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The post-truth moment comes at a time of deference for epistemic authority, which has serious implications for democracy. If democracy implies an epistemology, attempting to live a democratic way of life implies a theory about the nature of knowledge among other theoretical aspects (e.g. political and ethical). At the time of ‘fluid modernity’, the post-truth politics of renouncing truth damages the foundations of democracy, for how could we proceed with a democratic way of life without truth as a common denominator for deliberation? While a defining feature of the post-truth era is its intrinsic relativism, Gellner (2013) warns this could lead to ‘cognitive nihilism’. Thus, it is imperative to (i) find our way back to reasonableness (based on both reason and emotions) based on a Freirean dialogic middle ground, instead of renouncing truth (that is any notion of truth), and (ii) critically discuss possibilities for various approaches to truth-seeking. While it is important to question the foundation and reasonableness of truth, two crucial issues arise: which theory of knowledge and whose theory of knowledge should be accepted as the epistemological basis of truth? Moreover, this chapter will argue that a more plausible notion of truth is neither one that is based on intrinsic objectivity nor intrinsic relativism, but one that is based on the relationship between objectivity and subjectivity; that is a relational (nor relative) and dialectic understanding of truth which does not rule out the existence of facts but questions the political constructs of facts. The final section of the chapter focuses on the application of the understanding of truth as a relational dialogical epistemology. While arguing for a dialogical theory of truth, the chapter also problematizes the predominant view of evidence-based research and policy and offers an in-depth discussion of how our understanding of the relational dialogical notion of truth can be utilized in the analysis of cases involving pro-active discrimination and affirmative action.

The purpose of this study is to explore in depth the anatomy of post-truth in the quest to set a new research agenda. The author interrogates knowledge production/dissemination and the political positions of those behind them. This study diagnoses and challenges existing claims of supremacy of certain hegemonic epistemological and ontological orthodoxies that have been weaponized.

This study philosophically engages with different worlds of credible ‘pluriversal’ knowledge(s) and leads to the exposure of historically ‘taken-for-granted’ definitions of the nature and composition of acceptable truth and how it is deeply entrenched in interest group politics.

Each generation in different contexts has had to battle with specific troubling forces of deception and organized hypocrisy. Here, both new social actors and incumbents influence the disgruntled, deceive the gullible or connect with the enlightened masses at the emotional level whilst strongly undermining the rules-of-logic and fact-based discourses using disruptive social media technologies. The author specifies how the five P’s: political power, profits, populism, politics and the private visions of technologists and scientists will continue to play very influential roles in how knowledge production will affect future policies and global governance.

Based on historicized explanations, the author argues that deception and mass ignorance as weaponized features of global governance and its capitalist order are typical Machiavellian strategies for gaining control over knowledge production/information dissemination. Massive changes are not expected in the future unless society and academia introduce novel science, technology and political platforms for engaging society and policy-makers.

The author provides ample historical illustrations to support the claims made in this study that public insights into the postulated structures of post-truth remain extremely superficial, making people insufficiently informed to engage in crucial discourses about knowledge production and dissemination that affect their futures. This study provides several ingredients for stimulating further debate.

The study draws upon three accounts to examine post-truth politics and its link to accounting. In studying Petrobras, a Brazilian petrochemical company embroiled in a corruption scandal, the authors draw upon a politics of falsity to understand how different depictions of similar events can emerge. The authors depict Petrobras' corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures during the period of corruption juxtaposed against the Brazilian Federal Police investigation (the Lava Jato/Car Wash Operation) and Petrobras' response to the allegations of institutional corruption.

The data set consisted of 56 Petrobras reports including Annual Reports, Financial Statements, Sustainability Reports and Form 20-Fs from 2004 to 2017, information disclosed by the Brazilian Federal Police concerning the Lava Jato Operation and media reports concerning Petrobras and the corruption scandal. The paper employs a discourse analysis approach to depict and interpret the accounts.

Through examining the connection between ontic accounts and ontological presuppositions, the authors illustrate a post-truth logic underpinning accounting, due to the interpretive, contestable and contingent nature of accounting information. Consequently, the authors turn to the “ethics of the real” as a response, as citizen subjects must be cautious in how they approach accounting and CSR disclosures.

Rather than relying on simplistic true/false dualities, the authors argue that the “ethics of the real” provides a courageous position for citizen subjects to interrogate the organisation by recognising the role of discourse and disclosure expectations on organisations in a post-truth environment. The study also illustrates how competing, contingent accounts of the same timeframe and events can emerge.

To serve their clients in a time of post-truth discourse and fake news, librarians need to understand the post-truth phenomenon. The purpose of this paper is to examine it, what is being done in response to it, and specifically what libraries can do.

Recent literature on the post-truth phenomenon was examined. Traditional assumptions about the role of libraries in promoting democracy were questioned and an alternative view was put forward. Libraries’ responses to the post-truth phenomenon were examined and critically discussed.

Traditional assumptions about the role of libraries and information and democracy are outdated. The susceptibility of people to false beliefs and the persistence of these beliefs in spite of corrective information, is the product of many factors, including the evolving media ecosystem and psychosocial processes which are the subject of ongoing empirical research. It not primarily an information or knowledge deficit, hence there are no simple antidotes to fake news. Libraries need to rethink their responses.

The paper deals with very recent developments and relies heavily on informal online resources.

Relevant library activities are examined and suggestions are made for developing appropriate library responses.

