points out, in 1672 Charles II had to issue a proclamation “to restrain the spreading of false news”. In Germany the word “Lügenpresse” (lying press) has been used as a political insult by both right and left since the mid-19th century and has been employed as an anti-democratic slogan and a xenophobic slur.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217277/original/file-20180502-153888-1jtjvgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217277/original/file-20180502-153888-1jtjvgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217277/original/file-20180502-153888-1jtjvgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217277/original/file-20180502-153888-1jtjvgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217277/original/file-20180502-153888-1jtjvgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217277/original/file-20180502-153888-1jtjvgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217277/original/file-20180502-153888-1jtjvgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The proprietor of the Daily Express, Lord Beaverbrook.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37131187">Dutch National Archives</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Almost a century later in 1931, Stanley Baldwin (then UK prime minister) said of Lord Beaverbrook and Lord Rothermere, proprietors of the Daily Express and Daily Mail respectively, that their newspapers employed “direct falsehoods, misrepresentation, half-truths, the alteration of the speaker’s meaning by publishing a sentence apart from the context”. </p>
<p>Nevertheless quality journalism has a history of survival. Why? Because the public, according to most audience surveys, persistently value accurate, sincere and objective news – news that they believe displays editorial integrity. And they do so because they conform to a deeply held need for a fair-minded and comprehensive understanding of events. In other words, the public regard quality journalism as a civil necessity. </p>
<p>The co-existence in the media of what is regarded as desirable and undesirable is inevitable and inescapable. Journalism that is uncomfortable, truthful, critical and interpretative does so because it has a civil disposition. We need it. And this, as ever, is what is at risk.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95615/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jackie Harrison receives funding from Free Press Unlimited, RCUK, UKRI, IPSO, IPDC. She is affiliated with UNESCO as a UNESCO Chair in Media Freedom, Journalism Safety and the Issue of Impunity. </span></em></p>Fake news is not new, but it is inevitable and inescapable - which is why we need uncomfortable, critical and truthful journalism to prevail.Jackie Harrison, Professor of Public Communication, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/898492018-04-06T04:04:56Z2018-04-06T04:04:56ZUniversities should take stronger leadership on knowledge and how it matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213088/original/file-20180404-189813-9y8x0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Through their commitments to, and dependence on, professional education and multidisciplinary research, universities have skin in the epistemic game.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><hr>
<p><strong><em>This is a longer read. Enjoy!</em></strong></p>
<hr>
<p>If reports in the media can be trusted, then “knowing” isn’t what it used to be. It seems that we are all caught in a rip, being swept helplessly from a knowledge-based world into a post-truth society, where robots will take all the best jobs. </p>
<p>The latest edition of the <a href="https://iet.open.ac.uk/file/innovating-pedagogy-2017.pdf">Innovating Pedagogy report</a>, published annually by the UK’s Open University, names “epistemic education” as one of the “high impact” trends that will become widespread in education over the next two to five years. </p>
<p>Simultaneously, the Merriam-Webster dictionary’s <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/news-trend-watch/vox-america-is-facing-epistemic-crisis-20171102">Trend watch</a> list is topped by the word “epistemic”. Something is going on here, but is it just a flash in the pan? An educational fad feeding off a moral panic about fake news, alternative facts and information bubbles?</p>
<h2>Understanding today’s ‘epistemic’ world</h2>
<p>“<a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/epistemic">Epistemic</a>” comes from the Greek <em>epistēmē</em> meaning “knowledge”. Epistēmē has some specific connotations in the philosophy of knowledge, but “epistemic” has taken on a broad role in contemporary usage, covering everything to do with knowledge and how we know things. </p>
<p>In the popular media, one finds it used in such terms as “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/books/28conserv.html?_r=0">epistemic closure</a>”, “<a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-1-4614-5583-7_441">epistemic violence</a>” and “<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/2/16588964/america-epistemic-crisis">epistemic crisis</a>”. These terms are coupled with a deep disquiet about the diminishing role of knowledge in political argument and decision-making, particularly in the US.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213093/original/file-20180404-189824-bu0xn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213093/original/file-20180404-189824-bu0xn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213093/original/file-20180404-189824-bu0xn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213093/original/file-20180404-189824-bu0xn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213093/original/file-20180404-189824-bu0xn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213093/original/file-20180404-189824-bu0xn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213093/original/file-20180404-189824-bu0xn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Popular media in the US turns to epistemology as they confront the diminishing role of knowledge in politics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Maxwell/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/post-truth-politics-and-why-the-antidote-isnt-simply-fact-checking-and-truth-87364">Post-truth politics and why the antidote isn't simply 'fact-checking' and truth</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In academia, where knowing about knowledge still elicits some respect, philosophers refer to “<a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/">epistemic virtues</a>” such as careful and attentive reasoning, openness to evidence, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-you-know-that-what-you-know-is-true-thats-epistemology-63884">critical thinking</a>. </p>
<p>Anthropologists identify “<a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e1b1/e2c42058ed751cc8f7b5a660592664f635ae.pdf">epistemic artefacts</a>” – “tools for thinking”. These include scientific models, organisational plans and architectural sketches, which people use when solving problems and creating new knowledge. </p>
<p>In education, researchers and teachers are working on ways to foster students’ <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Handbook-of-Epistemic-Cognition/Greene-Sandoval-Braten/p/book/9781138013421">“epistemic cognition”</a> and help them become more capably knowledgeable about knowing; to develop <a href="https://epistemicfluency.com">“epistemic fluency”</a>. </p>
<p>Epistemic fluency is the capacity to recognise different kinds of knowledge and to work flexibly with different ways of knowing. For example, effective action on climate change, obesity, cybersecurity, or gun control needs specialist knowledge from research on these problems, combined with knowledge from areas like economics, politics and the law. </p>
<h2>Why do students need epistemic fluency?</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789400743687">Our research</a> suggests university teachers are very conscious of the need for epistemic fluency, but don’t always have the language to explain what it entails. We can point to at least four sets of challenges in economic, social and political life where more explicit attention to epistemic fluency is possible and urgent.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-you-know-that-what-you-know-is-true-thats-epistemology-63884">How do you know that what you know is true? That's epistemology</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Acting knowledgeably in the workplace</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789400743687">Our own research</a> focus has been on professional education – where students are being helped to prepare for work in areas such as pharmacy or nursing. In these courses, students are often given assessment tasks intended to help them connect academic knowledge with workplace practice. </p>
<p>The difficulties students face in doing this are not really problems of “transfer” – not simply a failure to apply prior knowledge. It turns out acting knowledgeably in the workplace involves constructing new <a href="http://www.herdsa.org.au/research-and-development-higher-education-vol-40-198">actionable knowledge</a>. This is knowledge that fuses together a number of different forms of knowledge and ways of knowing in order to deal with a specific situation. </p>
<p>For example, a pharmacist may combine knowledge of the medical properties of a drug, the prescribing habits of a local doctor and the various needs of elderly clients to customise advice for the person they’re serving. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213091/original/file-20180404-189804-wpbcf6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213091/original/file-20180404-189804-wpbcf6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213091/original/file-20180404-189804-wpbcf6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213091/original/file-20180404-189804-wpbcf6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213091/original/file-20180404-189804-wpbcf6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213091/original/file-20180404-189804-wpbcf6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213091/original/file-20180404-189804-wpbcf6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A pharmacist may need to combine various types of knowledge to tailor advice to individual customers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Working in multidisciplinary teams</strong></p>
<p>The second area of our research explores how multidisciplinary teams of academics learn to work together. This is a significant challenge when academics move out of their disciplinary silos to work together in research centres that are oriented to complex societal problems, such as <a href="https://sydney.edu.au/charles-perkins-centre/">obesity</a> and <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/environment-institute/">climate change</a>. </p>
<p>Differences in what counts as reliable knowledge to biologists, computer scientists and sociologists are quite important in such organisations. The ability to work together depends on mutual respect and a degree of <a href="http://items.ssrc.org/interdisciplinarity-as-collaborative-problem-framing/">understanding of how various disciplines create knowledge</a>. </p>
<p>Epistemic fluency is likely to remain valuable in these two important areas of university work – professional education and multidisciplinary research. </p>
<p><strong>Working with smart machines</strong></p>
<p>The third area in which this matters is future employment: specifically, what is sometimes succinctly called “<a href="http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/5331">heteromation</a>”. Complex knowledge work is no longer done in individual human brains. </p>
<p>Now, it’s distributed across humans and machines. This includes computer programs that can extract useful information from large databases, measuring equipment that can detect things inaccessible to human senses, and robots that can perform complex physical operations that are beyond the capacities of human beings.</p>
<p>The knowledge and skills people need in order to participate productively in networks of other people and machines are different from the ones that will do for more autonomous work. The development of these network capabilities can be helped by a careful mix of explicit teaching and practical tasks. But those doing the teaching must master the new tools, as well as the concepts and words needed to explain to students new ways of working with knowledge.</p>
<p><strong>Navigating post-truth societies</strong> </p>
<p>The fourth challenge is where we began: <a href="https://theconversation.com/fake-news-a-users-guide-73428">fake news</a> and how to spot it. This is <a href="https://theconversation.com/most-young-australians-cant-identify-fake-news-online-87100">where schools are focusing their attention</a>, extending courses on <a href="https://webliteracy.pressbooks.com">digital literacy</a> to include the skills needed to break out of one’s own “information bubble” by engaging with alternative views and fighting “alternative facts” by testing the reliability of knowledge sources. </p>
<p>This educational initiative is unlikely to succeed on its own. Schools work best when their efforts align with broader movements. For some decades now, many school teachers have learned at university the fundamental truth that all knowledge is suspect. But this epistemological position offers shaky foundations for learning to participate in the joint creation of actionable knowledge necessary for working on complex societal challenges. It undermines the possibilities for informed action. </p>
<h2>What could be done about this?</h2>
<p>Concerns about fake news and the need to educate knowledgeable voters are important reasons for giving more serious attention to knowledge in universities and schools. There are also other deep and sustaining reasons for taking knowledge and knowing more seriously. </p>
<p>Students need to master epistemic tools with which they can act more knowledgeably in their future workplaces and communities. Tools need material to work on. So students’ learning activities need to involve both mastery of tools and progress on substantial problems: working across disciplinary and professional boundaries and in cooperation with other people and intelligent machines.</p>
<p>It will help if we all become better able to articulate the importance of understanding knowledge, and of knowing how to find the most useful combinations of knowledge for solving problems that we face in our lives. </p>
<p>Through their commitments to, and dependence on, professional education and multidisciplinary research, universities have skin in the epistemic game. It’s in their interests to take much stronger leadership over knowledge and how it matters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89849/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lina Markauskaite and Peter Goodyear recently published the book “Epistemic fluency and professional education: Innovation, knowledgeable action and actionable knowledge”. It is based on a study that was funded by the Australian Research Council.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Goodyear receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>It’s time to (do more than) talk about knowledge. Universities must take leadership in helping develop students capacity to recognise different kinds of knowledge and work flexibly.Lina Markauskaite, Associate professor in Learning Sciences, University of SydneyPeter Goodyear, Professor of Education, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/873642018-03-23T02:47:14Z2018-03-23T02:47:14ZPost-truth politics and why the antidote isn’t simply ‘fact-checking’ and truth<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198936/original/file-20171213-10621-1fs8079.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Donald Trump posts a link to his very own 'Real News Update' on Facebook.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/DonaldTrump/">Donald J. Trump/Facebook</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/revolutions-and-counter-revolutions-49124">Revolutions and Counter Revolutions</a> series, curated by <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/democracy-futures">Democracy Futures</a>as a <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/democracy-futures/">joint global initiative</a> between the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a> and The Conversation. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.</em></p>
<p><em>It is also part of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/post-truth-initiative-38606">ongoing series</a> from the <a href="https://posttruthinitiative.org/">Post-Truth Initiative</a>, a Strategic Research Excellence Initiative at the University of Sydney.</em></p>
<p><em>This essay is much longer than most Conversation articles, so will take some time to read. Enjoy!</em></p>
<hr>
<p>We live in an unfinished revolutionary age of communicative abundance. Networked digital machines and information flows are slowly but surely shaping practically every institution in which we live our daily lives. </p>
<p>For the first time in history, thanks to built-in cheap microprocessors, these algorithmic devices and information systems integrate texts, sounds and images in compact, easily storable, reproducible and portable digital form. </p>
<p>Communicative abundance enables messages to be sent and received through multiple user points, in chosen time, real or delayed, within global networks that are affordable and accessible to billions of people.</p>
<p>My book <a href="http://www.johnkeane.net/portfolio_page/democracy-and-media-decadence/">Democracy and Media Decadence</a> probed the contours of this revolution. It showed why new information platforms, robust muckraking and cross-border publics are among the exciting social and political trends of our time. It proposed that the unfinished revolution is dogged by politically threatening contradictions and decadent counter-trends. The drift toward a world of “post-truth” politics is among these troubling trends.</p>
<p>What exactly is meant by the term post-truth? Paradoxically, post-truth is among the most-talked-about yet least-well-defined meme words of our time. Most observers in the English-speaking world cite the 2016 Word of the Year Oxford English Dictionaries <a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year/word-of-the-year-2016">entry</a>: post-truth is the public burial of “objective facts” by an avalanche of media “appeals to emotion and personal belief”.</p>
<p>In China and in the Spanish-speaking world, respectively, commonplace talk of <em>hòu zhēnxiāng</em> and <em>posverdad</em> pushes in this direction. The <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/wort-des-jahres-2016-postfaktisch-gekuert-a-1125124.html">popularity of the German <em>postfaktisch</em></a> (post-factual) usage captures much the same meaning. Selected as word of the year by the German language society Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache (GfdS), it refers to the growing tendency of “political and social discussions” to be dominated by “emotions instead of facts”. </p>
<p>The GfdS adds:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Ever greater sections of the population are ready to ignore facts, and even to accept obvious lies willingly. Not the claim to truth, but the expression of the ‘felt truth’ leads to success in the ‘post-factual age’.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Post-truth communication</h2>
<p>A catchword that has gone viral so quickly surely deserves careful attention and crisper definition, especially if we are not to be thrown off balance by a global phenomenon that sets out to do precisely that. </p>
