Post- truth

 Post- truth

 Post- truth meaning in Cambridge dictionary.

Post- truth is relating to a situation in which people are more likely to accept an argument based on their emotions and beliefs, rather than one based on facts.

 More examples

• In this post – truth era, science is needed more than ever.

• The world has entered an era of post- truth politics.

• His lectures was entitled “Fake News in a Post- truth World”.

Post- truth  in politics :

 

Post- truth politics is a political culture in which debate is framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from the details of policy, and by the repeated assertion of talking points to which factual rebuttals are ignored.

 Post- truth in political commentators have identified post-truth politics as ascendant in many nation, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Russia, the United kingdom, and the United states.

In India post- truth in politics. Amulya Gopalakrishnan, columnist for Time of India, identified similarities between the Trump and Brexit campaigns on the one hand, and hot-button issues in India such as the Ishrat Jahan case and the ongoing case against Teesta Setalvad on the other, where accusations of forged evidence and historical revisionism have resulted in an “ideological impasse.”

Post- truth politics has been applied as a political buzzword to a wide range of political cultures; one article in The Economist identified post – truth politics in Austria, Germany, North Korea, Poland,  Russia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United states.

The surprising origins of ‘post- truth’.

“Post- truth” has been announced as the Oxford Dictionaries international word of the year. It is widely associated with US president-elect Donald Trump’s extravagantly untruthful assertions and the working-class people who voted for him nonetheless. But responsibility for the “post- truth” rea lies with middle class professionals who prepared the runway for its recent take-off. Those responsible include academics, journalists, “Creatives”  and financial traders; even the Centre- left politicians who have now been hit hard by the rise of the anti-factual. 

On November 16, 2016 Oxford Dictionaries announced that “post-truth” had been selected as the word which, more than any other, reflects “the passing year in language”. It defines “post-truth” as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”.

The word itself can be traced back as far as 1992, but documented usage increased by 2,000% in 2016 compared to 2015.

We first saw the frequency really spike this year in June with buzz over the Brexit vote and again in July when Donald Trump secured the Republican presidential nomination.

Given that usage of the term hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down, I wouldn’t be surprised if post-truth becomes one of the defining words of our time.

Punditry on the “post-truth era” is often accompanied by a picture either of Donald Trump for example, BBC News Online or The Guardian or of his supporters The Spectator. Although The Spectator article was a rare exception, the connotations embedded in “post-truth” commentary are normally as follows: “post-truth” is the product of populism; it is the bastard child of common-touch charlatans and a rabble ripe for arousal; it is often in blatant disregard of the actualité.

 The Role of  Journalism In A Post- Truth Era

“A lie can travel halfway around the world

While the truth is putting in its shoes.”

                                                            -Mark Twain

You are sipping your morning tea; suddenly, someone approaches you to debate on ‘homosexuality’. You try to censor every opinion you from to pave the way for objects facts. The other person, however, invokes his prejudicial thinking and goes on to find a rationalized rebuttal to everything you say, mostly entrusting his ‘Google University’. he also accuses you of cooking up a personalized version of the truth; therefore, he rejects everything that comes his way. Welcome to the post- truth world, where emotions and opinions influence people way more than facts.

The questions come to mind whenever one thinks of a post- truth world.

The post- truth era is not an exclusive event of the 21st century, people in the past, mostly dictators, have capitalized on this phenomenon to pitch one section of people against the other. One can quote examples of Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin who championed the application of selective exploitation of emotion to instigate mass approval of their dictum or disapproval of the feelings of Swathes of populations.

Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on current events based on facts and supported with proof or evidence. The word journalism applies to the occupation, as well as collaborative media who gather and publish information based on facts and supported with proof or evidence. Journalistic media include print, television, radio, Internet, and in the past, newsreels.

Fake news" is also deliberately untruthful information which can often spread quickly on social media or by means of fake news websites. News cannot be regarded as "fake", but disinformation rather.

It is often published to intentionally mislead readers to ultimately benefit a cause, organization or an individual. A glaring example was the proliferation of fake news in social media during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.