Information, Misinformation and Disinformation: European Integration in a Time of Post-Truth Politics

Abstract

Post-truth politics constitutes an increasing challenge to democratic governance in numerous ways. Most fundamentally, the rise of digital and social media presents ample opportunities both for the inadvertent spread of mis-information and for the deliberate spread of dis-information, especially since recent technological developments facilitate the abuse of social media for manipulative purposes. In addition, the recent surge in right-wing populism – both in Europe and elsewhere – has been accompanied by an increasing rejection of traditional mainstream media outlets. Particularly noteworthy in this context is that right-wing populists in various countries have managed to construe quality journalism, in particular public-service journalism, as part of the biased liberal elite against whom they are rebelling. Prominent references to “alternative facts” furthermore suggest that the very notion of the truth is becoming increasingly contentious: what is factually true appears to matter less than what might be true, thus blurring the boundaries between fact and fiction, with all that this implies for the possibility of informed democratic debate. But ultimately, post-truth politics can also be approached as a matter of changing structural conditions, marked both by ‘policy without politics’ and ‘politics without policy’: while economic globalization and technocracy place constraints on the space for politics, populist politics tends to enact a mode of symbolic politics that does not allow for any viable engagement with policy substance. The aim of this panel is to reflect on the nature and implications of post-truth politics in the context of European integration. The panel invites conceptual/theoretical as well as empirical papers that address such issues from various disciplinary perspectives, whether from the point of view of developments at the European and/or at the domestic level.

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