Fake News in Contemporary Science and Politics : A Requiem for the Real?

This transdisciplinary book investigates the profound repercussions of living in a post-truth world in which 'alternative facts' and post-truth knowledge claims, often bordering on the absurd, have replaced the real in the collective imagination of millions of people around the planet. Through discussions on climate change denial, the anti-vaccination movement, the January 6th Insurrection and the Russia-Ukraine War, this study explores the gravity of the current 'infodemic,' or the increasing inability of a large segment of the population to distinguish between reality and misrepresentation, and the destabilizing impact this infodemic has on democratic models of governance around the globe, coinciding with the rise of autocratic forms of populism. Acknowledgments Competing Interests About the Book Contents About the Author Chapter 1: Introduction References Chapter 2: Climate Change Denial: An Ecocidal, Parallel Universe of Simulation Introduction Brief Historical Overview of Climate Change Denial: Hyperreal Smoke and Mirrors in the Service of the Profit Motive Dominant Post-Truth Metanarratives About Climate Change The Force of Proliferation in the Alt-Right Media Ecosystem The Hegemonic Role of Far-Right Populist Leaders The Ubiquity of Competing (Post-) Truth Claims in Evangelical Culture Counter-hegemonic Efforts to Restore Faith in Science Environmental Challenges from the Past Conclusion References Chapter 3: COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: The Ongoing, Hyperreal Saga of a Deadly Epidemic and Infodemic Introduction The Dawn of Modern Medicine and the Historical Backdrop of the Anti-vaccination Movement The Manufactured Pseudo-event That Preceded COVID-19: The American Ebola “Crisis” The Hegemonic Role of Political Leaders in Creating and Sustaining Hyperreal Fictions The Hostile Takeover of the Real in Online Echo Chambers and Alt-Right Media The Hyperreal, Anti-science Crusade Within the Evangelical Community Dominant Post-factual Truth Claims About COVID-19 in an Alternate Universe The Deconstruction of Post-factual, Anti-science Rhetoric Through Inoculation Theory Conclusion References Chapter 4: Alternative Facts Trump Reality: The Spectacular Anatomy of an Insurrection Introduction Brief Overview of Hyperreality in American Politics The Spectacular Rise of Donald Trump as a Celebrity Persona The Trump Administration’s Delegitimization of the “Reality Principle” and the Concept of Objective Truth The “Alternative Facts” Culminating in an Insurrection The Complicity of Right-Wing Media and Culture in the United States The Hegemonic Force of the Twittersphere and QAnon The Urgency of Contesting Alt-Right, Post-Truth Politics The Contentious Issue of Fake News Legislation Conclusion References Chapter 5: The Baudrillardian “Discourse of the Good:” Putin’s False Flag Operation to Denazify Ukraine Introduction A Brief Historical Overview of Dezinformatsiya in Russia The Shift from a Military Superpower to Sophisticated Forms of Informational Warfare Putin’s Hyperreal Stranglehold Over the Russian State Media Apparatus Putin’s Post-truth, False Flag Operation to Denazify Ukraine and His Complicity with Neo-Nazis in Russia The Baudrillardian “Discourse of the Good”: The Cinematic Hyperreality of the Ukraine War in Russia The “Prebunking” or Inoculation Theory Campaign Led by the Ukrainian Government and Western Allies Other Counter-hegemonic Efforts to Poke a Hole in the Fabric of the Hyperreal The Postmodern, Situationist Techniques of Russian Street Artists to Resist the Imposition of Hyperreality Conclusion References Chapter 6: Conclusion References Index