<p>We can say that “post-truth” is not simply the opposite of truth, however that is defined; it is more complicated. It is better described as an omnibus term, a word for communication comprising a salmagundi or assemblage of different but interconnected phenomena. </p>
<p>Its troubling potency in public life flows from its hybrid qualities, its combination of different elements in ways that defy expectations and confuse its recipients.</p>
<p>Post-truth has recombinant qualities. For a start, it is a type of communication that includes old-fashioned lying, where speakers say things about themselves and their world that are at odds with impressions and convictions that they harbour in their mind’s eye. </p>
<p>Liars attempt alchemy: when someone tells lies they wilfully say things they “know” not to be true, for effect. An example is when Donald Trump claims there was never a <a href="http://www.factcheck.org/2016/06/trumps-dubious-drought-claims/">drought in California</a>, or that during his inauguration the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-us-president-false-claims-inauguration-white-house-sean-spicer-kellyanen-conway-press-a7541171.html">weather cleared</a>, when actually light rain fell throughout his address.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fqIhkiaxRas?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘The truth is it stopped immediately, it was amazing.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Post-truth also includes forms of public discourse commonly called bullshit. It comprises communication that displaces and nullifies concerns about veracity. Bullshit is hot air talk, verbal excrement that lacks nutrient. It is shooting off at the mouth, backed by the presumption that it is acceptable to others in the conversation.</p>
<p>Post-truth depends as well on buffoonery, bits and pieces of colourful communication designed to attract and distract public attention and to interrupt the background noise of conventional politics and public life. The bric-a-brac component of post-truth includes nonsense moments, jokes and boasting. It embraces clever quips, pedantry and wilful exaggerations (like Marine Le Pen’s description of the European Union as “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/15/marine-le-pen-nigel-farage-britain-france-leave-eu-front-national">a huge prison</a>”).</p>
<p>There is plenty of rough speech. The contrast with the honey words and smiles of Bill Clinton, Felipe González, Tony Blair and other politicians from yesteryear is striking. The grotesquerie comes in abundance. Geert Wilders specialises in causing trouble, as when he dubs mosques “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/17/dutch-greenleft-party-populism-rightwing-jesse-klaver">palaces of hatred</a>”.</p>
<p>Disturbingly, there’s abundant talk of the importance of “truth”, by which is usually meant utterances whose veracity is self-confirming, thus proving that truth can attract rogues. There is dog-whistling. There is plain bad taste, as when a newly elected president enters the Houston Astrodome, crammed with traumatised homeless people who have narrowly survived a hurricane, and says: “<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/29/16222404/trump-crowd-hurricane-harvey-victims">Thanks for coming</a>.”</p>
<p>Hair-splitting and wilfully setting things aside are common. The Israeli consul-general in New York, Dani Dayan, does this well, but the genius of evasion is surely <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkY5seB0nFM">Zoltán Kovács</a>, the Orbán government’s spokesman. When subjected to forensic questioning by reporters about Hungary’s imprisonment and brutal maltreatment of refugees and operations by vigilante citizens’ “hunter patrol” border forces, he likes to say:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What you are trying to portray here is non-existent, a gross simplification. Next question. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>And that’s that.</p>
<h2>Engineered silence</h2>
<p>The silencing is not incidental. Post-truth performances feed on their production of silence. They remind us, in the <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=aGn7zu22oloC&pg=PA77&dq=Man+and+people++stupendous+reality+that+is+language&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwie9rbb1bjZAhVFmZQKHZvaAs8Q6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=Man%20and%20people%20%20stupendous%20reality%20that%20is%20language&f=false">words of Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset</a>, that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the stupendous reality that is language cannot be understood unless we begin by observing that speech consists above all in silences.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The proponents of post-truth communication relish things unsaid. Their bluff and bluster is designed not only to attract public attention. </p>
<p>It simultaneously hides from public attention things (such as growing inequalities of wealth, the militarisation of democracy and the accelerating death of non-human species) that it doesn’t want others to notice, or that potentially arouse suspicions of the style and substance of post-truth politics. </p>
<p>This engendered silence is not just the aftermath or “leftover” of post-truth communication. Every moment of post-truth communication using words backed by signs and text is actively shaped by what is unsaid, or what is not sayable. </p>
<p>The communicative performances of the post-truth champions are thus the marginalia of silence: mere foam and waves on its deep waters. </p>
<p>That is why the current hyper-concentration of journalists and other public commentators on “breaking news” stories about “fake news”, “alternative facts” and missing “evidence” is so potentially misleading. </p>
<p>Their fetish of breaking news turns them unwittingly into the poodles of post-truth and its silence about things less immediate and less obvious, deeper institutional trends, “slower” events marked by punctuated rhythms.</p>
<h2>Vaudeville and gaslighting</h2>
<p>Treating post-truth as a species of pugnacious politics dressed in a coat of many colours, as a bricolage of lies, bullshit, buffoonery and silence, helps us grasp its vaudeville quality. </p>
<p>When thought of as a public performance led by a cast of politicians, journalists, public relations agencies, think tanks and other players, post-truth is an updated, state-of-the-art political equivalent of early 20th-century vaudeville performances. </p>
<p>Old-fashioned vaudeville featured strongmen and singers, dancers and drummers, minstrels and magicians, acrobats and athletes, comedians and circus animals. It was a show. Post-truth is equally a show. Directed against conventional styles of performance, it is an orchestrated public spectacle designed to invite and entertain millions of people.</p>
<p>But post-truth is much more than entertainment, or the “<a href="http://www.columbia.edu/itc/journalism/j6075/edit/boor.html">art of contrivance</a>” or the “<a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/society-spectacle">dictatorship of illusion</a>” mediated by the production and passive consumption of commodities. </p>
<p>While the genealogy of post-truth is partly traceable to the world of corporate advertising and market-driven entertainment, it has thoroughly political qualities. In the hands of the powerful, or those bent on climbing the ladders of power over others, the post-truth phenomenon functions as a new weapon of political manipulation. </p>
<p>Post-truth is not only about winning votes, siding with friends, or dealing with political foes. It has more sinister effects. It is a gaslighting exercise.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198937/original/file-20171213-10594-16scxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198937/original/file-20171213-10594-16scxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198937/original/file-20171213-10594-16scxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198937/original/file-20171213-10594-16scxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198937/original/file-20171213-10594-16scxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198937/original/file-20171213-10594-16scxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198937/original/file-20171213-10594-16scxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Strange drama of a captive sweetheart!’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikipedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Drawn from George Cukor’s award-winning <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslight_(1944_film)">Gaslight</a>, starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, the term gaslighting is here defined as a weapon of the will to power. It is the organised effort by public figures to mess with citizens’ identities, to deploy lies, bullshit, buffoonery and silence for the purpose of sowing seeds of doubt and confusion among subjects. </p>
<p>Gaslighting is typically a preferred tactic of narcissistic and aggressive personalities bent on doing whatever it takes to gain and maintain a position of advantage over others. </p>
<p>Their point is to disorient and destabilise people. They want to harness people’s self-doubts, ruin their capacity for seeing the world ironically, destroy their capacity for making judgements, in order to drive them durably into submission.</p>
<p>When (for instance) gaslighters say something, only later to say that they never said such a thing and that they would never have never dreamed of saying such a thing, their aim is gradually to turn citizens into mere playthings of power.</p>
<p>When that happens, the victims of gaslighting no longer trust their own judgements. They buy into the tactics of the manipulator. Not knowing what to believe, they give up, shrug their shoulders and fall by default under the spell of the gaslighter.</p>
<p>Consider the double act of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte and his former right-hand gaslighter, Ernesto Abella, in the sequence of events triggered by the murder (in November 2016) of Rolando Espinosa, the elected mayor of Albuera, an island community some 575 kilometres from Manila. </p>
<p>When asked by journalists to explain what had happened, Duterte reportedly <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/war-on-drugs-philippine-president-duterte-warns-mayors-will-be-shot-20170112-gtpzsr.html">said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>He was killed in a very [questionable way], but I don’t care. The policemen said he resisted arrest. Then I will stick with the story of the police because [they are] under me.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Espinosa was in fact shot in detention, inside a police cell.</p>
<p>Duterte continued:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I might go down in history as the butcher. It’s up to you. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>And then: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Since I have nothing to show, I just use extrajudicial killing. [That’s because] I have no credentials to boast about.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The intended meaning of these utterances (to put things mildly) was oracular, so mystifyingly opaque that they served as the cue for Abella to strut his stuff: to go on air and to say that this or that never happened, that Duterte never said what people heard him say, that Bisaya-speaking Duterte got lost in translation when speaking in Tagalog, to affirm at Malacañang press conferences that his intentions are good and that he is utterly sincere, whereas his enemies are wilful dissemblers, fools and toads. </p>
<p>Abella insisted he provided not “crumbs”, but “meat, deboned”. Armed with his favourite phrases, “let’s just say” and “let’s put it this way”, he described his job as “completing the sentences” of his leader, to “impart his true intentions”. </p>
<p>In this murder case, Abella <a href="http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/861267/abella-kill-order-just-dutertes-messaging-style">said</a>, “it is … a matter of the leadership style and the messaging style of the president”. He added:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is his messaging style to underline his intention. He is serious about it [the drug menace]. However, it’s just meant to underline his seriousness in making sure that nobody is corrupt and involved in criminality.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>What makes post-truth different from the past?</h2>
<p>The meandering rhetoric is designed to bewitch and beguile, which is why the critics of post-truth are sounding alarms and issuing stern warnings about the dangerous charms of the vaudeville show of political mendacity, nonsense, buffoonery and silence. </p>
<p>They emphasise that political lying and bad manners spiced with talk of “fake news” and “alternative facts” are sinister, a frontal challenge to the basic democratic norms of open and plural communication among citizens. </p>
<p>Complaints against post-truth are often robust, loud and couched in high moral tones. Post-truth is said to be the beginning of the end of politics as we’ve known it in existing democracies. </p>
<p>There is talk of an emergent “post-truth era”. More than a few critics warn that the spread of post-truth is the harbinger of a new “totalitarianism”. Others speak of populist dictatorship or “fascism-lite” government.</p>
<p>The descriptors are questionable, and display little understanding of the historical originality of the present drift towards government by gaslighting. Politics as the art of evasion, befuddlement and engineered public silence isn’t new. Lying in politics is an ancient art. Think of Plato’s noble lie, or Machiavelli’s recommendation that a successful prince must be “<a href="http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince18.htm">a great pretender and dissembler</a>”, or Harry Truman’s <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=F_m5LlaJvZcC&q=no-good+lying+bastard#v=snippet&q=no-good%20lying%20bastard&f=false">description of Richard Nixon</a> as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he’d lie just to keep his hand in.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198938/original/file-20171213-10605-1sesgzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198938/original/file-20171213-10605-1sesgzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198938/original/file-20171213-10605-1sesgzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198938/original/file-20171213-10605-1sesgzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198938/original/file-20171213-10605-1sesgzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198938/original/file-20171213-10605-1sesgzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198938/original/file-20171213-10605-1sesgzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lying in politics isn’t new, but digital media decadence is.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thomas Cizauskas/flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some things don’t change. Still, there are several things that are unusual about the <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/10/opinions/donald-trump-is-gaslighting-america-ghitis/">gaslighting</a> trends of our time. Each is bound up with the unfinished communications revolution.</p>
<p>The digital merging and melding of text, sound and image, the advent of cheap copying and the growing ease of networked information spreading across vast distances in real time are powerful drivers of post-truth decadence. </p>
<p>New techniques and tools of communication are its condition of possibility; they enable its production, rapid circulation and absorption into the body politics of democracies, and well beyond. </p>
<p>Think of photoshopped materials and mashups, web applications and pages that recycle content from more than one source to create a single new service displayed in a single graphical interface. Trump’s first campaign <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jan/04/donald-trump/donald-trumps-first-tv-ad-shows-migrants-southern-/">advertisement</a> showed migrants allegedly crossing the Mexican border; in fact, it was an image of migrants crossing from Morocco to Melilla in North Africa. </p>
<p>Then consider impostor news sites (using URLs such as abc.com.co) and fantasy news sites, such as <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/the-strangest-fake-news-empire?utm_term=.cyXWR7EMr#.igVXGQ6WR">WTOE 5 News</a>, which created the “Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Trump for President” <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161115024211/http:/wtoe5news.com/us-election/pope-francis-shocks-world-endorses-donald-trump-for-president-releases-statement/">story</a>, built using such tools as <a href="http://www.wired.co.uk/article/clone-zone-tricks-internet-users">Clone Zone</a> and <a href="https://nowthisnews.com/">NowThis</a>.</p>
<p>Ponder shareable made-up news platforms (<a href="https://www.wired.com/2017/02/veles-macedonia-fake-news/">Macedonian teenagers</a> making money, Christian fundamentalists peddling the Spirit), meme launch pads (Twitter and Facebook) and parody accounts (<a href="https://www.theonion.com/">The Onion</a>, “America’s Finest News Source”). </p>
<p>There are also the devoted fanzine platforms that specialise in hailing heroes and trolling opponents, the platforms that sit for the first time in the White House press briefing room, platforms such as <a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/">Gateway Pundit</a>, <a href="http://www.oann.com/">One American News Network</a>, <a href="https://www.newsmax.com/">Newsmax</a>, <a href="http://www.lifezette.com/">LifeZette</a> and the <a href="http://dailycaller.com/">Daily Caller</a>.</p>
<p>Some say none of this is new. From the outset, they insist, daily newspapers printed gossip, rumours and lies. <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/history/2013/10/orson_welles_war_of_the_worlds_panic_myth_the_infamous_radio_broadcast_did.html">Orson Welles</a> proved that radio could produce scams. Television was a state weapon for mass-producing fabricated illusions; and so on. </p>
<p>But the sceptics underestimate the multiple ways in which, in matters of truth and post-truth, the communications revolution is marked by novel dynamics that are producing novel effects. </p>
<p>Most obviously, the digital communications revolution tends to undermine space-time barriers so that the raw material of lies, bullshit, buffoonery and silence produced by gaslighters develops long global legs. </p>
<p>Post-truth spreads; it knows no borders. So, for instance, many Muslims living in countries as far apart as Britain, Pakistan and Indonesia understand that they are among the targets of the project of attacking “fake news” and making America great again.</p>
<p>There’s something else that’s new: post-truth discourse penetrates so deeply into our daily lives that what is commonly called the private sphere ceases to be private. It’s no longer a safe haven or a zone of counter-balance, in the way (say) it functioned as the point of resistance against total power in the age of the typewriter or in George Orwell’s 1984, where Winston was still able to retreat to a corner table to scribble, out of sight of Big Brother. </p>
<p>The colonisation of daily life by the so-called <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-someone-watching-you-online-the-security-risks-of-the-internet-of-things-55701">Internet of Things</a>, digital robots that collect and spread information, guarantees that the geographic footprint of post-truth is vast and potentially total.</p>
