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Fact-based democracy or agonistic pluralism? A critical examination of the idea of a post-truth era
Malmö University, Faculty of Culture and Society (KS), School of Arts and Communication (K3).ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2272-7174
2018 (English)Conference paper, Oral presentation with published abstract (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

The rapid rise of fake news as a ubiquitous signifier in global politics has caused widespread debate in democratic societies concerning the distinction between true and false. A number of media professionals and scholars have argued that we might be entering a dysfunctional post-truth or post-factual era in which facts move to the background of political decision-making. According to this position, democracy is shifting from a rational to an emotional political system, as politicians no longer concern themselves with the distinction between fake and real. In order to solve this crisis, facts need to be repositioned at the center of decision-making, enabling rational discussion and consensus-based solutions. As this paper argues, however, such a ‘post-truth antidote’ might not be as free and democratic as it seems on the surface. This theoretical paper critically examines the notion of the post-truth era and its underlying ideal of a fact-based democracy. Departing from Chantal Mouffe’s theory of agonistic pluralism, the paper discusses how the proposed solution of (re-)establishing fact-based democracy could result in less freedom of thought and expression. Following the theory of agonistic pluralism, the core value of any democracy lies in its ability to give voice to opposing groups and mitigate between them. What distinguishes democratic politics, then, from say a dictatorship is not the degree of consensus it can produce, but rather the degree of accepted disagreement it can contain. From this perspective, ideals of finding one true solution to any societal issue are inherently problematic, as they fail to acknowledge how decision-making always arise as the result of discursive struggles. Building on this theoretical foundation, the paper argues that the notion of a dysfunctional post-truth era fails to encapsulate contemporary politics, as it both implicitly and explicitly idealizes consensus and objectivity over freedom of expression and agonistic pluralism.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2018.
Keywords [en]
discourse theory, post-truth, fake news, Chantal Mouffe, Ernesto Laclau, Deliberative democracy, Donald Trump, freedom, truth
National Category
Social Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-10819Local ID: 24749OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-10819DiVA, id: diva2:1407862
Conference
Media Freedom : International Symposium at Lund University, Lund, Sweden (15/03/2018)
Available from: 2020-02-29 Created: 2020-02-29 Last updated: 2022-04-26Bibliographically approved

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http://www.kom.lu.se/en/research/konferenser-och-natverkstraffar/media-freedom/

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Farkas, Johan

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  • apa
  • ieee
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