Populism, Fake News, and the Flight From Democracy

2021 ◽  
pp. 260-279
Author(s):  
Greg Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Imaginary Audience ◽  
The World ◽  
To Come ◽  
Populist Movements

Fake news and populist movements that appear to hold the fate of democracy hostage are urgent concerns around the world.  The flight from liberal democracy toward oligarchy has spread out from the unexpected results of the 2016 American presidential elections bringing in a wave of reactionary populism and the beginning of a left populist counter movement. The phenomenon of fake news is often explained in terms of opposition public relations strategies and geopolitics that shift audiences toward a regime of post-truth where emotion is said to triumphs over reason, computational propaganda over common sense, or sheer power over knowledge. In this chapter, the authors propose something different in order to theorize the imaginary audience(s) and conditions of reception for fake news treated as both a symptom (often of injury) and a cause (at times a danger to democracy). This leads them to evaluate the role it plays in defining what the fields of journalism, politics, and social science are becoming and what it means for democracy to come.

Populism, Fake News, and the Flight From Democracy

2020 ◽  
pp. 238-257
Author(s):  
Greg Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Imaginary Audience ◽  
The World ◽  
To Come ◽  
Populist Movements

Fake news and populist movements that appear to hold the fate of democracy hostage are urgent concerns around the world.  The flight from liberal democracy toward oligarchy has spread out from the unexpected results of the 2016 American presidential elections bringing in a wave of reactionary populism and the beginning of a left populist counter movement. The phenomenon of fake news is often explained in terms of opposition public relations strategies and geopolitics that shift audiences toward a regime of post-truth where emotion is said to triumphs over reason, computational propaganda over common sense, or sheer power over knowledge. In this chapter, the authors propose something different in order to theorize the imaginary audience(s) and conditions of reception for fake news treated as both a symptom (often of injury) and a cause (at times a danger to democracy). This leads them to evaluate the role it plays in defining what the fields of journalism, politics, and social science are becoming and what it means for democracy to come.

scholarly journals BREXIT AS A MANIFESTATION OF THE CRISIS OF LIBERAL DEMOCRACY IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The World ◽  
Populist Movements

The publication is devoted to the analysis of the UK exit from the European Union as a manifestation of the systemic crisis of the liberal democracy model. The causes and difficulties of this process are analyzed under the conditions of the failure of the political system to make political decisions. The problematic issues of liberal ideology and the model of liberal democracy were examined. The differences in the ideological convictions of the two founders of liberalism – Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, as well as the role of these differences in the modern functioning of liberal democracy in the United Kingdom. The role of globalization processes in the world in the context of the development and functioning of liberal democracy is analyzed. Some features of the course of globalization processes in the world are highlighted. The features of the existence of the European Union as an international supranational organization in the context of its influence on the functioning and stability of the political system of the United Kingdom are examined. The features of the functioning of the model of liberal democracy under conditions of strengthening the international way of making political, economic and legal decisions are emphasized. Particular attention is paid to the political motives of organizing of start of the process of the UK’s exit from the European Union, as well as the consequences of such a decision. In addition, the role of populist movements in this process, that have Euro-skeptical positions, has been established. The features of the functioning of populist movements are highlighted. The essence of the crisis of the model of liberal democracy in the United Kingdom is determined. The author analyzes the risks of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union in the context of a peace settlement of the conflict in Northern Ireland as one of the indicators of the crisis of the liberal political system. In conclusion is performed analysis of some results of the referendum on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.

5. What sociology is not

2018 ◽  
pp. 85-106
Author(s):  
Steve Bruce
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Social Reform ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
The World

‘What sociology is not’ considers how sociology should differ from related and apparently similar enterprises. Although sociology owes much to reformers and many sociologists derive their research interests from their moral and political engagement with the world, sociology must be distinguished from social reform. The problems of partisanship and relativism are discussed along with how social theory and sects within sociology can threaten the discipline. Sociology must be empirical, and in asserting that it must be a social science we must bear in mind the advantages and disadvantages that come from the discipline’s odd subject matter: ourselves. Common sense provides the best warrant for the possibility of social science.