<p>There’s yet another novelty of our period: the production and diffusion of post-truth communication by populist leaders, political parties and governments. The historical record shows that our times are no exception to the old rule that populism is a recurrent <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-pathologies-of-populism-82593">autoimmune disease</a> of democracy. </p>
<p>The present-day political irruption of populism is fuelled by the institutional decay of electoral democracy, combined with growing public dissatisfaction with politicians, political parties and “politics”.</p>
<p>Reinforced by the failure of democratic institutions to respond effectively to anti-democratic challenges such as the growing influence of cross-border corporate power, worsening social inequality and the dark money poisoning of elections, the decadence is proving to be a lavish gift to leaders, parties and governments peddling the mantra of “the sovereign people”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198939/original/file-20171213-10605-9qk044.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198939/original/file-20171213-10605-9qk044.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198939/original/file-20171213-10605-9qk044.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198939/original/file-20171213-10605-9qk044.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198939/original/file-20171213-10605-9qk044.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198939/original/file-20171213-10605-9qk044.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198939/original/file-20171213-10605-9qk044.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Viktor Orbán, prime minister of Hungary and oversized vaudeville character.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EU2017EE Estonian Presidency Follow/flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Populist figures otherwise as different as Viktor Orbán, Norbert Hofer and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan are oversized vaudeville characters. They are merchants of post-truth, exploiters of trust and confidence artists who take advantage of the communications revolution. </p>
<p>They stir up multimedia excitement by calling for a public revolt by millions of people who feel annoyed, powerless and no longer “held” (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Winnicott">D.W. Winnicott</a>) in the arms of society: people who are so frustrated or humiliated that they are willing to lash out in support of demagogues promising them dignity and a better future.</p>
<p>Some people fall for the promises not because they “naturally” crave leaders, or yield to the inherited “<a href="https://thefunambulist.net/history/foucault-episode-2-do-not-become-emamored-of-power">fascism in us all</a>”. Among the strangest and most puzzling features of the post-truth phenomenon is the way it attracts people into voluntary servitude because it raises their hopes and expectations of betterment.</p>
<h2>Truth is the answer? Don’t believe it</h2>
<p>The most surprising long-term effect of communicative abundance and the spread of post-truth is arguably their reinforcement of the modern questioning and rejection of arrogant beliefs in truth. </p>
<p>The possibility that post-truth politics is party to the “<a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/a-farewell-to-truth/9780231153096">farewell to truth</a>” is poorly understood, especially by critics of post-truth, who invariably rally to the cause of what they casually call truth.</p>
<p>Although the term is usually left undefined, their attachment to truth helps explain why many academics, journalists and public commentators typically accuse the “postmodernism” of recent decades of being the unwitting accomplice or active foot servant of post-truth politics.</p>
<p>They are convinced that the “relativism” of the postmodernists unhelpfully adds to the confusion surrounding “truth” based on “evidence” and “facts”. What is now urgently needed, they say, is the recovery of truth.</p>
<p>But what is truth? Truth is the antidote to post-truth, they reply. It is observable. Truth is saying or writing or visualising, somehow depicting things that correspond to “reality”.</p>
<p>The champions of truth understood as adequation sometimes cite the Polish-American mathematician <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/tarski-truth/">Alfred Tarski</a>, who famously put things this way: the proposition that “snow is white” (“p”) is true if and only if snow is white (“p is true if and only if p”). It’s seeing language as a conveyor belt, as a medium for recording a “reality” that is external to the observer. </p>
<p>Tough versions of the orthodoxy insist that evidence is evidence, reality is real and “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brute_fact">brute facts</a>” exist independently of anyone’s attitude toward them.</p>
<p>It’s not only philosophers who speak in this fashion. Journalists, lawyers, more than a few academics, plenty of environmental activists and data scientists are in the truth trade. </p>
<p>Believers in truth, a word that is usually left undefined, they have a habit of supposing that reality is all around them, out there, within arm’s reach or just beyond arm’s length, graspable and catchable through redescription, for instance in the form of data. </p>
<p>Such conceptions of “<a href="https://scienceobjectivity.weebly.com/max-weber-and-objectivity-in-the-social-sciences.html">objectivity</a>” fail to rethink the whole idea of truth as a necessary condition of ridding the world of post-truth decadence. Their failure to cast doubt simultaneously upon both post-truth and truth, to see them as partners rather than as opponents, ignores the need for a new geography and history of truth.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198948/original/file-20171213-10602-1f3pzj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198948/original/file-20171213-10602-1f3pzj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198948/original/file-20171213-10602-1f3pzj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198948/original/file-20171213-10602-1f3pzj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198948/original/file-20171213-10602-1f3pzj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198948/original/file-20171213-10602-1f3pzj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198948/original/file-20171213-10602-1f3pzj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Truth comes at a price. But if you’re lucky it’s 60% off.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The New York Times</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Truth varies through space and time</h2>
<p>The geography of truth highlights the spatial dimensions of truth-seeking and attempts to live the truth. What counts as truth varies from place to place. </p>
<p>The French Renaissance writer Montaigne famously said that what is truth on one side of the Pyrenees is falsehood on the other side. Foucault repeats the point in his account of the birth of truth-telling (<em>le dire vrai</em>) within clinics and prisons. </p>
<p>Scholarly studies of the way cities (Escuela de Salamanca, Chicago School of Economics, Copenhagen School) have shaped what counts as knowledge push in the same direction.</p>
<p>The geography of truth equally matters within any given society, at any given time. The Pitjantjatjara peoples of central Australia still today use a family of terms like <em>mula</em> and <em>mula-mulani</em> and <em>mulapa</em> to refer to a “true story” that is inscribed with both connotations of “a long time” and calls for agreement between story tellers and listeners. </p>
<p>When Pitjantjatjara peoples speak of truth, they understand they are engaged in efforts to convince others of the rightness of their tradition. They recognise what mainstream white society usually forgets: that truth and trust are twins. </p>
<p>A new geography of truth would also note that there are spaces of life that either have little or nothing to do with truth, or where references to truth are simply out of place (Bertolt Brecht once remarked that if someone stood up in front of a group of strikers and said 2+2=4 they would no doubt be jeered), or where telling the truth has dangerous consequences, as when a Rohingya father lies to a Myanmar army patrol hunting women to rape by telling them on his doorstep he has no daughters.</p>
<p>What counts as truth varies not only through space but also through time. Truth has a controversial history; truth has never straightforwardly been truth. There is a history of truth that shows that what counts as truth varies through time, but also (the corollary) that what is today taken as truth has not always been so. </p>
<p>Ancient Greek understandings of truth as <em>aletheia</em>, a difficult word variously translated as “disclosure” or “un-concealedness”, are evidently different than Christian understandings of “the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6) and the imperative to tell the truth, shame the devil. </p>
<p>The early modern European period was marked by bitter struggles over the meaning of religious “truth”, calls for religious toleration and the deployment, by believers in truth, of such tactics of deception as occultism, the Catholic doctrine of mental reservation and Protestant casuistry. </p>
<p>The public controversies about truth among Christians encompassed Luther’s explosive, influential attack on popery as the sole interpreter of scripture in <a href="http://www.intratext.com/ixt/ENG0081/">An Open Letter to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning the Reform of the Christian Estate</a> (1520). They extended to <a href="http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195144945.001.0001/acprof-9780195144949">Lessing’s recommendation</a> that we should thank God that we don’t know the truth (“<em>Sage jeder, was ihm Wahrheit dünkt, und die Wahrheit selbst sei Gott empfohlen</em>” [“Let each person say what s/he deems truth, and let truth itself be commended unto God”]); and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-read-tocquevilles-democracy-in-america-40802">Tocqueville’s observation</a> that the modern democratic revolution powerfully calls into question so-called public truths about the “natural” inferiority of slaves and women.</p>
<h2>Democracy doubts both post-truth and ‘the truth’</h2>
<p>The public sense that truth claims are contestable and mutable interpretations is undoubtedly bolstered by the multi-media communications revolution, and by the advent of new forms of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-origins-of-monitory-democracy-9752">monitory democracy</a> featuring a plethora of mediated platforms where power is publicly interrogated and chastened.</p>
<p>Monitory democracy promotes the growth of public spaces where uncertainty, doubt, scepticism, irony and modesty in the face of arbitrary power are nurtured. </p>
<p>Wittgenstein’s recommendation that saying “I know” should be banned so that people would be required to say “I believe I know” makes good sense under these conditions. We could say that post-truth politics is the dark and messy side of an unfinished quantum shift in support of the pluralisation of people’s lived perceptions of the world.</p>
<p>Yes, talk of truth is not disappearing, or dead. Just as unbelievers continue to say “Lord help us” and “Jesus Christ”, and despite Copernicus people still speak of the setting sun, so the language of truth lives on in people’s lives.</p>
<p>Yet nowadays tropes like “<a href="http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/">We hold these truths to be self-evident</a>” arouse public suspicions. The truth is out that truth has many faces. </p>
<p>What counts as “truthful information” is less and less understood by wise citizens as “hard facts” or as indisputable “evidence” or as chunks of “reality” to be mined from television and radio programs, or from newspapers, digital platforms and “expert” authorities. </p>
<p>In the age of communicative abundance and monitory democracy, “reality” is multiple and mutable. “Reality”, including the lies and buffoonery and other forms of gaslighting peddled by the powerful, comes to be understood as always “reported reality”, as “reality” produced by some for others – in other words, as messages that are shaped and reshaped and reshaped again in the process of transmission and reception.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"881281755017355264"}"></div></p>
<p>This disenchantment of truth has everything to do with democracy. Considered as a universal norm liberated from metaphysical foundations, as a whole way of life committed to the defence of complex equality, freedom and difference, democracy in monitory form is the guardian of a plurality of lived interpretations of life. </p>
<p>The radical originality of monitory democracy is its defiant insistence that peoples’ lives are never simply given, that all things human are built on the shifting sands of space-time, and that no person or group, no matter how much “truth” or power they presently enjoy or want to claim, can be trusted permanently, in any given context, to govern other people’s lives.</p>
<p>Democracy is thus the best human weapon so far invented for guarding against the “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow">illusions of certainty</a>” and breaking up truth-camouflaged monopolies of power, wherever they operate. Democracy is not a True and Right norm. Just the reverse: the norm of monitory democracy is aware of its own and others’ limits, knows that it doesn’t know everything, and understands that democracy has no meta-historical guarantees. That is why it does not suffer truth-telling dogmatists and fools gladly. </p>
<p>Democracy is a living reminder that truths are never self-evident, and that what counts as truth is a matter of interpretation. Recognising that in political life “<a href="https://idanlandau.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/arendt-truth-and-politics.pdf">truth has a despotic character</a>”, democracy stands for a world beyond truth and post-truth. </p>
<p>This is not because all women and men are “naturally” created equal. Rather, it’s because democracy supposes that no man or woman is good enough to claim they know the truth and to rule permanently over their fellows and the earthly habitats in which they dwell.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read other articles in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/revolutions-and-counter-revolutions-49124">here</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>The theme of truth, post-truth and the unfinished communications revolution is further explored in a recently published thepaper.cn interview, <a href="http://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_1910750">The Revival of Truth Isn’t the Remedy for Post-Truth</a> (available only in Chinese).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87364/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Keane received funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>The best defence against post-truth politics is not ‘the truth’. Democracy should resist the political tyranny of claims to some immutable truth as a basis for governing the lives of others.John Keane, Professor of Politics, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/892562017-12-15T15:33:39Z2017-12-15T15:33:39ZThe Last Jedi: latest Star Wars is a fable for our post-truth times<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199427/original/file-20171215-17869-1n9owhw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When Rey met Luke. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://image.net/xads/actions/layout/endusersearch.do?folder_max=48&selection_action=null&box=false&page=3&forward=search&product_nav_root=&product_nav=&category_nav=&search_spec=557777309&display_asset_matches=true&seldir=4&unselected_assets_prodgrid_search=557437154%2C557437155%2C557437156%2C557437157%2C557437158%2C557437159%2C557437160%2C557437161%2C557437162%2C557437163%2C557437164%2C557437165%2C557437166%2C557437167%2C557437168%2C557437169%2C557437170%2C557437172%2C557437173%2C557437174%2C557437175%2C557437176%2C557437177%2C557437178%2C&pageNoTop1=">Disney</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><strong>Warning: Spoiler alert</strong></p>
<p>The Star Wars universe is no stranger to political allegories. Many viewers <a href="http://www.history.com/news/the-real-history-that-inspired-star-wars">have pointed out </a> the parallels between the original Empire and the Nazis, to give the most famous example, with the plucky Rebel Alliance cast as the US/British resistance who never gave up hope in the face of unconscionable evil. </p>
<p>Having just seen The Last Jedi, there are again political parallels aplenty. This time, however, they are not from the past but the present day, making this a contender for the most unambiguously political Star Wars movie yet. </p>
<p>It starts from the first sentence of the iconic opening crawl, which tells us “The First Order reigns”. As the movie rolls on, this ruling cabal looks increasingly like a proxy for the Trump administration. </p>
<p>The First Order is led by Snoke, as easy to mock as Trump with his old, grotesque appearance. We have Admiral Hux, the dapper “acceptable” face of the Order – not unlike some <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/esmagazine/these-are-the-faces-of-londons-young-altright-a3477731.html">young ideologues</a> of the alt-right. And the Order’s leadership is both white and male – the other key figure being Kylo Ren, who, like Snoke, uses the Dark Side of the Force. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199454/original/file-20171215-17848-96sj3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199454/original/file-20171215-17848-96sj3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199454/original/file-20171215-17848-96sj3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199454/original/file-20171215-17848-96sj3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199454/original/file-20171215-17848-96sj3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199454/original/file-20171215-17848-96sj3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199454/original/file-20171215-17848-96sj3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199454/original/file-20171215-17848-96sj3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kylo Ren.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://image.net/xads/actions/layout/endusersearch.do?folder_max=48&selection_action=null&box=false&page=3&forward=search&product_nav_root=&product_nav=&category_nav=&search_spec=557777309&display_asset_matches=true&seldir=4&unselected_assets_prodgrid_search=557437154%2C557437155%2C557437156%2C557437157%2C557437158%2C557437159%2C557437160%2C557437161%2C557437162%2C557437163%2C557437164%2C557437165%2C557437166%2C557437167%2C557437168%2C557437169%2C557437170%2C557437172%2C557437173%2C557437174%2C557437175%2C557437176%2C557437177%2C557437178%2C&pageNoTop1=">Disney</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since its rise to power, the First Order has obsessively undermined the ideologies of the former New Republic, which calls to mind Trump repealing Obama-era legislation in areas such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/us/politics/trump-obamacare-repeal.html">health</a> and <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/11/28/next-comes-welfare-reform-trumps-foolproof-plan-to-pass-poisonous-tax-bill/">welfare</a>. </p>
<p>In spreading fear among citizens and dismantling liberal institutions, its leaders also resemble ordinary businessmen and politicians. Where, in The Force Awakens, Kylo harboured fantasies of being the next Darth Vader, here Snoke sneers that he should “take that ridiculous” mask off. Facing Luke Skywalker in a duel, Kylo also removes his cloak. Dressed in a grey suit, he is less Darth Vader and more Donald Trump Jr. </p>
