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Media & Communication Media and Communications in the Post-Truth Era
You have likely heard it said that we live in the post-truth era. Does this mean that there is no truth anymore, or that we have no access to truth?
Thankfully, no.
It means that society has gravitated toward a norm in which it is acceptable for people to form opinions from their affiliations, identities, and emotions over careful consideration of credible sources. It means that sources themselves are becoming increasingly difficult to discern as credible in the first place. It means that punditry and news journalism can be difficult to distinguish, and that algorithmically retrieved and AI generated sources may or may not be accurate enough to engage.
So, “we live in a post-truth era” really means that information-seekers must think critically about word usage. Especially where matters of race, racism, and all the intersectionally interrelated -isms are concerned, antiracist information-seekers should engage in critical reading of news, scholarship, journalism, social media, digital media, and all AI-generated information.
Here are a few examples of word-level critical inquiry from the ARPC’s in-development work on word usage:
What is the meaning of “wokeness," and how is that meaning being altered in some factions of political and public discourse?
Wokeness is an AAVE (African American Vernacular English) word. It was coined in the Black community to signal a state of mind in which a person has the critical consciousness to accurately interpret a given idea, action, or other phenomenon. Many Black people use the term “stay woke” to encourage each other to keep learning about truth in history and current events, especially where people in that community could be harmed by ignorance to detrimental phenomena. However, there has recently been a semantic shift or equivocation in political discourse that advances a revised definition.
Today, the counter-definition equates wokeness with things like anti-patriotic mindsets, “reverse racism,” and liberal or left-leaning politics. This counterdefinition is being used to label a very broad range of progressive perspectives, while the original definition is being used by communities continuing to call attention to ideologies and initiatives that endanger minoritized people.
What is CRT, and how is the meaning of the term being altered in some factions of political and public discourse?
Critical Race Theory (CRT) is an analytic framework developed first in the legal profession and then adapted for subsequent disciplines like education, social science, political science, and writing studies. According to an interview with CRT writing scholar Aja Martinez, “The tenets of critical race theory include racial realism or recognizing and working from circumstances as they exist; a commitment to social justice; the centrality of the experiences, knowledge and voices of people of color; and interest convergence, which is the belief that progress on the rights of marginalized people only happens when those actions also benefit the privileged.” Storytelling from marginalized perspectives is important to practitioners of CRT.
Today, there is a counter-definition that implies anti-patriotic mindsets, “reverse racism,” and liberal or left-leaning politics. It is this counterdefinition that is being used to dismantle multiculturalism in education, and it is the original definition that is being used by those pushing back.
What is antisemitism, and to what end is the meaning of the term being altered in various politicians and participants in public discourse?
Antisemitism is a pernicious and discriminatory mindset in which the antisemite holds (internal) prejudices and/or (external, aggressive) hostilities against Jewish people. It describes the bigoted worldview held by those undertaking individual acts of discrimination and large-scale atrocities like the Holocaust. The term itself is akin to Islamophobia and other forms of hate that drastically affect the well-being of members of religious minorities.
Today, there is a counter-definition of antisemitism that equates it with personal and political opposition to Zionist actions. This conflation of the two terms enters public political discourse most frequently as silencing of opposition to the Israeli/Zionist/Likud Party genocidal war on the nation of Palestine. However, Jewish people hold a wide range of perspectives on Zionism, including opposition. Thus the conflated use of this term may actually harm Jewish people in the long run, as any generalization of a large population of people lends itself to monolithic regard and further discrimination. It is also profoundly dangerous to humanitarians, disruptive of free speech in public and campus discourse, and unfathomably destructive toward the Palestinian people.
Why does the ARPC care about words?
As the ARPC’s “What We Believe” statement makes clear, “knowledge production, analysis, and dialogue are vital for social transformation.” However, “rhetrickery” (Booth, 2004) and obfuscation of meaning are frequently leveraged toward repression. Thus we consider word-use clarity a liberatory communicative act worthy of analysis and dialogue.
