ABSTRACT
Everything can now be known and nothing is fully believable. This is a problem. Western, Liberal democracies have traditionally organized their politics and societies around shared understandings of the world, and while differences have perhaps always existed between official means of presenting and legitimating these understandings and the local or vernacular means of legitimating them (see Coupland 2003), seldom before now has so much tension existed between these two domains. Challenges to the official versions of news, history, science, and other explanations of the world are widespread and well-organized on a range of topics. These contest the authenticity of the official stories and in so doing illuminate the often overlooked politics and practices taking place just under the surface of contemporary public discourse.