<p>The First Order’s arch enemy, General Leia Organa, meanwhile stands in for Hillary Clinton – another woman with too little support for her political agenda, with the air of a lost cause, whose loyalists happen to be much more ethnically diverse than their opponents. This latter difference is thrown into sharp relief when the white Captain Phasma attempts to destroy Finn and Rose, two Resistance fighters of colour, calling them “scum”. Not overt racism, but reminiscent of a US administration that <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/trump-racism-examples_us_5991dcabe4b09071f69b9261">has advocated</a> racist policies. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199453/original/file-20171215-17863-17jrda2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199453/original/file-20171215-17863-17jrda2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199453/original/file-20171215-17863-17jrda2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199453/original/file-20171215-17863-17jrda2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199453/original/file-20171215-17863-17jrda2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199453/original/file-20171215-17863-17jrda2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199453/original/file-20171215-17863-17jrda2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199453/original/file-20171215-17863-17jrda2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leia Organa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://image.net/xads/actions/layout/endusersearch.do?folder_max=48&selection_action=null&box=false&page=3&forward=search&product_nav_root=&product_nav=&category_nav=&search_spec=557777309&display_asset_matches=true&seldir=4&unselected_assets_prodgrid_search=557437154%2C557437155%2C557437156%2C557437157%2C557437158%2C557437159%2C557437160%2C557437161%2C557437162%2C557437163%2C557437164%2C557437165%2C557437166%2C557437167%2C557437168%2C557437169%2C557437170%2C557437172%2C557437173%2C557437174%2C557437175%2C557437176%2C557437177%2C557437178%2C&pageNoTop1=">Disney</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Broken systems</h2>
<p>Where once there was a new hope, The Last Jedi is more cynical about the future and the resources available to bring change. Luke Skywalker represents an organisation that can no longer be trusted to do the right thing. </p>
<p>At the end of The Force Awakens we saw Rey handing Luke his old lightsaber, amid soaring music and with a sense of poignancy. When the scene is completed here, Luke unceremoniously throws it away. He may want to archive the ancient Jedi texts, but he is reluctant to help the Resistance fight the First Order. </p>
<p>A living legend, he has failed, as he admits himself, to live up to the expectations of the galaxy’s repressed people. He’s a little like the crumbling systems of social justice often unable to protect citizens’ rights in America – take the Supreme Court’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/04/us/politics/trump-travel-ban-supreme-court.html">recent failure</a> to prevent Trump’s travel ban, for example. When Luke calls the Jedi hypocrites for failing to prevent the rise of their enemies, it could be a comment on current times. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199457/original/file-20171215-17860-1wj7iqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199457/original/file-20171215-17860-1wj7iqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199457/original/file-20171215-17860-1wj7iqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199457/original/file-20171215-17860-1wj7iqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199457/original/file-20171215-17860-1wj7iqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199457/original/file-20171215-17860-1wj7iqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199457/original/file-20171215-17860-1wj7iqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199457/original/file-20171215-17860-1wj7iqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Luke to the future?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://image.net/xads/actions/layout/endusersearch.do?folder_max=48&selection_action=null&box=false&page=3&forward=search&product_nav_root=&product_nav=&category_nav=&search_spec=557777309&display_asset_matches=true&seldir=4&unselected_assets_prodgrid_search=557437154%2C557437155%2C557437156%2C557437157%2C557437158%2C557437159%2C557437160%2C557437161%2C557437162%2C557437163%2C557437164%2C557437165%2C557437166%2C557437167%2C557437168%2C557437169%2C557437170%2C557437172%2C557437173%2C557437174%2C557437175%2C557437176%2C557437177%2C557437178%2C&pageNoTop1=">Disney</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rey also learns Luke has lied to her about Kylo’s Jedi training, part of a recurring theme in the movie about confusion and not knowing who or what to trust. Take, for example, Kylo’s new use of the Force, which means he can appear in the same location as Rey even when they are light years apart. If that was not confusing enough, she later learns that his apparent interest was orchestrated by Snoke to manipulate her. </p>
<p>Eventually, Rey realises that even Jedi Master Luke is unreliable. It seems there are no obvious certainties in a constructed reality. “I thought I’d find the answers here,” she says. “I was wrong.” </p>
<h2>A New Hope?</h2>
<p>While it looks to the future, the film is haunted by its past. There are numerous flashbacks to the earlier films. The charts that swirl around the Resistance fighters on glass screens are reminiscent of those in the original trilogy, and Artoo plays Leia’s famous “Help me Obi-Wan” message to persuade Luke to help Rey. </p>
<p>Then, arriving at a base on a seemingly snow-covered planet where the Resistance must face an army of next-generation Walkers, it seems like ice planet Hoth, site of the famous battle sequence from The Empire Strikes Back. But just as Obi Wan once said “that’s no moon” of the Death Star, this is no Hoth. One of the fighters licks the white stuff laying on the ground. Not snow: salt. Again, our expectations are undermined. </p>
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<p>Ultimately The Last Jedi only offers bleak optimism. There is no certainty of good triumphing over evil; no one in the galaxy answers Leia’s call for help. As Finn and Rose’s discovery of a wealthy arms dealer suggests, the game of war is an economically fruitful one – a sideshow masking ongoing political corruption. </p>
<p>There is still hope, of course. This is Star Wars, after all – and of course you might expect part two in the trilogy to end on a downbeat note, just like The Empire Strikes Back did. But whereas in the original trilogy it was the current generation – Luke, Leia, Han Solo – who promised to deliver the galaxy from evil, here we are already looking beyond Rey, Finn and Rose to a new generation of children. </p>
<p>Luke may not be the last Jedi, but, the film suggests, the damage done by the real-life political equivalent of the First Order is lasting. Without BB-8 or Artoo on-hand in our own galaxy, nothing is easily fixed. Broken systems will take decades to repair.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89256/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Harrison does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Creaky crazy old leader, misdirection at every turn – is this beginning to sound familiar?Rebecca Harrison, Lecturer in Film and Television, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/876062017-11-16T22:26:42Z2017-11-16T22:26:42ZA Robert De Niro Theory of Post-Truth: ‘Are you talking to me?’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194971/original/file-20171116-17112-19pygv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In Taxi Driver, Robert De Niro's character, Travis Bickle, inhabits his own crazy paradigm, yet ultimately events frame him as a hero in the eyes of others too.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkxoczOXRi4">YouTube </a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/post-truth-initiative-38606">ongoing series</a> from the <a href="https://posttruthinitiative.org/">Post-Truth Initiative</a>, a Strategic Research Excellence Initiative at the University of Sydney. The series examines today’s post-truth problem in public discourse: the thriving economy of lies, bullshit and propaganda that threatens rational discourse and policy.</em></p>
<p><em>Over two days from November 20, the Post-Truth Initiative will host a series of events, including an evening <a href="https://posttruthinitiative.org/aec_events/sydney-ideas-truth-evidence-and-reason-who-can-we-believe/">question and answer session</a> on the 20th with invited guests from around the world. The project brings together scholars of media and communications, government and international relations, physics, philosophy, linguistics and medicine, and is affiliated with the Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre (<a href="http://chcinetwork.org/sydney-social-sciences-and-humanities-advanced-research-centre-sssharc">SSSHARC</a>), the <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/environment-institute/">Sydney Environment Institute</a> and the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Many of the commentaries on post-truth have attempted to locate the sources of it. Where does post-truth discourse come from, and who is responsible for producing it?</p>
<p>Looked at this way, post-truth will never be found. It does not exist there. There is nothing new about politicians and the powerful telling lies, spinning, producing propaganda, dissembling, or bullshitting. Machiavellianism became a common term of political discourse precisely because it embodies Machiavelli’s belief that all leaders might, at some point, need to lie.</p>
<p>Lying is not an aberration in politics. Political theorist <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/strauss-leo/">Leo Strauss</a>, developing a concept first outlined by Plato, coined the term “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_lie#Leo_Strauss">noble lie</a>” to refer to an untruth knowingly propagated by an elite to maintain social harmony or advance an agenda.</p>
<p>Questions about the agents of post-truth, and attempts to locate the sources of political bullshit, are just not grasping what is new and specific about post-truth. If we look for post-truth in the realm of the production of disinformation, we will not find it. This is why so many are sceptical that the concept of post-truth represents anything new. Not all haystacks contain needles.</p>
<p>So where is post-truth located, and how did we get here? Post-truth resides not in the realm of the production, but in the realm of reception. If lies, dissembling, spinning, propaganda and the creation of bullshit have always been part and parcel of politics, then what has changed is how publics respond to them. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/post-truth">Oxford Dictionary definition</a> of post-truth makes this clear; post-truth refers to “circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”.</p>
<h2>The problem with ‘objective facts’</h2>
<p>While this definition captures the essence of the problem, most academics, particularly those working in the humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS), will immediately identify one glaring problem with it. This is the concept of “objective facts”. Anyone with an awareness of the work of Thomas Kuhn, Michel Foucault, or Ludwig Wittgenstein will know that facts are always contestable. </p>
<p>If they weren’t, public debate on complex policy issues would be easy. We could simply identify the objective facts and build policy on them.</p>
<p>Facts are social constructions. If there were no humans, no human societies and no human languages, there would be no facts. Facts are a particular kind of socially constructed entity. </p>
<p>Facts express a relationship between what we claim and what exists. We construct facts to convey information about the world. </p>
<p>But this does not mean we can just make up any facts we please. What makes something a fact is that it captures some features of the world to which it refers. The validity of our facts is dependent, in part, on their relationship to the world they describe. Something that fails accurately to describe something, or some state of affairs, is not a fact.</p>
<h2>Enter ‘alternative facts’…</h2>
<p>What about “alternative facts”? The idea is not as far-fetched as it seems. Kuhn’s <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/484164a">The Structure of Scientific Revolutions</a> is one of the most influential academic texts on the history of science. Kuhn’s concept of paradigms has seeped into public debate. But Kuhn’s notion of scientific “progress” occurring through a change in paradigm not only legitimates alternative facts it depends on them. </p>
<p>Each paradigm, according to Kuhn, has its own facts. Facts in one paradigm are not recognised as facts by adherents of alternative paradigms. Kuhn went so far as to argue that scientists from different paradigms lived in different worlds.</p>
<p>Facts, Kuhn argued, are always relative to the overarching paradigm. As such, Donald Trump and his supporters might claim to be simply occupying a different paradigm. </p>
<p>One can derive a similar position from Foucault’s notion of regimes of truth. Truth, according to Foucault, is relative to the regime in which it is embedded. And regimes of truth differ across time and place.</p>
<p>Or one can approach this via Wittgenstein’s notion of “language games”: unless one understands the rules of the game one is unable to take part. Transposed into contemporary political debate, the left and right each have their own paradigm, regime, truth, or language game.</p>
<p>Even if we do not accept Kuhn’s notion of paradigms, Kellyanne Conway could have meant, as she later <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/03/kellyanne-conway-alternative-facts-mistake-oscars">tried to claim</a>, that the Trump administration simply had a different perspective on the status of the facts, and a differing view of what facts matter. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Kellyanne Conway explains that White House press secretary Sean Spicer offered “alternative facts”.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Admitting the role of academia</h2>
<p>Again, most academics will recognise the validity of this idea. There are always multiple perspectives on complex issues. The facts, as we constantly remind our students, don’t speak for themselves. Which facts are relevant, and what to make of them, is always a matter of interpretation.</p>
<p>Thus, post-truth finds intellectual legitimation in the necessary and critical approach to the construction of knowledge that is taken as a given in academia. Academics necessarily, and rightly, take a sceptical attitude to all truth claims. </p>
<p>We encourage students to express their opinion. We teach them that alternative views are to be valued. Nietzschean perspectivism is the default position of most academics, and we are loath to reach definitive conclusions particularly in ethical and political matters. Indeed, the University of Sydney now implores students to “<a href="https://twitter.com/sjw_nonsense/status/906155654154412032">unlearn truth</a>”.</p>
<p>This idea is not as outrageous as it might sound, although taken literally the consequences of “unlearning truth”, as we are discovering with post-truth politics, could be disastrous. But understood another way, “unlearning truth” is entirely consistent with an Enlightenment ethos.</p>
<p>Kant’s call to arms in the service of Enlightenment was <em>Sapere Aude</em>; dare to know. This was a call for humanity to overthrow its reliance on the church, the monarchy and other sources of authority as providing the secure grounds for knowledge claims. Take nothing at face value, and reason for oneself.</p>
<p>The Enlightenment also promoted the idea of inalienable human rights possessed by every individual and revived the ancient Greek concept of democracy; one person one vote; everyone has their say on political matters. In this context, it is possible to view post-truth discourse as the radicalisation of the Enlightenment. Specifically, in the realm of knowledge production, it is the democratisation of epistemology.</p>
<p>While democracy might be a political principle worth defending, there is a tension between it and the democratisation of epistemology. Democracy needs a population sufficiently well educated to be able to sift through the arguments and reach informed judgements.</p>
<p>This was the great hope of Enlightenment liberalism, particularly in relation to the provision of education. Increased access to education would bring progress and peace. A highly educated populace would make democracy function better.</p>
<h2>Confronting the post-truth paradox</h2>
<p>Despite the fact that by any standards Western populations are better educated than in Kant’s time, we seem to be regressing rather than progressing in terms of democratic practice. This is the post-truth paradox. The more educated societies have become, the more dysfunctional democracy seems to be. The supposed positive link between democracy, education and knowledge appears to be broken.</p>
<p>How can we explain this paradox, and can we do anything about it? Although many have been quick to blame postmodernism for the emergence of post-truth, the problem is much broader than that and infects most of the humanities, arts and social sciences. Postmodernism is only the most radical version of the idea that we should value, and allow a voice to, all opinions. </p>
<p>The political impulse behind this is admirable. Few academics are so arrogant to claim that they possess the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Allowing others, particularly marginalised others, to express “their truth” is seen as progressive.</p>
<p>Although many academics will not embrace the extremes of postmodernism, the ethos behind that approach is understandable to most. This explains why what seems to many outside of the academy to be a lunatic fringe has become so influential within the academy. Foucault, for example, is one of the most <a href="https://philosophyinatimeoferror.com/2016/07/05/most-cited-philosophers-and-others/">cited authors in HASS subjects</a>.</p>
<p>To be clear, I am not arguing that Trump and others in his administration have read the likes of Kuhn, Foucault and Wittgenstein. The problem is worse than that. It is a structural issue. </p>
<p>Increased access to education has suffused these ideas throughout the social field. Few people who have attended universities in HASS subjects in the last 30 years could have escaped exposure to these ideas. The incipient relativism that is the logical endpoint of them is now deeply ingrained in Western societies.</p>
<p>Of course, academics are not the only source of post-truth. But in an important way, they have contributed to it. When measuring our impact on society we only have two options. Either we have some impact, or we do not. </p>
<p>For some time now, those working in HASS subjects have been concerned to demonstrate how their research and teaching matters in practical ways to society. There is a logic to this, as governments increasingly seek to validate funding for HASS subjects on the basis of their supposed <a href="http://www.arc.gov.au/research-impact-principles-and-framework">impact</a> on society.</p>
<p>As the supposed guardians of truth, knowledge and the commitment to science, universities cannot have it both ways. If academics make a difference and publics no longer seem to care about facts, truth and reason, then we cannot be absolved of all responsibility for this situation. Indeed, if we do deny our responsibility, we as good as admit that have we little impact on society.</p>
