scholarly journals Teaching Rhetorical Praxis in a Post-Truth World: An Undergraduate Course on Detecting and Analyzing Bullshit, Fake News, and Alternative Facts

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 88-103
Author(s):  
Maureen Goggin
Keyword(s):  
Fake News ◽  
Alternative Facts ◽  
Exponential Rates ◽  
Inside Out

We are living in an era where reality, truth, and facts are being turned upside down and inside out. Fake news and falsehoods are being spewed out in increasing exponential rates. I was prompted to do something about the propensity of fake news through post-truth discourse and designed an undergraduate course that I titled: Bullshit, Fake News, and Alternative Facts. In this piece, I critically reflect on and share my theoretical frames for constructing the course, the design of it, my experience in teaching it, and report on a survey about the class—and I call all of you to work at least some material on post-truth into your classes or into a full course as I have.

Garden-Variety Formalist

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-60
Author(s):  
Colin Lang
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Bret Easton Ellis ◽  
Literary Achievement ◽  
Alternative Facts ◽  
Media Spectacle ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Complex Relationships

Recently, the effort to counter Fake News faced a counter attack: academic »postmodernism « and »social constructivism« it was said—because they say that facts are soaked in prior interpretations—are either purveyors of Fake News or set the cultural context in which it flourishes. They do so by undermining confidence in inquiry governed by simple facts. That is erroneous, argues William E. Connolly, because postmodernism never said that facts or objectivity are ghostly, subjective or »fake«. However, that what was objective at one time may become less so at a later date through the combination of a paradigm shift in theory, new powers of perception, new tests with refined instruments, and changes in natural processes such as species evolution. But the emergence of new theories and tests does not reduce objectivity to subjective opinion. Facts are real. Objectivity is important. But as you move up the scale of complexity with respect to facts and objectivity, it becomes clear that what was objective at one time may become subjective at another. Not because of Fake News or postmodernism. But because the complex relationships between theory, evidence and conduct periodically open up new thresholds. Colin Lang in turn rhetorically asks if »fake news« or »alternative facts« are a new carnival and Trump its dog and pony show? The idea of »fake news« and »alternative facts« as a carnival could not only help to see the constructedness of the media spectacle, but also provides a new perspective on Trump as an actor who is playing a particular role in this carnival, and that role is not one that any of us would describe as presidential. Many in the popular press have assumed it is just what it looks like, an infantilized narcissist, a parody of some Regan-era New York real estate tycoon straight out of a Bret Easton Ellis novel. The problem is that this description is all too obvious, and misses something fundamental about alternative facts, and the part that Trump is playing. A central assumption is, then, that the creation of alternative facts is one symptom of a more structural, paradigmatic shift in the persona of a president, one which has few correlates in the annals of political history. The closest analogy for his kind of performance is actually hinted at in the title of Trump’s greatest literary achievement: The Art of the Deal. Trump is playing the part of an artist, pilfering from the tactics of the avant-garde and putting them to very different ends.

El archivo invertido

Tábula ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 25-53
Author(s):  
James Lowry
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Open Government ◽  
Fake News ◽  
State Information ◽  
Open Government Data ◽  
Alternative Facts ◽  
Government Data ◽  
Sistemas De Informacion

Este artículo sostiene que el concepto de “umbral archivístico” del ius archivi en el que la recepción de documentos por un archivo sirve para autenticar esos documentos, se invierte en la era de los datos gubernamentales abiertos y de las tecnologías cívicas. Estas tecnologías crean una expectativa de transparencia que invierte la función del umbral. Sólo a través de la transmisión de datos desde los archivos al espacio público se puede determinar la autenticidad. En una época de “noticias falsas” y de los llamados “hechos alternativos”, esta dinámica es problemática y plantea interrogantes sobre la participación en los sistemas de información estatales. This paper argues that the ius archivi concept of the “archival threshold”, in which receipt of records by an authoritative archive serves to authenticate those records, is inverted in the era of open government data and civic technologies. These technologies of witnessing create an expectation of transparency that reverses the function of the threshold; it is only through the transmission of data out of archives and into public space that authenticity can be judged. In a time of ‘fake news’ and so called ‘alternative facts’, this dynamic is problematic and raises questions about participation in state information systems.