Review

1942 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-65
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
Latin American Country ◽  
Complete Information ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Earth ◽  
To Come

It is seldom that a reviewer is privileged to point out to readers a book which has wisdom, experience, common sense, practicality, scholarship, and imagination all at once. To come upon such a book devoted to Latin America at this crucial turn in our relationships with her and to be able to recognize the book as a complete and accurate manual of economic, social, and anthropological conditions in each Latin American country is indeed to make a find. Perhaps it was not unexpected that it should be so. Professor James is a distinguished geographer who has devoted more than twenty years of study and travel to our southern neighbors. He is foremost among the geographers who know their subject to be as much social science ("human geography") as natural science. He has always been willing and able to turn to any source, academic or local, which will explain why and how people fit the surface of the earth. He has long explored the reasons for the failure of frontier expansion and population growth in Latin America and has gone far to find those reasons. But it is still nonetheless heartening to find the result up to expectations. There has been a myth current for many years that the Germans have an Institut für Geopolitik in which complete information is to be found on likely foreign areas. Whether or not the myth is true as to Germans, Professor James' Latin America could offer a model for any such effort. No Norteamericano diplomat, businessman, soldier, scholar, Indianist, traveler, who needs to learn of the conditions of life the other Americans have met and still meet can afford to miss it.

scholarly journals Fake News in Social Kurdish Media in Kurdistan Region

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 133-150
Author(s):  
Nawzad Sadiq Muhammad ◽  
Kamil Omer Sleman
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Communication Technology ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Focus Group Interview ◽  
Modern Technology ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Spot Area ◽  
The World ◽  
Social Environmental

Fake news becomes a phenomenon in the Kurdish social media. The easiness of use and the political and social environmental crisis of northern Kurdistan besides non-professional dealing by a number of journalists worsen the situation. Despite the fact that fake news does not stemmed from the modern technology of information and the advent of using media for psychology and propaganda war but, the easiness of accessing social media makes the online platforms to be the main mediums of disseminating fake news. The openness of northern Kurdistan towards new communication technology and the semi-freedom of journalistic working and partisan activities help this part of the world to be a spot area for spreading fake news phenomenon; which became an interesting topic for many scholars around the world mainly after the presidential elections of United States of America in 2016. In this exploratory study, focus group interview used for collecting data and thematic analysis approach adopted for analysing it. Results show that spreading fake news through the Kurdish social media becomes a prevailing phenomenon. Various political and economy purposes can be identified behind disseminating fake news. Adding to increasing activity of variety of pages and accounts created with this respect through different names. Although of prevailing of the phenomena, a number of procedures can be taken in order to put a line for common of the phenomena including covering fake news through creating parasite account and pages and detecting the source of such piece of information.

Fake News

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leticia Bode ◽  
Emily K. Vraga ◽  
Kjerstin Thorson
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Fake News ◽  
News Stories ◽  
The World ◽  
Different Types ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
Insight Into

Chapter 7 tackles the challenges posed by misinformation campaigns and fake news, an issue of growing concern in America and around the world. Following the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, academics and pundits alike struggled to make sense of what happened, and many pointed to the role of fake news and misinformation more broadly in leading voters astray in their assessments of the two major candidates for president. This chapter draws on survey data to investigate how media use in general, and use of social media and partisan media more specifically, affected belief in six fake news stories directly following the 2016 election. The analysis assesses whether use of different types of media affected belief in misinformation—including messages congruent and incongruent with their own candidate preferences—providing insight into what was to blame for belief in fake news in the 2016 elections.

scholarly journals Introduction: Special Issue ‘Complexity and Truth’