<h2>What can we do about this?</h2>
<p>If universities are the social institutions whose function is to produce and protect knowledge and truth, and if those same institutions are, in part, the source of post-truth, what can we do about it?</p>
<p>First we need to recover our intellectual nerve. We need to situate critical approaches to the production of knowledge in context. We need to go beyond simply introducing students to critique and explore with them the validity of arguments. We need to be prepared to say that some perspectives are better than others, and explain why.</p>
<p>An embracing of multiple perspectives should not lead us to conclude that all perspectives are equally valid. And if they are not all equally valid we need sound epistemological reasons to choose one over the other. In short, we need to re-examine and reinvigorate the Enlightenment impulse.</p>
<p>Second, we need to recover our commitment to objective truth. George Orwell has been much cited as a prescient figure in understanding post-truth. Orwell believed: “The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.” </p>
<p>Yet the concept of “objective truth” has not merely faded out of the world; it has been sent into exile. Few academics embrace the concept today.</p>
<p>This well-founded scepticism towards “objective truth” comes from the confusion between an ontological belief in the existence of objective truth, and an epistemological claim to know it. The two are not synonymous. We can retain our critical stance to epistemological claims about objective truth only by insisting on its status as something that exists but which no one possesses.</p>
<p>As Orwell knew only too well, if the concept of objective truth is moved into the dustbin of history there can be no lies. And if there are no lies there can be no justice, no rights and no wrongs. The concept of “objective truth” is what makes claims about social justice possible.</p>
<p>The irony, of course, is that most academics will claim to be doing just this. After all, most academics will have no problem in declaring climate change to be human-produced, that women remain disadvantaged in many areas of life, that poverty is real, and that racism is founded on false beliefs.</p>
<p>The issue is not that we all make these universal truth claims; it is that in embracing epistemological positions that tend towards relativism, we have denied ourselves a secure ground on which to defend them. In which case, these truth claims appear as nothing other than opinions, perspectives, or expressions of the identity we most value. And if academics cannot ground their truth claims on something other than opinions, perspectives or identity, then how can we expect anyone else to do so?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87606/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Colin Wight does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As Orwell knew only too well, if the concept of objective truth is moved into the dustbin of history there can be no lies. And if there are no lies there can be no justice, no rights and no wrongs.Colin Wight, Professor of International Relations, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/873052017-11-13T23:09:56Z2017-11-13T23:09:56ZOculus and our troubles with (virtual) reality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194221/original/file-20171111-29352-imh4mm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announces the launch of Oculus Go virtual reality headset in October.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Handout)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last month, Facebook-owned virtual reality company, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/11/oculus-go-announced-by-facebook.html">Oculus, announced its new device, Oculus Go</a>. </p>
<p>Go, the successor to Oculus Rift, is a cheaper standalone virtual reality (VR) headset and controller system set for release in 2018. The company boasts that the new system allows users to immerse themselves in over 1,000 games, social apps and 360˚ experiences, and step inside a personal portable theatre to watch movies, TV shows, sports and play games. </p>
<p>At a much lower cost than the previous iteration (US$199 compared to $599 for the Oculus Rift), Oculus Go is likely to become very popular. </p>
<p>Similarly, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/17/16487936/microsoft-windows-mixed-reality-vr-headsets-guide-pricing-features">Microsoft partners, including Acer, Dell, HP and Lenovo, announced their own headsets</a> in the US$299 to $530 range, built to the technology giant’s specifications. And <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/4/16403276/google-daydream-view-vr-headset-price-release-date-features">Google announced its $99 Daydream View</a> — up in price from $79 for the previous smartphone-headset model.</p>
<p>These increasingly affordable devices are likely to excite many. But VR has long been a part of our popular culture. Throughout its history, new VR technologies have forced us to ask questions about its impact on culture and society.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.uwinnipeg.ca/experts-guide/matthew-flisfeder.html">my research</a> on media, popular culture and ideology, I’ve traced some of the ways that new media have changed how we see and experience reality.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194424/original/file-20171113-27616-1w2qfdj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194424/original/file-20171113-27616-1w2qfdj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194424/original/file-20171113-27616-1w2qfdj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194424/original/file-20171113-27616-1w2qfdj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194424/original/file-20171113-27616-1w2qfdj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194424/original/file-20171113-27616-1w2qfdj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194424/original/file-20171113-27616-1w2qfdj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194424/original/file-20171113-27616-1w2qfdj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Acer is one of several Microsoft partners launching consumer-priced mixed-reality headsets.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Handout)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>VR in popular culture</h2>
<p>Following the arrival of photography in the 1830s, the diorama, and then the panorama, were built structures that reproduced scenes made to look like the real world. Panoramas and dioramas are still used in shopping malls, window displays, museums and galleries to emulate the appearance of the traditional town square.</p>
<p>The arrival of cinema, and then television, truly gave us a new sense of VR. Movies and TV brought scenes, fantasies and fictions closer to us. </p>
<p>The way we tend to imagine new fully immersive VR technology has come from its depiction in popular literature, film and television.</p>
<p>William Gibson’s novel, <em>Neuromancer</em> (1984), deals with a VR “cyberspace” environment called “the matrix.” The book is a precursor to the 1999 film, <em>The Matrix</em>. Other popular sci-fi and cyberpunk films in the 1990s also portray the arrival of immersive VR. These films include Brett Leonard’s <em>The Lawnmower Man</em> (1992), Josef Rusnak’s <em>The Thirteenth Floor</em> (1999), David Cronenberg’s <em>eXistenZ</em> (1999) and Kathryn Bigelow’s <em>Strange Days</em> (1995).</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Matrix film series helped to create a popular vision of virtual reality.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Star Trek: The Next Generation</em>’s (1987-1994) holodeck showed a much more optimistic portrayal of the possibilities of VR. But unlike its depiction on <em>Star Trek</em>, VR is used in other works to question the impact of the media and entertainment in creating alternate and possibly harmful realities. Perhaps that’s a reflection of our suspicions about the dangers of media manipulation.</p>
<h2>Propaganda, “fake news” and “alternative facts”</h2>
<p>Recently, the idea of alternate or alternative realities has moved from the fantasy worlds of the big screen to the small real-time screens of the news. The idea of “alternate realities” has been brought into the spotlight by political commentators observing the presidency of Donald Trump. </p>
<p>Trump shows his disdain for the mainstream mass media by calling it the “fake news.” His former campaign manager and now adviser, Kellyanne Conway, coined the term <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/22/politics/kellyanne-conway-alternative-facts/index.html">“alternative facts”</a> to support the false claims of former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. </p>
<p>Spicer had claimed that Trump’s inauguration was the most highly attended in history. This was not true. The idea of so-called “alternative facts” shows that even fact, truth and reality have become politically divisive and contentious topics.</p>
<p>Much of the discussion around so-called “fake news” and “alternative facts” has also looked at the role of social media, such as <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/mark-zuckerberg-regrets-fake-news-facebook_us_59cc2039e4b05063fe0eed9d">Facebook</a> (the parent company of Oculus). Social media has reportedly played a major role in circulating false information that helped to get Trump <a href="https://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/11/16/13637310/facebook-fake-news-explained">elected</a>.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Donald Trump political adviser Kellyanne Conway coined the term “alternative facts.”</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Part of the problem with social media is that it produces <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/social-media/2016/11/how-burst-your-social-media-bubble">information bubbles</a>. Because of the algorithmic logic of the platform, people end up trapped in feedback loops of information. Users end up only seeing information in their newsfeeds that reinforces — rather than combats or contradicts — their own world views. Because of this, social media seems to have created more opinion-based segregation in society. This flies in the face of the more traditional democratic notion of the public sphere. </p>
<p>In the democratic public sphere, people are supposed to come together to engage in critical rational debate. Instead, corporate new media offers users safe spaces of rhetorical support for their existing conceptions of reality.</p>
<h2>Both sides of the story</h2>
<p>There is also a parallel that runs here with the meaning of “objectivity” in the media — of reporting fairly and without bias. But misconceptions about “objective journalism” might add to the problem. People think that objectivity means showing “both sides” of the story. But what if one side is factually false? </p>
<p>A good example is climate change and the debate between climate scientists, who research the human causes of climate change, and those who deny the “human footprint” in climate change, <a href="https://theconversation.com/eclipse-of-reason-why-do-people-disbelieve-scientists-81068">ignoring the overwhelming majority of research that supports the climate science</a>.</p>
<p>The new U.S. ambassador to Canada, <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/us-ambassador-knight-craft-1.4366936">Kelly Craft</a>, has said that she believes “both sides” of the climate science. But this raises the question: If “objectivity” is merely the attempt to give legitimacy equally to different “views,” what then is the impact on reality? Does this mean that there is no single reality? No single, objective truth? </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. ambassador to Canada Kelly Craft says she believes “both sides” of the climate science debate.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Representing reality</h2>
<p>The history of VR and entertainment new media suggests that our experiences of reality are constantly reinscribed and redeployed with each new form. This means that representations of reality in different media affect how we see the world and our place within it. </p>
<p>Reality’s portrayal and depiction varies depending upon how it is being represented, and by who is doing or producing the representation of reality. It affects our ethical judgments about how to act and treat other people in the real world.</p>
<p>In the Charlie Brooker sci-fi series <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/10/black-mirror-season-three-review-netflix-men-against-fire/505040/"><em>Black Mirror</em>‘s “Men Against Fire”</a> episode, soldiers are implanted with augmented reality technology — a not-too-distant variation on existing forms such as Google Glass, or even Pokémon Go. The technology lets soldiers see their enemy as vicious monster mutants called “roaches.” </p>
<p>But once the technology fails, one of the soldiers is able to see the enemy for what they really are: Human, poor people trying to escape genocide by the dominant group.</p>
<p>The episode reverses the line from art historian and cultural critic, John Berger, who says: “The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe.” In the episode, what we know and believe is affected by the way we see things. </p>
<h2>Total entertainment forever</h2>
<p>Obsessions and critiques of new media are already part of popular culture. Green Day’s “American Idiot” talks about media control. Katy Perry’s “Chained to the Rhythm” portrays a culture of conformity led by our new media. Even Father John Misty’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHpV08wI-bw">“Total Entertainment Forever”</a> begins with the lines, “Bedding Taylor Swift/Every night inside the Oculus Rift.” </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Father John Misty’s “Total Entertainment Forever” cautions against the perils of virtual reality.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Misty (whose real name is Josh Tillman) sings about the darker side of our emerging new media and entertainment technologies. The song itself is a testament to our over-investment in entertainment and its ability to obscure reality.</p>
<p>As new media and entertainment technologies are normalized, they tend to have an impact on the way that we experience actual reality. This is not to suggest that our entertainment technologies are necessarily dangerous, or that we face a moral conundrum as we enjoy new media. </p>
<p>But it’s worth asking how our mediated practices of enjoyment in the virtual world still have real-world social and political implications. </p>
<p>As VR technologies like Oculus Go become more popular, we might ask ourselves how our immersion in its world of high-definition simulation impacts our experiences of reality.</p>
<p>As we’ve already witnessed through the political implications of Facebook, and its difficulty with so-called “fake news,” such a question is not entirely politically neutral.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The forthcoming film Steven Spielberg film Ready Player One , based on the novel by Ernest Cline, depicts a near future in which people retreat to a virtual reality world called The OASIS.</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87305/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Flisfeder does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Will the arrival and popularity of Oculus Go and other VR systems make us think differently about alternative realities and so-called alternative facts?Matthew Flisfeder, Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Communications, University of WinnipegLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/856712017-10-25T03:21:45Z2017-10-25T03:21:45ZAdani’s post-truth push for the Carmichael mine<p><em>This article is part of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/post-truth-initiative-38606">ongoing series</a> from the <a href="https://posttruthinitiative.org/">Post-Truth Initiative</a>, a Strategic Research Excellence Initiative at the University of Sydney. The series examines today’s post-truth problem in public discourse: the thriving economy of lies, bullshit and propaganda that threatens rational discourse and policy.</em></p>
<p><em>The project brings together scholars of media and communications, government and international relations, physics, philosophy, linguistics and medicine, and is affiliated with the Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre (<a href="http://chcinetwork.org/sydney-social-sciences-and-humanities-advanced-research-centre-sssharc">SSSHARC</a>), the <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/environment-institute/">Sydney Environment Institute</a>and the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>“Post-truth”, defined as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”, was the Oxford Dictionary’s <a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year/word-of-the-year-2016">2016 Word of the Year</a>, selected as a hallmark of the times in the US and UK. (Macquarie Dictionary chose “fake news” as its <a href="https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/news/view/article/431/">2016 Word of the Year</a>.) </p>
<p>Yet post-truth politics and “<a href="https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/arts/word-of-the-year-truthiness/article701949/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&">truthiness</a>”, a term Stephen Colbert <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/dec/18/colbert-report-10-best-moments">coined in 2005</a>, are not solely British and American phenomena. “Truthiness” is rampant in Australia too. The debate about the proposed Adani Carmichael mine in central Queensland shows how truthiness has become part of Australian political discourse.</p>
<p>How can a coal mine be subject to a regime of “truthiness”? A decision to build a greenfield megamine would appear to come down to the facts, with the known harms weighed against the potential benefits. Yet we can identify three distinct traits in official discourses around the Adani mine that show truthiness at work.</p>
<h2>Appeal to emotion and ‘gut feelings’</h2>
<p>First, “truthiness” replaces a reliance on facts with appeals to emotion and a logic of “gut feelings”.</p>
<p>One of the champions of this form of logic is Tony Abbott. As prime minister, he faced criticism from environmentalists after opening a coal mine and <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/coal-is-good-for-humanity-says-tony-abbott-at-mine-opening-20141013-115bgs.html">declaring</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Coal is good for humanity, coal is good for prosperity, coal is an essential part of our economic future, here in Australia, and right around the world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Earlier in 2014, he had <a href="http://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-23528">said</a> that “it is our destiny in this country to bring affordable energy to the world”.</p>
<p>In addition to the feel-good narrative of coal as national saviour, politicians have argued that Australia’s coal will help the world solve environmental problems, rather than making them worse. </p>
<p>An excellent example of this reasoning comes again from the former prime minister on his visit to India in September 2014. There, echoing the Adani chief executive, Abbott <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;adv=yes;orderBy=date-eFirst;page=0;query=Dataset%3Apressrel%20Decade%3A%222010s%22%20Year%3A%222014%22%20Month%3A%2209%22%20adani%20OtherSource_Phrase%3A%22prime%20minister%22;rec=1;re">argued</a> that the Carmichael mine could improve Indian living standards and cut carbon emissions by providing “clean coal”. </p>
