The Post-Truth Era

Analysis by Alexa Dadson

Historically, political decisions and debates have been informed by widely agreed-upon facts. However, as people increasingly use social media as a news source, and as journalistic institutions turn to sensationalism in order to compete, trust in sources formerly considered to be credible is decaying. Research institutions are accused of having political objectives or bias, adding to the widespread distrust. Disagreements over historical or scientific facts take up more time in political discussions than discourse about solutions to issues. This combination of factors has created a “post-truth era” characterized by a deteriorating consensus around public truth claims.

Post-truth denotes “circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion” than one’s personal belief or appeals to emotion. Public opinion is fragmenting into factions of people basing their beliefs on a wide range of sources with varying degrees of credibility, especially regarding political issues.

For example, after the 2020 election, the majority of Americans believed that the elected presidential candidate won the election fairly and that the election was conducted with integrity. However, there were many people who believed the election was rigged or stolen, despite the claims being widely debunked by experts and credible journalists. Some of those people went as far as to attack the United States Capitol because of these beliefs. 

We live in an era of disagreements about history, science, and current events. This situation creates fertile ground for conspiracy theories, which attempt to explain the unexplainable or make events fit a certain narrative. The decay of society’s collective understanding of truth can make some question what their knowledge was founded on in the first place.

The consensus theory of truth argues that most people believe what they believe because the ideas that are presented to them are largely undisputed within their social circles. For example, the majority of Americans believe the earth is round — but they probably don’t know how to prove this claim. Pythagoras and Aristotle used observations of lunar eclipses and the positions of stars as evidence for the earth’s round shape, but many people have never seen a lunar eclipse and don’t know how to chart the movements of astronomical objects. People have seen the curvature of the horizon and pictures of the spherical earth from space. But, most importantly, all the institutions they recognize as credible uphold the fact that the earth is round, so they do too.

Shared knowledge of facts is rooted in community trust. Few have the resources or expertise to replicate experiments or review primary sources. We rely on trust in the institutions that form society — corporations, churches, families, universities, political parties, news outlets, and social platforms — to build our information about the world. 

The fragmentation of reality we see in this post-truth era is the result of the increasing amount of information available through the internet. The rise of social media has enabled anyone with an opinion, idea, or theory to share it as fact with a (potentially) large audience, regardless of the content creator’s level of credibility or expertise. The nature of short-form videos and podcasts allows political commentators and conspiracy theorists to convey seemingly solid arguments without refutation or nuance. The communities that surround these “political commentators” are insulated enough to form new consensus realities based on new sets of “facts.”

This fragmentation makes it more difficult to have the political discussions that are essential for making progress. In the past, political debates were about differing values or political priorities. However, as society has moved into the 21st century, it has become more common for members of different political parties to disagree on even the most basic facts — despite clear expert opinions. Until bipartisan consensus is restored, progress in many policy areas may be at a stalemate.

Quoting statistics and citing sources rarely help people see eye to eye, but changing how we communicate facts may be a solution. Scientific findings and journalistic findings are often communicated as objective facts that can stand on their own. Doing so ignores the reality that arguably the most compelling part of a fact is the credibility of the network that upholds it.

Placing more value on how facts are found and by whom may help restore trust in research institutions, journalists, and other sources of information. People have often been willing to believe facts and ideas that are upheld by the network of people around them. Perhaps the close of the post-truth era will be brought about by better communication methods that extend the consensus within the lab to people outside of it trying to make sense of the world.

Sources and further reading:

AP News: “Repudiating Trump, officials say election ‘most secure,” https://bit.ly/3Z83vIv
Boston College Magazine: “Welcome to post-truth America,” https://bit.ly/4ffrXxJ
The New York Times Magazine: “Bruno Latour, the post-truth philosopher, mounts a defense of science,” https://bit.ly/3YlwoQX
The New York Times: “The age of post-truth politics,” https://bit.ly/3AdqQjp