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Altmann ◽  
Robert Peters
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Bright Light ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Complex Society ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Religious Truth ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World

If not even earlier, then at the latest when Oxford Dictionaries selected ‘post-truth’ as Word of the Year 2016, did the global public become aware that ‘truth’ is not an uncontested and finite concept but a social construct. Are we, then, standing on the threshold of a new ‘post-truth age’ as – for instance – The Independent has claimed? (Norman 2016) Certainly, the Word of the Year 2016 has cast a bright light onto the case that there is not ‘one truth only’ but that there are facts that can be interpreted – or rejected – in different ways. This means that truth is ‘produced’, but is it produced as scientific or religious truth or as political truth? Just think of `fake news´ and its strategic use in influencing elections, as in the case of the latest presidential elections in the US or Brazil, or the leave campaign in the case of the Brexit referendum. Thus, the production of truth is undertaken by society, at least on the level of concrete actions. This situation becomes more complicated if we consider modern complex society. The increasing globalization of economies and societies has made the world more complex than it has ever before been.

The Legacy of Iraq

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
The World ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
Market Capitalism

This book critically reflects on the failure of the 2003 intervention to turn Iraq into a liberal democracy, underpinned by free-market capitalism, its citizens free to live in peace and prosperity. The book argues that mistakes made by the coalition and the Iraqi political elite set a sequence of events in motion that have had devastating consequences for Iraq, the Middle East and for the rest of the world. Today, as the nation faces perhaps its greatest challenge in the wake of the devastating advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and another US-led coalition undertakes renewed military action in Iraq, understanding the complex and difficult legacies of the 2003 war could not be more urgent. Ignoring the legacies of the Iraq War and denying their connection to contemporary events could mean that vital lessons are ignored and the same mistakes made again.

The Event Universe

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leemon B. McHenry
Keyword(s):  
Electromagnetic Field ◽  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Physical Theory ◽  
Alfred North Whitehead ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Theory Of Relativity ◽  
The World ◽  
Modern Physics ◽  
Linguistic Methods

What kinds of things are events? Battles, explosions, accidents, crashes, rock concerts would be typical examples of events and these would be reinforced in the way we speak about the world. Events or actions function linguistically as verbs and adverbs. Philosophers following Aristotle have claimed that events are dependent on substances such as physical objects and persons. But with the advances of modern physics, some philosophers and physicists have argued that events are the basic entities of reality and what we perceive as physical bodies are just very long events spread out in space-time. In other words, everything turns out to be events. This view, no doubt, radically revises our ordinary common sense view of reality, but as our event theorists argue common sense is out of touch with advancing science. In The Event Universe: The Revisionary Metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead, Leemon McHenry argues that Whitehead's metaphysics provides a more adequate basis for achieving a unification of physical theory than a traditional substance metaphysics. He investigates the influence of Maxwell's electromagnetic field, Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum mechanics on the development of the ontology of events and compares Whitehead’s theory to his contemporaries, C. D. Broad and Bertrand Russell, as well as another key proponent of this theory, W. V. Quine. In this manner, McHenry defends the naturalized and speculative approach to metaphysics as opposed to analytical and linguistic methods that arose in the 20th century.

The Book of Tribulations: The Syrian Muslim Apocalyptic Tradition'

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Cook ◽  
Nu'aym b. Hammad al-Marwazi
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
The World ◽  
End Of The World ◽  
To Come

“The Book of Tribulations by Nu`aym b. Hammad al-Marwazi (d. 844) is the earliest Muslim apocalyptic work to come down to us. Its contents focus upon the cataclysmic events to happen before the end of the world, the wars against the Byzantines, and the Turks, and the Muslim civil wars. There is extensive material about the Mahdi (messianic figure), the Muslim Antichrist and the return of Jesus, as well as descriptions of Gog and Magog. Much of the material in Nu`aym today is utilized by Salafi-jihadi groups fighting in Syria and Iraq.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document