<p>Using this same emotional logic, the government later <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansards%2Fc3d90ba0-0cf0-40f5-b619-9d3ed6ad10bf%2F0099%22">told parliament</a> that opening the southern hemisphere’s largest coalmine would actually cut carbon pollution.</p>
<h2>Create doubt about facts – or make them up</h2>
<p>A second component of “truthiness” is the practice of deliberately presenting empirical facts as debatable, uncertain or political – or simply lying. The best examples of lying are the claims of the mine’s benefits to Queensland and Australia.</p>
<p>Most common are references to the number of jobs the Carmichael mine will provide to the Queensland economy, where the employment situation is portrayed as desperate. </p>
<p>For instance, Queensland federal MP Michelle Landry <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansardr%2Fc737e440-6de7-4ab7-a383-e9cc80648ecf%2F0198%22">claimed</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Adani Carmichael coalmine offers up to 10,000 new jobs, mainly in Queensland; A$20 billion of investment in Australia; and power, to build the living standards of 100 million people in India.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In fact, Jerome Fahrer, who prepared an economic assessment of the Carmichael mine for Adani, <a href="http://envlaw.com.au/wp-content/uploads/carmichael43A.pdf">admitted in court</a> that it will create an average of 1,464 direct and indirect jobs over the life of the project. Yet virtually every mine supporter has since 2014 repeated an <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/business-spectator/fact-check-will-adanis-coal-mine-really-boost-employment-by-10000-jobs/news-story/903c1932738b1d1a1763c74e45f4d7c7">incorrect figure of 10,000 new jobs</a>. They include the <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jWlDdY7NGqAJ:www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/foreign-affairs/adani-mine-has-huge-economic-benefits-for-australia-turnbull-says/news-story/76322acfc4bed6073f1f4b6c2001676d+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au">prime minister</a>, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/17/george-brandis-vigilante-green-groups-destroying-thousands-of-mining-jobs">attorney-general</a> and federal and state Liberal and National Party MPs.</p>
<p>Another prominent tactic used to cast unwanted facts as debatable or doubtful is to generate oxymorons that promote contradictory messages. </p>
<p>Mining corporations in Australia – and globally – use the term “sustainable mining” to describe projects that provide jobs. Politicians have adopted this; Anthony Lynham, Queensland’s minister for natural resources and mines, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/mar/17/indigenous-opponents-of-adanis-carmichael-mine-to-intensity-court-battle">declared</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This government strongly supports the sustainable development of the Galilee Basin for the jobs and economic development that it will provide for regional Queensland.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Perhaps the most pernicious oxymoron used by mine supporters is “clean coal”. To counter the claim that Galilee Basin coal is “clean”, The Australia Institute <a href="http://www.tai.org.au/sites/defualt/files/P303%20Coal%20hard%20facts_0.pdf">cites estimates</a> by Adani and India’s <a href="https://www.coal.nic.in/sites/upload_files/coal/files/coalupload/provisional1314_0.pdf">Ministry of Coal</a> that it “is only 10% above the average quality of domestic Indian thermal coal in terms of energy content”. This is because “the ash content of Carmichael coal is estimated to be 26% – more than double the average of 12% for Australian thermal coal”. </p>
<p>The institute also notes that transporting the coal inevitably creates extra pollution.</p>
<h2>Smear without evidence</h2>
<p>Third, to construct truthiness, statements that are not scientific, logical or fact-based have proliferated in the political debate about the Adani mine. Politicians have constantly reframed the term “activist” to connote an enemy of both the mine and the national interest. MPs have called members of green groups <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjcp4uIxPbWAhUCopQKHS_FArgQFggmMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.couriermail.com.au%2Fnews%2Fqueensland%2Fecoactivists-hold-up-34-billion-worth-of-queensland-projects%2Fnews-story%2F44195381295203d8c14ba7f8edbb3216&usg=AOvVaw0UGv8n1ssyyHkld7O0JK4u">economic saboteurs</a>, “<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-20/bradley-vigilante-litigants-didnt-stop-the-carmichael-mine/6708414">vigilantes</a>”, “<a href="http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/news/protestors-set-up-camp-to-disrupt-adani-carmichael-coal-mine-project/news-story/3e4dff5f41b9712596653c52d9c0a4f8">terrorists</a>” and “<a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwinvJ_oxfbWAhVErJQKHXsxA5kQFgg9MAM&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fnational-affairs%2Findigenous%2Fgreens-antiadani-groups-hijacking-interests-of-aboriginal-people%2Fnews-story%2F1c46d4e50b1a3434ddc688ab11e0d502&usg=AOvVaw2zoIFikN1zUwWeOB4HknvV">extremists</a>”.</p>
<p>This narrative casts environmentalists not only as economic enemies of Australia, but opposition to the mine as a form of terrorism. In parliament, Queensland LNP MP George Christensen described legal action to stop the mine as “an act of ecoterrorism”. He <a href="http://www.openaustralia.org.au/debates/?id=2016-02-08.8.2">continued</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Their lies, misinformation, slander and the frivolous legal action attacking a company for the sake of furthering an ideological cause can only be described as terrorism if you look at the criminal code.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The accusations of “eco-terrorism” and “sabotage” had no foundation in fact whatsoever. These claims were not linked to actual illegal activities by environmental groups opposed to the mine.</p>
<p>Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk summarised perhaps the most pernicious claim by mine proponents when she <a href="http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/documents/hansard/2016/2016_04_19_WEEKLY.pdf">told parliament</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Queensland taxpayers will not be funding any infrastructure for this project. Stringent conditions will be enforced to safeguard landholders’ and traditional owners’ interests.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To keep Queensland taxpayers from funding the mine’s infrastructure, the burden will fall instead on Australian taxpayers via the Commonwealth government’s proposed <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-1-billion-loan-to-adani-is-ripe-for-a-high-court-challenge-85077">$1 billion loan</a> from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility to Adani. This will fund rail lines from the mine to the coast.</p>
<p>Nor have the rights of the traditional owners of the mine site been respected or upheld. The state and federal governments and courts have <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-07/further-legal-action-planned-against-carmichael-coal-mine/8100326">denied all legal challenges</a> from the Aboriginal people most affected by it.</p>
<p>The primary purpose of dissecting the arguments in favour of the Carmichael mine is to demonstrate the complexity of “truthiness” regimes. None of these discursive forms – gut feelings, spin and the politicisation of unwanted facts, or even outright lies – are enough on their own. Rather, these strategies overlap, intersect and reinforce each other.</p>
<p>The effect is to create an overarching “truthiness” regime that presents new megamines as desirable, inevitable and essential to maintain Australia’s national destiny. In response, a more complex and multi-pronged approach will be needed to convince the voting public that coal mining is not good for Australia, its economy, or the globe.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read other articles in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/post-truth-initiative-38606">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85671/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There are telltale signs when regard for the facts of the matter is sacrificed to ‘truthiness’ to win a political debate.Benedetta Brevini, Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media, University of SydneyTerry Woronov, Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/783462017-09-05T07:49:48Z2017-09-05T07:49:48ZBeyond fake news: social media and market-driven political campaigns<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179157/original/file-20170721-14755-1oj2cwa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Both camps in Jakarta's gubernatorial election this year engaged in post-truth politics. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For better or worse social media have become part of politics everywhere in the world, including in Indonesia. The entanglement of politics and social media is more pronounced in election campaigns as candidates and their supporters are aggressively using the platforms to win elections. </p>
<p>Advancements in communication technology make it easier and more affordable for political parties, politicians and supporters to get their message across. Based on recent developments, as exemplified by the cases of President Donald Trump in the US, “Brexit” in the UK, and the gubernatorial election (<em>Pilkada</em>) in Jakarta, some suggest that <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-100days-lloyd-commentary-idUKKBN15I214">social media campaigns are shaping accounts</a> to such an extent that the democratic process itself is under threat. </p>
<p>Many observers focus on the proliferation of fake news, pointing out that social media have ushered us into the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/post-truth-32226">post-truth</a> era. I, however, see fake news as a logical consequence of market-driven media and political campaigns. Today’s campaigns rely on a commercial framework where <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0002716206299149">marketing and branding</a> have become integral to campaign strategy. </p>
<h2>Both sides engage in post-truth politics</h2>
<p>During <em>Pilkada</em> campaigns, all candidates had designated social media teams as part of their branding strategy. Basuki Tjahaja Purnama or Ahok relied on <a href="https://jasmev.net/">Jasmev</a> and <a href="https://temanahok.com/">Teman Ahok</a>. Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono was supported by <a href="https://twitter.com/karib_ahy?lang=en">KaribAgus</a>, while Anies Baswedan established <a href="http://jakartamajubersama.com/">JakartaMajuBersama.com</a>. </p>
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<p>Although volunteers for all of the campaigns claimed they focused on positive messages, in practice this was not the case. Further, while none of the candidates publicly admitted to doing so, all employed <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/net-us-indonesia-twitter-idUSBRE97L14T20130822">buzzers</a> who are paid for their tweets. </p>
<p>They also took advantage of micro-celebrities, such as Denny Siregar (pro-Ahok) and Jonru Ginting (anti-Ahok), to support their campaigns. Micro-celebrities are politically motivated individuals who use social media in presenting their political and personal selves to gain public attention to their cause.</p>
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<p>It is incorrectly assumed that lies and untruths revolved only around the anti-Ahok campaign, and that the Ahok campaign generally focused on <a href="http://insidestory.org.au/post-truth-politics-in-southeast-asia/">winning over the rational voters</a>. My data show both sides engaged in post-truth politics. They framed information and stories by appealing to emotions with very little or no regard to policy details and objective facts. </p>
<p>Both pro and anti-Ahok campaigns maintained websites that provided one-sided information. Most were created just months prior to the <em>Pilkada</em>. And, yet, some sites, such as seword.com, very quickly gained a popularity that matched or even exceeded mainstream news media. </p>
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<p>Some sites deliberately published fabricated content and disinformation. For example, some pro-Ahok websites were spoofs of Islamist websites, trying to make readers believe they were visiting the original websites. Examples include arrahmahnews.com, which was a spoof of arrahmah.com, voa-islamnews.com instead of voa-islam.com, and pkspuyengan.com instead of pkspiyungan.com. </p>
<h2>Hate groups silence alternative voices</h2>
<p>Ordinary users also played an important role in the campaign. While facilitating freedom of expression, social media also encourage users to practise the freedom to hate as individuals exercise their right to voice their opinions while actively silencing others. These dynamics provide fertile ground for sectarian and racist narratives to flourish. </p>
<p>Conversations and interactions among social media users on <em>Pilkada</em> were generally characterised by the construction of common enemies marked by derogatory labelling. </p>
<p>For example, the anti-Ahok camp labelled Ahok supporters with pejorative terms such as infidel (<em>kafir</em>), immoral (<em>maksiat</em>), forbidden (<em>haram</em>), liar, cheater, stupid, pig and tadpole. </p>
<p>Ahok supporters were not short of labels for their opponents either. They framed their opponents as anti-nationalist and traitors; radical Muslims (deviant Wahhabis, apostates, “robe-wearing thugs” (<em>preman berjubah</em>), terrorists and ISIS supporters), and anti-science (“the idiot tribe”, “camel people”, “flat-earth people”, “short-tempered people” and “angry mobs”). </p>
<p>The polarisation between the two camps was so prominent that it obscured other groups. Many Ahok and Anies voters did not belong to either camp. Some Jakartans voted for Ahok based on his achievements while disagreeing with some of his policies. Some Anies voters were troubled by <a href="https://medium.com/@forumkampungkota/the-invisibility-of-the-poor-83dc8cf18aa">Ahok’s pro-elite and anti-poor policies</a>. </p>
<p>These alternative voices, however, were not expressed on social media. In this polarised environment, any opinion or expression that was complex or nuanced, or simply did not adhere to either camp, was rarely welcome. </p>
<p>Here, we see the manifestation of the <a href="http://noelle-neumann.de/scientific-work/spiral-of-silence/">spiral of silence theory</a>. It suggests those who perceive their opinion group as ascendant, such as members of pro- and anti-Ahok groups, are more likely to express their opinions publicly. Those who perceive their opinions to be in decline choose to silence themselves to avoid threats of social sanctions, isolation and conflict. </p>
<h2>Algorithmic enclaves and digital tribal nationalism</h2>
<p>Studies show users’ exposure to information on social media is driven by <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/theo-priestley/the-algorithm-and-its-ech_b_12376054.html">algorithms</a> presenting information based on their own interests. This potentially puts social media users in a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/22/social-media-election-facebook-filter-bubbles">filter bubble</a> that isolates them from a diversity of viewpoints. </p>
<p>I have observed, however, that Indonesian users typically have a large and diverse network of contacts (often more than 1,000 “friends”), which exposes them to varied discussions. For anti- and pro-Ahok social media users, however, disagreeable information just confirmed their own viewpoints. Further, it intensified the antagonistic relationships they cultivated with their opponents. </p>
<p>This dynamic perpetuates the formation of what I term “algorithmic enclaves”. They are formed whenever a group of individuals, aided by their constant interactions with algorithms, attempt to create a (perceived) shared identity online for sharing with each other, defending their beliefs and protecting their resources from both real and perceived threats. </p>
<p>The algorithm itself does not predetermine the formation of enclaves. It is not the information per se that facilitates amplification processes but the sharing and discussion of the information within the enclave, whether negatively or positively, that correlates with their pre-existing opinions. </p>
<p>Using the familiar phrase “NKRI <em>harga mati</em>” (Republic of Indonesia, non-negotiable), a mantra the New Order regime often used to suppress opposing ideologies, social media users claim and legitimise their own versions of tribal nationalism. At the same time, they exclude equality and justice for others. </p>
<p>The <em>Pilkada</em> case shows that social media use in electoral politics further deepens divisions among social groups and amplifies animosity and intolerance of each other.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article is an edited excerpt of <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14672715.2017.1341188">“Freedom to hate: social media, algorithmic enclaves, and the rise of tribal nationalism in Indonesia”</a> in Critical Asian Studies.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78346/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Merlyna Lim tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.</span></em></p>Indonesian politicians have engaged in post-truth politics, framing information and stories by appealing to emotions with very little or no regard to any policy details and objective facts.Merlyna Lim, Canada Research Chair in Digital Media & Global Network Society, Carleton UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/823492017-09-01T06:42:49Z2017-09-01T06:42:49Z‘Post-truth’ media really is shifting the news agenda – and more subtly than it seems<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184182/original/file-20170831-22561-few5ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Proceed with caution.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/lisbon-portugal-june-6-2015-photo-285442964?src=TbyupESrFdgiS-fanBGaZg-1-3">Gil C via Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As stories of Russian “information warfare” in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/01/18/russias-radical-new-strategy-for-information-warfare/?utm_term=.7b90d7c864a1">various</a> <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-russia-europe-idUSKBN14W2BY">Western</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/11/russia-waging-information-war-in-sweden-study-finds">countries</a> continue to mount, governments, intelligence agencies and journalists are fretting over the influence of global media outlets funded by autocratic governments. But while these organisations are clearly meant to serve their sponsor governments’ agendas in various ways, is the West right to be so worried about them?</p>
<p>Information campaigning in various forms is as old as politics itself, and nor is it the sole province of political bogeymen. Research shows that <a href="http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/2017/07/17/troops-trolls-and-trouble-makers-a-global-inventory-of-organized-social-media-manipulation/">democracies are better than autocracies</a> at influencing foreign public opinion, and businesses, politicians and states all use the mass media strategically for their information campaigns. </p>
<p>Whether this is public relations, public diplomacy, or propaganda is a <a href="https://datasociety.net/output/lexicon-of-lies/">matter of perspective</a>. But the names we give a particular information campaign not only reflect our inferences about its aims; they can in fact <a href="https://datasociety.net/output/lexicon-of-lies/">amplify its power and advance its goals</a>.</p>
