O papel das redes sociais no contexto atual de pós-verdade

Abstract

In 2016, the department of Oxford University responsible for dictionary development compositions, chose “post-truth” as the English language word of the year2 — an adjective defined as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” This is one the indicators that post-truth has grown in proportions. As a result, it can be hypothesized that the main facilitator is the ability to propagate content that the internet, and especially social networks, provide. It seems that the world has been permeated by these types of emotional content, and there is not much to ask about the actuality of the phenomenon. However, some reflections will be necessary to understand how the absence of this influence occurred in other periods of time and how all these sets of events anticipated aspects of what is now called “post-truth”. We have developed ourselves throughout our lives on the values imposed by society — values that determine rules through culture, which is defined by Clifford Geertz (1989) in The Interpretation of Cultures, as a web of meanings involving man at the same time as he creates it, “an interpretive science, in search of meaning.” Although recent, the concept of post-truth insinuates an ambiguity that can be identified prior to its creation. This research aims to investigate more systematically the inception of this word, and to what extent it can be applied to older facts or if it can only be used in reference to the recent context in which it appears. For this reason, the concepts of truth and lies must be addressed as they have been studied by philosophy and related fields. This and other points of views will be discussed, choosing how to analyse the role played by social networks in this universe