At the time of writing this was the first attempt in the library management literature to engage in a systematic and thoughtful manner with the literature on the post-truth phenomenon.

This collection of essays has its roots in a collective desire to understand the workings of the post-truth society, and how education, media and technology may contribute to mitigating its worst excesses. This chapter introduces the origins of the book project.

The world's most popular noncommercial website is built on five pillars, which include an assumption of good faith and ensuring all points of view are included in every encyclopedia article. How does this pan out in the day-to-day reality of fake news and the ever-growing climate of post-truth? How apt are mechanisms established by Wikipedia over a decade ago in the face of unreliable news sources and beliefs based on gut feelings and emotions rather than verifiable evidence? Active editors of Wikipedia firmly believe that this open online encyclopedia and other wikis operating under the same value system are lifeboats for truth seekers in a post-truth society. The mechanisms established over many years for sharing open knowledge through this online platform are even more useful now than they may have been in previous times, even though this too is understandably debatable.

The purpose of this study is to examine the new normal within a continuum of three types of disruption, each of varying duration. References to the new normal draw attention to the periodic and rising importance of different levels, types, and consequences of game-changing disruption for those in governance roles.

In this conceptual research, given the discussion of a return to normalcy near the expected end of the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors organize the literature on disruption in governance into a disruption continuum – emergency, crisis and super crisis – to demonstrate the differences in each type of disruption to establish a distinct view of the new normal.

Within the three types of disruption, the first two suit the rational authority model in which disruption is turned over to those in governance roles. However, the rational authority model comes under attack in the super crisis and is increasingly associated with the post-truth era.

In Type 3 disruptions or super crises, the failure of those in control to set the parameters of the new normal raises concerns that the center no longer holds, and as a result, the assumption of an attentive public splinter into multiple contending publics, each with its version of data, facts and images.

The new normal is typically treated after the result of a black swan or rare and surprising long-lived disruption. In this work, the formulation of the recurrence, ubiquity and controversy engendered by super crises suggests that it is one of the features attenuating and giving rise to fractious incivility in the post-truth era.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest that librarians’ traditional methods of source evaluation – guided by the “Authority is Constructed and Contextual Frame” of the Framework for Information Literacy – do not adequately address today’s post-truth reality.

The authors will use the specific example of the release of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) National Climate Assessment report on November 23, 2018 and the subsequent Fact Check News Release published by EPA Headquarters on November 28 as a lens to explore the difficulty of teaching the Authority is Constructed and Contextual Frame in an era of alternative facts and fake news.

A brief analysis of human psychology, modern learning theories and Patrick Wilson’s work on cognitive authorities demonstrates that to provide effective information literacy instruction, librarians must do more to incorporate the social and emotional factors that individual students bring to the learning environment into current instruction practices.

This paper can be used as a resource for librarians seeking new strategies for information literacy instruction in the post-truth era.

Although a large body of literature exists to discuss the prevalence and implications of fake news in the post-truth era, few scholars have proposed solutions beyond a rededication to teaching critical source evaluation. This paper points to at least one new resource for source evaluation instruction which includes self-reflection among learners and points readers in a new direction to develop more.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, trust considerations have been amplified to levels not seen in most of our lifetimes. We have been asked to trust: epidemiologists, virologists and immunologists in terms of the nature of COVID-19 transmission and vaccinations; politicians, public health planners and policymakers in terms of the need for various responses such as lockdowns, school closures, border closures and economic recovery plans; media sources in terms of accurately reporting COVID-19 news; and members of our community in terms of doing their best to protect themselves and others from COVID-19 transmission, including mask wearing, hand washing, isolating and social/physical distancing. Within this chapter, we attempt to explore the emotional responses to this complex web of trust considerations from qualitative data in a study we conducted amidst the beginning of the pandemic. We then offer some interpretations about how trust considerations may have been altered as a result of living in and through the pandemic. We suggest that trust can be a primary emotion, or at least function that way during times of crises, and be (reflexively) deployed by citizens to manage emotional repertoires during crisis and to position themselves as responsible neoliberal citizens. We add understanding about the strains in horizontal/interpersonal trust relations during a pandemic – where the virus spreading between people necessitates social and relational distancing measures for containment – and inflames questions about whether or not we can trust each other.

Truth matters; and the norms associated with a democratic society, such as the common good, responsibility, ethics, and civic engagement, are under attack with the emergence of the post-truth society. There are concerns worldwide that public education is failing us on pushing back on disinformation. Schools are not seen as developing skills that permit students to adequately differentiate truth from nontruths. In this context, the education system also faces some unprecedented challenges. The quality of education in most of the world is low, and only slowly improving. Also, future workers are concerned with automation's threat – or perceived threat – to jobs. In most countries, education systems are not providing workers with the skills necessary to compete in today's job markets. The growing mismatch between demand and supply of skills holds back economic growth and undermines opportunity. At the same time, the financial returns to schooling are high in most countries, and growing skill premiums are evident in much of the world. Schooling remains a good economic and social investment, and there are record numbers of children in school today. The skills that matter in the coming technological revolution are likely the same as what is needed in a media environment of disinformation. More and better education, and noncognitive skills, will not only prepare students for the future world of work; they will also prepare them to navigate the increasingly complex post-truth society. They will be able to detect fake news – or deliberate disinformation spread through news or online media. It will also allow young people to gain trust. In other words, better education is democratizing, to the extent that it promotes truth, values, and civic engagement.