<p>A case in point is the Kremlin-funded international broadcaster RT, formerly Russia Today. The network has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/sep/21/rt-sanctioned-over-series-of-misleading-articles-by-media-watchdog">been sanctioned by media watchdogs</a> for its “misleading” coverage, even as it gathered <a href="https://www.iemmys.tv/awards_nominees.aspx">five Emmy nominations</a> for its investigative reporting. It was even <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1p-E2xmpjA">cited by Hillary Clinton</a> in 2011 as an example of an “information war” she said the West was losing – unwittingly describing things to come in <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/06/01/530941011/clinton-says-she-was-right-about-vast-russia-conspiracy-investigations-ongoing">her own career</a>.</p>
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<p>The network’s PR strategy skilfully uses these criticisms to cater to the biases of an anti-establishment generation. Its motto encourages viewers to “Question More”, and its various <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/russia-todays-new-ad-campaign-suggests-it-could-have-prevent?utm_term=.dcGd7eaZM#.vpDXxDzRA">advertising campaigns</a> have successfully exhibited Western contempt and suspicion as a <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimdalrympleii/a-russian-tv-network-is-trolling-americans-with-these-ads?utm_term=.bww3plEP4#.heQZk9l3X">badge of honour</a>.</p>
<p>Yet despite the concerns of high-ranking figures, the US State Department has claimed none of the US$80m recently allocated by Congress for informational countermeasures, and the bulk of the funds will <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/02/tillerson-isis-russia-propaganda-241218">expire if not claimed by the end of September 2017</a>. Some fear that the US is <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/trump-and-russia-we-are-losing-war-against-disinformation-and-it-our-fault-649846">reluctant to risk a Russian backlash</a> by leading a counter-disinformation offensive, leaving the legwork to initiatives like the <a href="https://meduza.io/en/feature/2017/08/03/tracking-russian-propaganda-in-real-time">controversial</a> <a href="https://sputniknews.com/politics/201708221056686207-hamilton-68-twitter-analysis/">new</a> <a href="http://dashboard.securingdemocracy.org/">Hamilton 68</a> dashboard, which claims to track Russian-backed influence campaigns across the web and social media.</p>
<p>But just how much influence RT and similar outlets wield is very much open to question.</p>
<h2>Flattering bias</h2>
<p>While many in US intelligence and politics seem to take RT’s self-reported audience figures as read, the channel’s official data is optimistic compared to its <a href="https://www.levada.ru/2017/07/28/prosmotr-novostej/?t=1&cn=ZmxleGlibGVfcmVjc18y&refsrc=email&iid=4d4bf65bc9d94f7c9c41318b6408de53&uid=518415096&nid=244+281088008">externally verified viewing figures</a>. And despite RT’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/RussiaToday">pride</a> at being “the most watched news network on YouTube”, most of its views go to apolitical clickbait human interest stories and coverage of natural disasters. </p>
<p>Some <a href="http://neweasterneurope.eu/interviews/2446-russia-s-meddling-in-western-politics-gets-more-credit-than-it-deserves">argue</a> that RT’s smaller political audience is self-selecting: those who mistrust the mainstream establishment and are partial to conspiracy theories. However, this is all guesswork: so far, there has been little scholarly attention to RT’s audience engagement, despite its social media advantage over its competitors during <a href="https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/staging-the-sochi-winter-olympics-2014-on-russia-today-and-bbc-world-news-from-soft-power-to-geopolitical-crisis(a8476785-fa28-4b1a-958b-1ee2e9407f3e).html">breaking news</a> events. (The University of Manchester and Open University will soon address this knowledge gap with the <a href="https://twitter.com/ReframingRussia">Reframing Russia</a> project, the first systematic examination of RT’s audiences, ethos and multiplatform output.)</p>
<p>While RT may have limited capacity to influence those not already sympathetic to its aims, its reach across social and traditional media, and freedom from any commitment to impartiality, equip it perfectly for an atmosphere of rumour and counter-rumour.</p>
<p>This brings us back to Donald Trump and his ongoing crusade against the mainstream media. </p>
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<p>Trump echoes RT’s <a href="http://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/22/09/2014/normalization-russia-today-rt">line</a> that all news reporting is biased in some way, and his social media output clearly flatters the views of his followers and allies. Trump’s tweets are, intentionally or not, perfectly calibrated to exploit the same effect as RT: audiences <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15205436.2013.816738?src=recsys&journalCode=hmcs20&">seek out</a> content that accords with their political beliefs, and <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2041905816680417?journalCode=plia&">ignore information</a> that does not correspond to their biases.</p>
<p>This effect is even clearer where people have strong political beliefs and <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w23089">ideologically segregated</a> social media networks, because algorithms <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1461444809342775">lock our preferences</a> into our social media experience. Counterintuitively, we’re most likely to enter into debate with people with similar views to our own, not those who we perceive as <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2531676">being different</a> and who can offer an alternative world view.</p>
<p>Worst of all, if much of your social media following is made up of automated “bots” primed to repeat, circulate and amplify particular messages – as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/05/31/something-fishy-is-going-on-with-trumps-twitter-account-researchers-say/?utm_term=.227fe042a694">seems likely</a> in Trump’s case – then the volume of echoes increases exponentially. The result? Political opinions are polarised, with completely fabricated stories more widely <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/viral-fake-election-news-outperformed-real-news-on-facebook?utm_term=.dpnRdEEx5#.rtj0KJJGp">shared</a> (and <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/fake-news-survey?utm_term=.mfNV5N30o#.kuo0e6QdV">believed</a>) than genuine news. </p>
<h2>Playing the mainstream</h2>
<p>These patterns are strongest among more <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w23089">ideologically motivated</a> groups, especially those on the political “fringe”. While less partisan audiences still <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/aug/06/can-you-trust-mainstream-media">look to the mainstream media</a>, the agenda of the mainstream media is nonetheless shifting in response to fringe groups’ online interactions. As mainstream outlets report on social media trends, they amplify <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1705.06947.pdf">stories that originated in fringe groups</a>, particularly when the stories reflect their ideological stance. </p>
<p>But the effect is not uniform across the political spectrum. <a href="http://www.futurity.org/fact-checking-fake-news-1475152/">Research on the US media</a> shows that conservative news websites are more likely than liberal ones to propagate fabricated stories, and conservative individuals are more likely to believe them – but that liberal media outlets are more likely to change their agenda in response. </p>
<p>Crucially, fact-checking disputed stories does not help. Fact-check articles are <a href="http://www.futurity.org/fact-checking-fake-news-1475152/">less influential</a> than the stories they attack, and can actually help <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/05/16/facebook-fact-checking/">disseminate falsehoods</a> to audiences who are prone to <a href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/half_of_people/">misremember them as fact</a>. More than that, merely fact-checking articles on fringe topics only makes those topics <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1461444817712086?journalCode=nmsa">objects of mainstream discussion</a>.</p>
<p>Fears about particular outlets’ “propaganda” stories are misplaced, since those stories generally only influence self-selecting “fringe” groups. What’s really concerning is how these groups repeat and amplify their preferred messages, and how their efforts influence media agendas and shift the parameters of political debate. With trust in the media <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/16/britons-trust-in-government-media-business-falls-sharply">declining fast</a>, people are increasingly consulting partisan alternatives. </p>
<p>That not only opens the field for players like RT, but polarises social discussion to the point of outright conflict. And as recent events in <a href="https://theconversation.com/charlottesville-donald-trump-and-the-dark-side-of-american-populism-82459">Charlottesville, Virginia</a> prove, that conflict is not confined to the online world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82349/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Precious Chatterje-Doody does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While specific stories from RT don’t reach many people, they change the mainstream media’s behaviour.Precious Chatterje-Doody, Post-doctoral Research Associate, Reframing Russia for the Global Mediasphere, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/830392017-08-31T20:27:42Z2017-08-31T20:27:42ZHow I came to know that I am a closet climate denier<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183578/original/file-20170828-17154-1asx2tb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">So large are the nation's daily greenhouse gas emissions that if yours is a typical Australian lifestyle you're contributing disproportionately to climate change.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/carbonquilt/12813779003/in/photolist-kwiY5c-eL4BMM-eL4BSg-eL4uB6-bnciRk-8rou28-EWNpQ-eBH8eR-3WfNZ9-eBGT2X-kwiPYx-eBHnuM-eBGcMn-V4dG1M-VfVx8T-TYmKxw-Fjb8h-eL4uvP-eL4BPH-eL4BLz-Vicwuq-cMaAqy-6PqKBE-eLfYRE-8rouSH-eL4uxc-61j5rr-eLfYMo-cMaAhf-cMaAau-6pUmA-hcPgXB-EWNpU-V1rTHY-EWNpS-TYoAbb-dWEC4-V1rTch-V4f55V-3TCE5k-V4f7RX-eL4BQD-8vabg4-TYoVFU-7qddHN-V1rY7C-TYoRvu-z2uxM-V1rMoJ-TYmJXJ">Carbon Visuals/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/post-truth-initiative-38606">ongoing series</a> from the <a href="https://posttruthinitiative.org/">Post-Truth Initiative</a>, a Strategic Research Excellence Initiative at the University of Sydney. The series examines today’s post-truth problem in public discourse: the thriving economy of lies, bullshit and propaganda that threatens rational discourse and policy.</em> </p>
<p><em>The project brings together scholars of media and communications, government and international relations, physics, philosophy, linguistics, and medicine, and is affiliated with the Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre (<a href="http://chcinetwork.org/sydney-social-sciences-and-humanities-advanced-research-centre-sssharc">SSSHARC</a>), the <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/environment-institute/">Sydney Environment Institute</a> and the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org">Sydney Democracy Network</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>What we believe and how we act don’t always stack up. Recently, in considering what it means to live in a post-truth world, I had cause to examine my understanding of how the world works and my actions on sustainability. </p>
<p>I realised I was, in effect, almost as much a climate denier as those who profess to be. Here’s how.</p>
<p><strong>1.1 A way of understanding how the world works</strong></p>
<p>I take a <a href="http://asc-cybernetics.org/index_old.htm">cybernetic</a> view of the world. For me this means a holistic systems perspective based on circularity and feedback with a <a href="http://www.cybertech-engineering.ch/research/references/Maturana1988/maturana-h-1987-tree-of-knowledge-bkmrk.pdf">biological/evolutionary</a> slant.</p>
<p>As I understand it, we learn and change as we bump up against the milieu we inhabit, which changes as we bump into it. </p>
<p>Our ontogeny – our life history since conception – determines what we contribute to that milieu, and the life histories of others determine what they take from it.</p>
<p><strong>1.2 Sustainability</strong></p>
<p>Now to the messages that we – the <a href="http://www.isa.org.usyd.edu.au/index.html">Integrated Sustainability Analysis</a> (ISA) group at the University of Sydney – strive to communicate to the world. </p>
<p>Using input-output analysis, we put <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.5b06162">numbers</a> to trends in emissions. We communicate on <a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v486/n7401/full/nature11145.html">environmental</a> and <a href="http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811041358">social sustainability</a> through books, journals and conferences, showing how complex <a href="https://cgscholar.com/bookstore/works/the-sustainability-practitioners-guide-to-multiregional-inputoutput-analysis?category_id=common-ground-publishing">supply chains</a> snake around the world.</p>
<p>We suggest that once producers, consumers and global corporations know the damage that is being done they will <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800916310382">take action</a> to stop it. Meanwhile, we discuss the motivations of climate deniers and wonder what we can do to change things.</p>
<p><strong>1.3 The big collision</strong></p>
<p>This is where I bump into my understanding of the world. What messages do people take from what we contribute to the milieu? Are they changed by the sustainability messages we try to communicate?</p>
<p><a href="http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/101/">Dan Kahan and colleagues</a> from the Yale Law School suggest that perception of risk from climate change depends on our cultural worldview: we dismiss risk if accepting it would mean social upheaval. Survival within the group, they say, trumps lifestyle change.</p>
<p>This fits with my understanding of how our ontogeny determines our survival needs and how our perception of survival within the group influences our actions. It also fits with my view about <a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-1-4419-1428-6_829">how people learn</a> – we pick up from the surrounding milieu what fits with our views and ignore the rest.</p>
<p>I nodded along with Kahan, aligning myself with those trying to tell others of the risk. Until I realised there were two problems in such a position.</p>
<h2>Problem one</h2>
<p>The first problem is that my behaviour is little different from that of Kahan’s subjects. I live in Australia, which has the <a href="http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-highest-incomes-in-the-world.html">fifth-highest gross national income</a> per capita. We also have the <a href="http://www.garnautreview.org.au/pdf/Garnaut_Chapter7.pdf">highest per-capita emissions in the OECD</a>.</p>
<p>While I minimise waste and do my recycling, it would take a lifestyle upheaval to drop my household emissions to the <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/222a/f36ffe5b22c6f70fd28d4a63aade0c707439.pdf">sustainable share</a> suggested by people like <a href="http://uchicagogate.com/2015/11/06/try-to-do-the-most-good-you-can-an-interview-with-peter-singer/">Peter Singer</a>. So, I behave as though the call to act on climate change in an equitable way does not apply to me.</p>
<p>I am not alone in understanding the issues, being concerned about the consequences, and yet failing to act. It’s known as the “<a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0013916502034003004">knowledge, concern, action paradox</a>”.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/energy/investors-should-swipe-at-companies-not-trump-20170606-gwm18w.html">Julien Vincent</a>, writing about investors who ostensibly support the Paris Agreement yet fail to act, refers to this as a “much subtler, but no less damaging, form of denial”. He cites a case of Santos investors, aware of the consequences, professing concern, yet choosing to vote against a resolution that would have committed the company to conduct a 2°C scenario analysis.</p>
<p>It would seem that knowing the truth and professing concern about climate change are the easy parts. They cost nothing and allow us to claim the kudos that accrues to taking up such a position. </p>
<p>However, knowing the truth and professing concern without taking action is somewhat disingenuous. At worst it is living a lie, akin to being a closet climate denier.</p>
<p>So, even when recognising this truth/action/denial dilemma, why don’t we act? George Marshall, in his book <a href="http://climateconviction.org/">Don’t Even Think About It</a>, provides an insight. He discusses our evolutionary origins, our perception of threats, including climate change, and our instincts to protect family and tribe.</p>
<p>This resonates with my take on cybernetics, which suggests I live the way I do because I need to survive in my physical, economic, social and cultural environment; and because in a different era it would have given my offspring the best chance of survival.</p>
<p>It doesn’t let me off the hook – I still need to take action to lower my emissions – but it reminds me I shouldn’t be so quick to judge. I’m as much a part of the system as anyone else.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, my cybernetic take on life says that whatever we put into the milieu matters. So even though very few of us living in high-income countries can reduce our emissions to an equitable share, whatever actions we take to reduce them contribute to the world of tomorrow, next week, next year. They change the milieu, which changes the possibilities for change.</p>
<h2>Problem two</h2>
<p>Putting myself outside the system leads to the second problem, which is contingent on the first and means that if I can’t change my own actions I can’t expect to change those of others. </p>
<p>For while I shout about climate change, hoping others will hear what I say and act on it, in so many ways I communicate that I’m not acting on it myself.</p>
<p>A recent <a href="https://archive.is/CZOkK">online survey</a> showed that a researcher’s perceived carbon footprint affected her/his credibility and influenced the participants’ intentions to change their energy consumption.</p>
<p>If I know the figures, accept the science and yet continue to lead my rich nation lifestyle, I’m fair game as an excuse, conscious or not, for the deniers to continue their climate-indifferent lifestyles.</p>
<p>This doesn’t mean sharing our research is a waste of time. It provides valuable information about the social, economic and environmental effects of doing business; again, it changes the milieu. But it’s highly unlikely that people will read it and change what they do, which is a far more complex process.</p>
<h2>Changing attitudes and action</h2>
