Welcome to the post-truth politics. An internationally unique study of Western democracy’s most current threat.
Author: Antto Vihma, Jarno Hartikainen, Hannu-Pekka Ikäheimo, Olli Seuri
Finnish original: Totuuden jälkeen. Miten media selviää algoritmien ja paskapuheen aikana
Publisher: Teos, 2018
Genre: nonfiction
Number of pages: c. 200 pp.
Reading material: Finnish original, English sample
The hope was that the internet and social media would unite the world and strengthen democracy, but this was not to be. The 2016 US presidential elections and the UK referendum on Brexit shook the last of us awake: it was clear that the ways people engaged in politics and the rules of public discourse had fundamentally changed. Post-truth politics had eft our reliance on facts and reason in the dust.
Yet the world did not change overnight. Politica polarisation and digitalisation, the two key drivers of the post-truth era, have laid the groundwork in the course of decades. Together they pushed the traditional media into crisis, stripped experts of their former status and caused venerated hierarchies to crumble. All the while, the power of networks has grown. The rules of politics are in turmoil, along with the tactics of the players. In order to rise to the challenge, the media must find itself again.
Post-Truth: Media Survival Strategies in the Age of Bullshit and Algorithms is the first definitive and analytical interpretation of what post-truth means and how we’ve arrived at this point in history. It is an internationally unique and comprehensive study of the social and political transformations engendered by post-truth phenomena. The book demonstrates how at its core, this vital issue is about nothing less than the fate of western liberal democracy.
The book was nominated for the Kanava Award 2018, given yearly to the best nonfiction about political, social, economical, historical or cultural topics.
“Post-Truth explains, relates and returns things to their context”
– Suomen Kuvalehti periodical
“Post-Truth is a work of nonfiction written by gentlemen scholars who attack the lies and diversions of public discourse with analytical reflection and practical instructions for journalists.”
– Helsingin Sanomat newspaper
About the authors:
Vihma, Hartikainen, Ikäheimo & Seuri