Multiple scholars argue that communication in the Twenty-first (21st) Century has taken on new concerns and considerations due to the rise in social media technologies. However, others argue that contemporary communication concerns developing from communication technologies are simply variations on historical means of communication in both public and relational spheres. For example, some argue that traditional producers of communication, such as television executives, news directors, and politicians are forced to respond more directly to consumer values than in the past. Others maintain that communication to various audience groups has always needed to be aimed at specific portions of audiences, and so layered and subtextual messages have always been necessary to reach the largest possible audience groups. In particular, scholars argue whether new media technologies have allowed the rise of special interest consumers who purchase, respond, and vote based on specific and narrow ideological concerns and goals, rather than a more traditional broader approach to consumptive behaviors.
Alternative Facts: Post-Truth Public Communication
For example, Pew Research has shown that voter behavior in the 21st century is strongly issue-related, generating what they call political polarization of voters who act based on their standpoint within ideological silos (Pew, 2014a; Pew, 2014b). In other words, many people vote based solely on how they feel about one or two issues, rather than taking a more wholistic approach to understanding candidates and political parties. This also leads to both voters and non-voters choosing their news sources based on how that source reflects the biases of their ideological silos. Thus, a person committed to the ideal of gun control will vote for gun control supporters or the party they associate with that issue, and pay more attention to news sources about the candidates from gun control-friendly sites, rather than looking at what a candidate reflects on multiple topics. Similarly, someone supportive of the "pro-life" movement is likely to get their news from pro-life friendly sources and vote for a presumed pro-life candidate irregardless of party lines, or other political concerns.
In communication studies, we are interested in both the consumer behavior related to these trends, and how the messages being sold to these issue-based constituent groups are being produced, reproduced, marketed, and transmitted. This argument is particularly significant when you consider the role of "fake news" in contemporary politics. The term arose as a means of attacking far-right political news coming from non-traditional and highly biased news sources such as Breitbart. The term came to prominence in the US and UK during the 2016 election cycles that led to the UK's vote to exit the European Union (a.k.a. Brexit) and the election of President Trump in the US. "Fake news" was a label used to attack the producers of highly biased arguments and news reports that could not be supported by forensic evidence processes. However, Donald Trump and other's arguing from the extreme position began arguing back, claiming that more mainstream news was also biased, and producing "fake news" stories to undermine their political goals and actions. Thus, even the label of "fake news" is dependent on consumptive positionality and ideological polarizations.
The term then also became associated with a label applied to the era itself, "Post-Truth", a definition for which was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in late 2016 (Post-Truth, 2016). Post-Truth is defined as:
Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.
We can question how "new" such concepts are if we return to Aristotle and early Rhetorical histories. Sophistry and the appeal to Pathos are highly reflected in the "Post-Truth" discussions of the 21st Century. Post-truth politics then become strategic rhetorical constructions that become, for the constituencies that accept them, authentic fakes.
The polarization that results from post-truth communication practices also reinforces itself, through the process of "othering" those outside of the ideological silo-centered rhetoric. The process of post-truth communication is designed to advance particular interests and remove or deny any facts or data that would present potential counter-arguments to the argument idealized argument and strategy. Therefore, what we end up with are messages so specialized that they may be immediately rejected by persons associated with other ideological concerns, creating a serious lack of public communication that reaches beyond specified interest groups to a larger, mainstream audience.
Consider Presidential Counsellor Kellyanne Conway's discussion of the "Bowling Green Massacre", and subsequent responses to her statement by competing interest groups and individuals. Conway first made an initial reference to the Massacre as conducted by Muslim terrorists, and later explained these were "alternative facts" she used to illustrate how mainstream news ignores stories about terrorism hurting Americans. The negative responses illustrate frustration with facts and data that do not fit within understood perspectives and ideological concerns, and the serious challenge of ideological translation necessary for multilateral communication in the post-truth era.
Note the following parody meme of the "massacre", and how the communication cycle continues through media.
The Bowling Green Massacre example may be extreme, but it is strongly reflective of the animosity that generates from silo-driven post-truth rhetorics which are often aimed to attack oppositional perspectives. It also evokes the logical fallacies and idolatry that classical to contemporary Rhetorical scholars have argued about for centuries.