<p>Much research has been devoted to the question of how, and how not, to influence people’s responses to the threats posed by climate change.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/MichaelMannScientist/posts/1470539096335621">Michael Mann</a> is wary of scare campaigns as a motivating force. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308958235_Overcoming_societal_addictions_What_can_we_learn_from_individual_therapies">Bob Costanza</a> and colleagues suggest that scare campaigns from scientists and activists alike are not the answer to weaning us off our addiction to an unsustainable lifestyle.</p>
<p>There’s research to suggest that enlisting the help of a trusted community member might be an effective <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378011000173">alternative</a>. Having an advocate present benefits of a low-carbon lifestyle, framed around community issues like energy security rather than climate change, has had some success.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/people-around-the-world-will-act-on-climate-change-to-create-a-better-society-study-48174">Such an approach</a> could help provide a way to take action for people who know about the science but whose <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378011000173">political affiliations and values</a> position them at the climate denial end of the spectrum, regardless of their knowledge.</p>
<p>However, it may not help those of us whose political affiliations and values are aligned with acting on climate change, yet still find it hard to act. </p>
<p>Probably more pertinent to our case is research showing that our actions on climate change are circumscribed not only by the political and cultural contexts that we inhabit but also by the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21582041.2012.692484">infrastructure</a> provided by them. That’s because this infrastructure forms the milieu that enfolds our lives.</p>
<h2>So, where to from here?</h2>
<p>If this is the case, then resolution to my first problem might require a significant change to the web of edifices that support my lifestyle. It would take a climate-friendly government with a narrative that normalises action on climate change to make it easy for me to survive in the group and live a low-carbon lifestyle.</p>
<p><a href="http://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=ant_facpub">Sweden</a> provides an example of what this could look like. For many countries, though, a shift in the national narrative might seem impossible. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183587/original/file-20170828-17139-wggdsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183587/original/file-20170828-17139-wggdsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183587/original/file-20170828-17139-wggdsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183587/original/file-20170828-17139-wggdsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183587/original/file-20170828-17139-wggdsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183587/original/file-20170828-17139-wggdsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183587/original/file-20170828-17139-wggdsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183587/original/file-20170828-17139-wggdsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In Sweden, a rare example of a rich nation with low emissions, Hammarby in Stockholm is a model of environmentally friendly city development.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://imagebank.sweden.se/hammarby+sj%25C3%25B6stad/stockholm,%20central+sweden/hammarby+sj%25C3%25B6stad%252C+stockholm/146">Ola Ericson/imagebank.sweden.se</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are examples of dramatic change to a seemingly inviolable narrative, but they come with a “be careful what you wish for” label.</p>
<p>Recently, we’ve seen <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/30/the-us-sanders-campaigners-lending-corybn-hand-bernie-momentum">Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy?CMP=share_btn_link">Nigel Farage</a> and Donald Trump make spectacular changes to the political landscape. They illustrate the power of engaging at the community level, discussing local issues (albeit sometimes with the help of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy?CMP=share_btn_link">big data</a>), portraying empathy and swearing commitment to local solutions.</p>
<p>These leaders have changed the discourse. A cybernetic take on the process might say that their acts of communication triggered a lifetime of connotations in their hearers. The hearers interpreted the message through the prism of their ontogeny, feeding back into the mix their personal understandings, amplifying the message and influencing others by their own communications. </p>
<p>This is a process that works for good or ill, depending where you stand. So a world leader with climate credentials and sufficient clout to make the low-carbon lifestyle message sound mainstream could change the world’s trajectory.</p>
<p>However, ranged against the wisdom of waiting for such a one is the ominous presence of big data companies with the capacity to help manipulate individuals as well as whole communities; uber-wealthy <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=RsYr_iQUs6QC&oi=fnd&pg=PA144&dq=exxonmobil+climate+change+denial&ots=r6KA5anb6A&sig=sinlME2S4T4i5Oe9DFbegjhCkA4#v=onepage&q=exxonmobil%20climate%20change%20denial&f=false">individuals and groups</a> with the ability to influence leaders and world politics; and the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/nsr/article/3/4/470/2669331/Modeling-sustainability-population-inequality">top 10%</a> of global income earners who are responsible for almost as much greenhouse gas emissions as the rest of us together.</p>
<p>All are acting out of their own survival instincts and are unlikely to succumb to any amount of persuasive argument from a climate-conscious leader.</p>
<p>So how else to change the milieu to support more of us in achieving a more sustainable lifestyle? Nobel prize-winning economist <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/green-from-the-grassroots">Elinor Ostrom</a>’s view is that the planet’s salvation lies with communities everywhere bypassing governments and taking action themselves. In 2012 she wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>… evolutionary policymaking is already happening organically. In the absence of effective national and international legislation to curb greenhouse gases, a growing number of city leaders are acting to protect their citizens and economies.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Those <a href="https://www.compactofmayors.org/">mayors</a> defying Trump’s exit from the Paris Agreement come to mind as examples.</p>
<p>Ostrom suggests that supporting <a href="http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/8/715/htm">distributed leadership</a> is the answer. And, to bring us back to cybernetics, management cybernetics guru <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stafford_Beer">Stafford Beer</a> did exactly that. </p>
<p>Beer took <a href="https://www.panarchy.org/ashby/variety.1956.html">Ashby’s law of requisite variety</a> and revolutionised the way business management operated. Ashby’s law tells us that only variety (or complexity) can control variety. That leaves 90% of the global population to bring together the system variety required to influence – Ashby says “control” – the very wealthy high-emissions minority.</p>
<p>So, I’m backing distributed leadership to overcome my own inability to cut my emissions further. Investing in the work of organisations that can act will be my proxy. </p>
<p>This may look like a slow haul to change the milieu so that action on climate change becomes normal life, but I’m counting on the snowballing power of amplification to make it happen sooner rather than later.</p>
<p>The complexity of the 90% will eventually trump that of the 10%, by which time my second problem should be irrelevant.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read other pieces in the post-truth series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/post-truth-initiative-38606">here</a>.</em> </p>
<p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/democracy-futures">Democracy Futures</a> series is a <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/democracy-futures/">joint global initiative</a> between The Conversation and the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a>. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83039/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joy Murray does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It would take a lifestyle upheaval to drop most Australians’ household emissions to a sustainable level. Even many of us who urge equitable action on climate change act as if this doesn’t apply to us.Joy Murray, Senior Research Fellow in Integrated Sustainability Analysis, School of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/826092017-08-24T09:00:21Z2017-08-24T09:00:21ZWhy we should expect scientists to disagree about antibiotic resistance – and other controversies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183174/original/file-20170823-4869-19w8raj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">5 second Studio / Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On numerous matters including food, health and the environment, experts are called upon to communicate the implications of scientific evidence for particular choices. It may be tempting to highlight simple messages from complex evidence. But as the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jul/26/rule-patients-must-finish-antibiotics-course-wrong-study-says">recent controversy over advice on antibiotics</a> shows, there is a risk of such messages backfiring when new evidence comes to light. So in these fractious times of “alternative facts”, how best can experts <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-universities-can-earn-trust-and-share-power-in-the-bitter-post-truth-era-76653">build trust</a> with the public?</p>
<p>Evidence provided by science is often mixed, incomplete, changeable or conditional on context. Yet experts are expected to stick to narratives that highlight a consensus view. Simplifying the complex may be essential for public communication, but this is not the same as glossing over uncertainty or valid disagreements. It is far better to find ways to communicate why evidence may be inconclusive and why experts might reasonably make different judgements on the same question.</p>
<p>On antibiotics, it may be confusing to find experts giving conflicting assessments on whether or not people should “finish the course”. But far from representing post-truth, this disagreement suggests we must pay more attention to the matter of how to cope despite the vagaries of expert consensus.</p>
<h2>Fraying antibiotics consensus</h2>
<p>Healthcare professionals have long stressed that people mustn’t stop taking prescribed antibiotics when they feel better. <a href="http://www.bmj.com/content/358/bmj.j3418">Some experts recently questioned</a> this conventional wisdom in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), suggesting that the advice is not evidence-based and that it impedes conservation of antibiotics in light of bacterial resistance. Elsewhere, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-you-may-not-need-all-those-days-of-antibiotics-81820">it is claimed</a> that antibiotics are prescribed more out of fear and habit than on the basis of science. </p>
<p>But other experts have been critical, saying that the call to change established prescribing practice is <a href="http://gizmodo.com/doctors-slam-new-recommendation-that-we-should-stop-ant-1797301481">dangerous</a> as it is itself <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-you-really-should-take-your-full-course-of-antibiotics-81704">unsupported by sufficient evidence</a>.</p>
<p>In this debate, many actually agree that it is worth reconsidering antibiotic duration, and that more clinical trials are needed to specify appropriate doses for different infections. Some consensus is emerging that shorter courses may sometimes be sensible – but more evidence is needed.</p>
<p>All agree, for example, that tuberculosis merits a longer course of antibiotics to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-you-may-not-need-all-those-days-of-antibiotics-81820">cure the infection</a> and <a href="http://www.bmj.com/content/358/bmj.j3418">possibly to prevent resistance</a>. But for some common conditions, the recommended course has <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/truth-antibiotics-do-really-need-take-full-course/">already been shortened to three days</a>. Public health messages have subtly changed, with Public Health England telling people to take antibiotics “<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/465963/AntibioticGuardian_3-fold-leaflet_FINAL.pdf">exactly as prescribed</a>” rather than “completing the course”. Prescribers are asked to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/564516/antibiotics_awareness_key_messages.pdf">avoid unnecessarily lengthy durations</a>.</p>
<p>So, calls to shorten antibiotic courses and gather more evidence are <a href="http://www.histmodbiomed.org/sites/default/files/44828.pdf">not new</a>. But <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-you-dont-have-to-finish-all-your-antibiotics-38774">until recently</a>, public discussion of the issue was rare.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183176/original/file-20170823-13319-jh1cyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183176/original/file-20170823-13319-jh1cyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183176/original/file-20170823-13319-jh1cyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183176/original/file-20170823-13319-jh1cyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183176/original/file-20170823-13319-jh1cyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183176/original/file-20170823-13319-jh1cyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183176/original/file-20170823-13319-jh1cyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Scientific uncertainty and lack of consensus is rarely sufficiently communicated to the public.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pressmaster / Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Simple messages?</h2>
<p>The real controversy provoked by the BMJ article is about what experts should tell the public. The authors <a href="http://www.bmj.com/content/358/bmj.j3418">suggest that</a> primary care patients prescribed antibiotics for common bacterial infections could be advised to stop when they feel better. Many of their critics fear that such advice is too subjective, and people will be confused by experts disagreeing or departing from an established message. The Chief Medical Officer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jul/26/rule-patients-must-finish-antibiotics-course-wrong-study-says">has reiterated</a> that official advice is unchanged: follow what the doctor says.</p>
<p>The notion that experts must convey a simple message is based on the assumption that uncertainty creates anxiety, making people unsure of what to believe or how to act. Since being exposed to divergent views increases uncertainty, it seems to follow that experts must hew to a strict line. But health communication scholars suggest this is too simplistic as <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1061/a37f9408c9e583341526aeee58561005b99c.pdf">people manage and respond to uncertainty in different ways</a>. Some may have good reasons to ignore debates among experts, relying instead on familiar routines that shape their beliefs and behaviour. Others may distrust markers of excessive confidence, finding open discussion more reassuring as it chimes with their own instincts about knowledge. </p>
<p>Even where some reduction in uncertainty is desirable, evidence is not a substitute for judgement. Doing scientific research to address complex matters <a href="https://cspo.org/legacy/library/110104F2FV_lib_SarewitzEnvSciPo.pdf">often increases uncertainty</a> as new evidence raises further questions. Clinical trials data <a href="https://trialsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13063-015-0917-5">generate their own dilemmas</a> of assessment and interpretation for professionals. </p>
<p>In terms of antibiotic prescribing, <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-you-dont-have-to-finish-all-your-antibiotics-38774">one expert argues</a> that trials are needed but clinical judgement will still be important. So evidence of one sort may be valuable but it must be put in context of other evidence and practical objectives. The same principle applies to most issues that experts investigate, from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/07/silicon-valley-weapon-choice-women-google-manifesto-gender-difference-eugenics">sex differences</a> to the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/brexit-opinions-remain-brexiteer-bull-bs-leave-eu-new-york-times-jenni-russell-daniel-hannan-a7880401.html">economic impact of Brexit</a>.</p>
<h2>Coping with uncertainty</h2>
<p>In the case of antibiotic courses, it is unreasonable to expect that new evidence will automatically resolve current uncertainties. Science cannot meet such undue expectations. But this is only a problem in a culture where people expect prescriptions to be based on unshakeable evidence, and where experts cultivate that impression. On other issues such as climate change, where science is invoked to justify particular interventions to the public, we see the same pattern. </p>
<p>Tensions around the public role of science arise partly from the <a href="https://sites.hks.harvard.edu/sdn/articles/files/Beck.%20The%20challenges%20of%20building.pdf">belief</a> that the cultural credibility of expertise rests on communicating in terms of consensus. Whenever new knowledge seems to challenge current consensus, credibility becomes strained. We have recently highlighted how <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17524032.2017.1333965?scroll=top&needAccess=true">this diverts attention</a> from more urgent practical challenges.</p>
<p>But if conflicting or inconclusive evidence from new science is taken to be the norm rather than the exception, uncertainty wouldn’t be a problem to fear or eliminate. Similar points have been made in relation to <a href="http://www.academia.edu/26618241/From_reducing_to_coping_with_uncertainty_reconceptualizing_the_central_challenge_in_breast_self-exams">health communication</a>, where evidence provided by new technologies of screening and testing <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1ec5/7f22a02977ce345eb9c08bbd06e9ab20b66a.pdf?_ga=2.169986084.506992403.1501791683-575557984.1501791683">is often ambiguous</a>.</p>
<p>Promising consensus as derived from scientific evidence is a perilous principle on which to found meaningful engagement between experts and the public. We are better off trying to facilitate improved ways of appraising and coping with entirely normal uncertainties and reasons for disagreement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82609/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sujatha Raman receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust to support the Research Programme, 'Making Science Public: Challenges and Opportunities'. She currently receives funding from the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to support cultural research on antimicrobial resistance in the farm environment. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Warren Pearce receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.</span></em></p>Promising scientific consensus is a perilous principle on which to found meaningful engagement between experts and the public.Sujatha Raman, Associate Professor in Science and Technology Studies, University of NottinghamWarren Pearce, Faculty Fellow (iHuman), University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.