ABSTRACT
This book explores the challenges that disinformation, fake news, and post-truth politics pose to democracy from a multidisciplinary perspective. The authors analyse and interpret how the use of technology and social media as well as the emergence of new political narratives has been progressively changing the information landscape, undermining some of the pillars of democracy.
The volume sheds light on some topical questions connected to fake news, thereby contributing to a fuller understanding of its impact on democracy. In the Introduction, the editors offer some orientating definitions of post-truth politics, building a theoretical framework where various different aspects of fake news can be understood. The book is then divided into three parts: Part I helps to contextualise the phenomena investigated, offering definitions and discussing key concepts as well as aspects linked to the manipulation of information systems, especially considering its reverberation on democracy. Part II considers the phenomena of disinformation, fake news, and post-truth politics in the context of Russia, which emerges as a laboratory where the phases of creation and diffusion of fake news can be broken down and analysed; consequently, Part II also reflects on the ways to counteract disinformation and fake news. Part III moves from case studies in Western and Central Europe to reflect on the methodological difficulty of investigating disinformation, as well as tackling the very delicate question of detection, combat, and prevention of fake news.
This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of political science, law, political philosophy, journalism, media studies, and computer science, since it provides a multidisciplinary approach to the analysis of post-truth politics.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |16 pages
Introduction
part I|87 pages
Post-truth politics and the challenges to democracy
chapter 4|11 pages
How Post-Truth Politics Transformed and Shaped the Outcome of the 2016 Brexit Referendum
part II|50 pages
From disinformation to post-truth politics
chapter 8|12 pages
Lie to Live
chapter 9|13 pages
Playing the Russian Disinformation Game
chapter 11|12 pages
Responding to Alleged Russian Interference by Focussing on the Vulnerabilities That Make It Possible
part III|71 pages
Dilemmas of contrasting disinformation and fake news