Stop Talking about Fake News!
Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 62 (9-10):1033-1065 (2019)
Abstract
Since 2016, there has been an explosion of academic work and journalism that fixes its subject matter using the terms ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’. In this paper, I argue that this terminology is not up to scratch, and that academics and journalists ought to completely stop using the terms ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’. I set out three arguments for abandonment. First, that ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’ do not have stable public meanings, entailing that they are either nonsense, context-sensitive, or contested. Secondly, that these terms are unnecessary, because we already have a rich vocabulary for thinking about epistemic dysfunction. Thirdly, I observe that ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’ have propagandistic uses, meaning that using them legitimates anti-democratic propaganda, and runs the risk of smuggling bad ideology into conversations.
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2018-07-16
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2018-07-16
Total views
3,150 ( #1,073 of 69,074 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
315 ( #1,426 of 69,074 )
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