The Truths of Psychoanalysis

2022 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Psychoanalytic Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Alternative Facts ◽  
Knowledge And Practice ◽  
Critical Reflections ◽  
Ethics And Politics

Truth has always been a central philosophical category, occupying different fields of knowledge and practice. In the current moment of fake news and alternative facts, it is mandatory to revisit the various meanings of truth. Departing from various approaches to psychoanalytic theory and practice, the authors gathered in this book offer critical reflections and insights about truth and its effects. In articulations of psychoanalysis with (for instance) philosophy, ethics and politics, the reader will find discussions about issues such as knowledge, love, and clinical practice, all marked by the matter of truth.

scholarly journals Alternative Facts, Misinformation, and Fake News

Reality Lost ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 49-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent F. Hendricks ◽  
Mads Vestergaard
Keyword(s):  
Fake News ◽  
Alternative Facts

The rhetoric of factuality in narrative

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 352-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuli Björninen
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Theory ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Alternative Facts

Abstract The article presents a method for studying the factuality of narrative as a rhetoric. The need for such a method is apparent in the so-called post-truth climate, which sees us witnessing debates about semantic chimeras like “alternative facts” and “fake news.” The article arrives at its method by tackling challenges arising both in narrative theory and in fictionality studies. This involves developing models that let us take into account both the effects of local discursive features and the “macrogeneric” and “generic” frames guiding expectations about how communication is meant to work. The method is used in analysis of one of the controversial stories by the journalist Claas Relotius, who is currently being investigated in the forgery scandal of the magazine Der Spiegel.

scholarly journals Monday Mo(u)rning

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 72-78
Author(s):  
Gary Levy
Keyword(s):  
Primary School ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Alternative Facts ◽  
Civil Societies

This piece presents an imaginary scenario taking place in any typical primary school around Australia. It was developed for the special issue of Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal, on fake news and alternative facts, to show how these may arise in everyday practices.

This I Know to be True

Ethnologies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-110
Author(s):  
Kari Sawden
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Alternative Facts ◽  
Ongoing Relationship ◽  
External Sources ◽  
News Headlines

Working within alternative belief communities, I frequently encounter a tension between what is felt to be authentic and the facts provided by external sources. Even a cursory glance at the news headlines and social media postings that saturate daily life with terms such as “fake news” and “alternative facts” reveals that this is not an isolated struggle. Focusing on the ways in which contemporary Canadian divination practitioners establish their own truth, this paper examines how these processes reflect and support folklore’s engagement with and ongoing relationship to the emergence of multiple authenticities defined by the experiential.

scholarly journals Jesus, Nietzsche und Trump. Wahrheit, Irrtum und Lüge in Religion, Philosophie und Politik

conexus ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 145-174
Author(s):  
Matthias Neugebauer
Keyword(s):  
Sich Eine ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Alternative Facts

Erkenntnisse im Sinne von wahren Erkenntnissen und Irrtümer im Sinne von nachweislich irrtümlichen oder irreführenden Behauptungen gibt und gab es in der Theologie, in der Philosophie und in der Politik. Für die genannten drei Bereiche stehen die Namen Jesu, Nietzsches und Trumps. Donald Trump und die mit seinem Namen verknüpften «alternative facts» beziehungsweise «fake news» stehen für einen Politikstil, bei dem die Grenzen zwischen Wahrheit, Irrtum und Lüge fatal verschwimmen. Dabei erinnert an Trumps Gebaren manches an den von Nietzsche divinierten Übermenschen. Natürlich: Trump ist nicht der «Übermensch». Aber Nietzsche argumentierte leidenschaftlich dafür, das Konzept Wahrheit als Ganzes zu verabschieden. Massgeblich ist nur, was der Übermensch sagt. Nietzsches entschiedene Reserve gegenüber dem Wahrheitsparadigma erreicht einen Höhepunkt in dem berühmten Satz: «Wahrheit ist die Art von Irrtum, ohne welche eine bestimmte Art von lebendigen Wesen nicht leben könnte». Nietzsches Kritik am Wahrheitsparadigma zielte vor allem auch auf das christliche Wahrheitsverständnis. Ein an dieser Stelle einschlägiger Spitzensatz Jesu lautet:  «Ich bin […] die Wahrheit» (Joh 14, 6) - ein Satz, der leider auch zum Ausgangspunkt zum Teil verheerender Irrtümer geworden ist. Jesus, Nietzsche und Trump stehen für ganz unterschiedliche Sortierungen von Wahrheitserkenntnis und Irrtum. Hier tut sich eine reizvolle Konstellation auf, die in einen systematischen Zusammenhang gebracht wird und auf die Frage zielt: Was bedeutet das für unsere Rede von Wahrheitserkenntnis und Irrtum?

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document