In the era of openness where information could be circulated throughout the internet as a means to deliver the information, the purpose is all about to fulfil the demands of information. We could be easily accessing the information we need just by the grasp in your hands. As a human being, we tend to seek for information to enhance our knowledge, or to keeping up-to-date for the information that has been trending throughout the week or the day. Grace by the development of technology, both the media as a creator and readers as the viewers of information benefit reciprocally. One gain influence on the edge of media and information competition, the others benefit from the information that they receive.
Media is an inevitable part of democracy. The development of technology means also the rise of the new media. Everyone could be the creator of information to gain profit or either influence. It is a nature of democracy. Democracy guarantees the freedom of expression and opinion. Social media has played his part as an integral structure of democracy. They also share value of freedom of opinion and expression. Every person take their part to argue one and another, to express their opinion, to express the belief that they possess, to take part to influence one and another, to win the debate instead to discuss. Social media nowadays as much as like a battleground, an information war ground.
The democracy tend to have their own free-rider as new media rises to the ground. The political ground that gain benefit from media use their agenda to influence by the means of media. Disinformation, Propaganda, and Fake News is no longer new for us. It is integral part of democracy, but not in the positive way. Presidential election around the world from European continent, to continent of America, to the Middle-East and Africa, also in Indonesia after not long held their own Election, was prone to kind of Disinformation. The social media rises as war of information ground to gain the benefit of influence. The algorithm of social media also play their own part of personalization to the media social users by the filter bubble which produce the biased information one and another in the political spectrum, simply put the theory of echo chamber as the explanation.
The echo chamber theory of communication tend to fortified the same voice of the social media users by preference of information that they only want to hear, and mostly, rejects any voices of the contradictory narrative from what they tend to believe. Bias is simply human nature, this bias simply affect our action and our respond towards information, we do so often unconsciously, but it doesn’t mean we can’t critically think of different narrative that we mostly held. As what French philosopher, Jacques Derrida offers the theory of double reading and also Teun Van Dijk offers critical discourse analyses to counter the dominant way of narrative and understanding the sociocultural agenda through the media.
Definition, Roots, and Origin of Post-Truth
The terms “post-truth” defined by The Oxford Dictionaries as relating to circumstances which objective facts are likely less influential in shaping public opinion than the emotions and personal belief itself. The prefix “post” indicates the idea of the past in temporal sense. The “truth” itself has a meaning of words and concept about facts, what actually happened, what can be proved to be happened. Based on some definitions above, it is likely that the truth-value affects less than the belief someone’s held or the emotion itself. In the political information context, we are seems likely more biased and resistant by the narrative of some information that contradictory to our belief, whether report is true or a facts. Rather than critically thinking, any information we’ve received are likely to be rejected due to cognitive bias of individual point of view. This explanation led to unconscious bias.
Biases are either conscious or unconscious. It does affect our reactions and judgements. We mostly, didn’t aware of it because unconscious bias is the result of cognitive reasoning that was embedded in our brain long before we even realized. What does cognitive means? It is a mental process of perception where our knowledge, memory, judgment, and reasoning are involved. Another explanation of cognitive bias tell about the concept of human psychology to avoid physic discomfort and it is unpleasant to think of it. This concept called ego-defense.
Psychologically, as explained above, emotions count more than the facts itself. It is because emotions may be understood as complex feelings resulting in psychological and cognitive changes which influence thought and behavior. The priming of it is always emotion over reason and logic. It is debatable and complex because human after all is problematic because in the debatable arena, especially in polarized discussion, they either take one side of narrative or in other take a side to dispute the problem. We have to consider what is the background process of obtaining information to understand someone’s preferences because they have been long engaged to leaned biased information through observing and discussion.
The words “Post-truth” was traced back during year of 2016. It was coined during US election and era of Brexit. The Post-Truth explained as a form of politics where there is a willingness to issue warnings regardless of the events may likely to be happened without any real sense, a promises that there is no real commitment to keep, or claims that there is no reason to be true, all for electoral campaign gain purpose. The attitudes towards expert opinion, truth and evidences characterized what Fish explained as a post-truth. In the political arena like US election and Brexit, political figures enjoys debating with opinion that provoke sentiment. They likely to issued a problematic regardless there is any sense or chances of some events to happened, promising things during elections without real commitment to keep on for electoral gain, and making claims without any real reason to be believe that is true.
Post-Truth and Political Discourse
Machiavelli once said how praiseworthy to keep faith and to live with honesty and not by astuteness. It can be inferred that at the very moment, in political discourse of post-truth era, honesty wasn’t that promising, although noble, to gain influence. But the ability to deceive is one of the fastest way to gain influence and vote. The world of politics is a complex one because everyday there will always be a dispute whether one is true or not. And within politics there will always be a practices of lying, irony or hyperbole, misleading, and bullshit to earn political gain or to lessen the opposition influence. It is nature of politics. As mentioned above, politics purposes is all about gaining influence and power within the society no matter how they earned it, through noble or deceive.
Brexit and US election are two examples. The terms of post-truth itself as explained above was founded during 2016 where the two of them take places. As both campaigner plays their pivotal role over influence for their interest. The rise of disinformation and false news also mark the trends over the world, mainly used for politicians to take their advantage and electoral gains. Within the political context, facts as a broader is not merely necessary, but instead, it was selected to favors their campaign. Contemporary political context nowadays, mostly used by the right-wing politicians around the world. As how populist parties conduct a sentiment narrative to attack their contender and challenge the status quo. As a single truth is debatable, but from their point of view, is an alternative story they offer. For example how story about immigrant in Europe or US context both in Brexit and US Campaign that led to Euroscepticism, rise of ultra-nationalist and white supremacist in US to demand for Donald Trump campaign over wall and racial sentiment over immigrant, foreign workers and ghost of communist in Indonesia which lack of proof. As Cas Mudde say their aim is to provoke sentiment and anger of societies towards the current government, led to a concept of the people vs the elites. In a part of countries which use the system of democracy, it was meant to accommodate the unheard voice of interest group or minority group, but in a responsible way.
Today, we’re facing the challenges by the means of mass communication, the technology over the spread of the false news and disinformation which used by the politicians or interest group to accommodate their belief. It is consumed by various class of society no matter how old are they, or what education level they had, not even where they came from. The hate speech over one and another to divide public opinion led to polarization over political choices and beliefs, and it is much used to reinforce their political belief. The problem is, not everyone has the same level of understanding to accept or to hate.
References:
Mcintyre, Lee. (2018). “Post Truth”. The MIT Press
Sim, Stuart. (2019). “Post-Truth, Scepticism, & Power”. Palgrave MacMillan
Stenmark, Mikael. et all. (2018). “Relativism and Post-Truth in Contemporary Society: Possibility and Challenges. Palgrave MacMillan
Block, David. (2019). “Post-Truth and Political Discourse”. Palgrave MacMillan.
Cas Mudde. (2017). “Populism: A Very Short Introduction”. Oxford University Press