We Are All...: Post-Truth Relational Communication
Individual responses to political and cultural events such as the Bowling Green Massacre incident also reflect how the ideological silos with which people identify impact their performance of self. Memes indicating "never forget" and "we are all" Bowling Green were expressed on social media within minutes of Conway's mention of the non-event. Thus, the way we communicate ourselves through communication technologies, or our digital cyborg performance is also reflective of the post-truth era. Postmodern scholars in the Twentieth Century argued that the shift from rural community and collective group lifestyles to urban lifestyles created a fracturing of personal identities, resulting in conflicting personal selves for an individual. Stuart Hall (1992) explains:
The subject, previously experienced as having a unified and stable identity, is becoming fragmented; composed, not of a single, but of several, sometimes contradictory or unresolved, identities. (p. 275)
The fragmentation of self is further complicated by perception, and by the recognition of "feeling" or "believing in" a self being as significant as any scientific discussion of identity. Returning to the question of nature or nurture, if we believe in flexible identities, we destabilize the notion of a centralized, unchanging self. Therefore, facts of the self are tied to our experiences, our epistemologies, and our opinions, reflecting post-truth values.
In module 4 we discussed performativities and cultural scripts. If we consider the theories of performativity from scholars such as Judith Butler, we have the groundwork for a discussion on the multiplicities of identity that each individual self can perform. Add to this the ways we perform ourselves digitally and we begin to see that the way we perceive and interact with individual selves and identities is contextually dependent. The narrative architectures of communication technologies add layers or levels to the cultural scripts and even create specialized scripted performances that individuals use to market themselves to and interact with specified groups and persons.
Thus, the scripts we follow are influenced by the structure of communication technologies, and by the audiences that we can reach. The selves we perform through media and communication technologies include both the version of ourselves we upload, and the self uploaded by others. This further complicates our performed selves as we begin to see a blurring of public and private, as well as back-stage and front-stage identities in our self-performance. Take for example the following Wikipedia description of Robert Lawrence Kuhn (n.d.): "a public intellectual, international corporate strategist, and investment banker... [with a] doctorate in brain research." This label, reflecting a complex set of identities, is a discussion of the host of a PBS series, Closer to Truth (two episodes in digital form are in this module to help us investigate post-truth identities and selves). The Wikipedia entry itself reflects post-truth value as the site is not known for credibility. It also reflects Kuhn's public selves, performed for broad audiences.
Any of us using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media products are also performing a public version of self on these sites that can read a broad audience, but is simultaneously aimed at personal groups of friends and family. We can to some degree filter some things to only be seen by particular audiences, thus we use a form of digital face management to select what aspects of self should be available to various audience groups. Yet, this is also a major tool for our interpersonal communication practices. As such, we perform select identities, influenced by select groups not unlike those that guide politicians and producers to produce specified messages for constituencies. For example, we may choose to spread a meme indicating "We are all..." related to some cultural event or group. We pick and choose identity constructs to emulate, and join movements and use symbols to emulate group identity and membership status. And we are political entities in these spaces as well, reflecting the standpoints and political silos with which we associate and define ourselves. In a sense, as we interact with others through communication technologies we become public reflections of both ourselves and our polarized viewpoints.
Examining Post-Truth Communication
To determine whether communication technology has actually changed communication processes, or if it is a reflection of communication processes that have long existed, we should take a look at contemporary communication issues. To do this, consider the following questions:
How has communication technology changed in the past decades?
How have communication processes changed as a reflection of communication technologies?
Does communication rely on technology?
Have there been real shifts in consumption and production of communication and public messages due to communication technologies?
Have there been real shifts in the transmission of relational communication messages due to communication technologies?
Do traditional models of hegemony still influence communication?
Take a look at this example of contemporary communication behavior.
In particular, consider the nature of consumption and production in this example, and how the communication technology medium plays a role. Does the underlying message reflect a real change in communication behavior, or a compliance to traditional behavior that is masked by an apparent ability for consumers to produce?
References
Hall, S. (1992). The question of cultural identity. In S. Hall, D. Held, and T. McGrew, (Eds) Modernity and its futures, 273-326. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Pew Research Center. (2014a). Political polarization in the American public: How increasing ideological uniformity and partisan antipathy affect politics, compromise, and everyday life. Pew Research Center U.S. Politics & Policy. Retrieved from http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/...erican-public/
