The truth society : science, disinformation, and politics in Berlusconi's Italy

Noelle Molé Liston's The Truth Society seeks to understand how a period of Italian political spectacle, which regularly blurred fact and fiction, has shaped how people understand truth, mass-mediated information, scientific knowledge, and forms of governance. Liston scrutinizes Italy's late twentieth-century political culture, particularly the impact of the former prime minister and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi. By doing so, she examines how this truth-bending political era made science, logic, and rationality into ideas that needed saving. With the prevalence of fake news and our seeming lack of shared reality in the "post-truth" world, many people struggle to figure out where this new normal came from. Liston argues that seemingly disparate events and practices that have unfolded in Italy are historical reactions to mediatized political forms and particular, cultivated ways of knowing. Politics, then, is always sutured to how knowledge is structured, circulated, and processed. The Truth Society offers Italy as a case study for understanding the remaking of politics in an era of disinformation. This book seeks to understand how a period of Italian political spectacle, which regularly blurred fact and fiction, has shaped how people understand truth, mass-mediated information, scientific knowledge, and forms of governance. The book scrutinizes Italy's late-twentieth-century political culture, particularly the impact of the former prime minister and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi. By doing so, the book examines how this truth-bending political era made science, logic, and rationality into ideas that needed saving. With the prevalence of fake news and our seeming lack of shared reality in the “post-truth” world, many people struggle to figure out where this new normal came from. The book argues that seemingly disparate events and practices that have unfolded in Italy are historical reactions to mediatized political forms and particular, cultivated ways of knowing. Politics, then, is always sutured to how knowledge is structured, circulated, and processed. This book offers Italy as a case study for understanding the remaking of politics in an era of disinformation. 'The Truth Society' seeks to understand how a period of Italian political spectacle, which regularly blurred fact and fiction, has shaped how people understand truth, mass-mediated information, scientific knowledge, and forms of governance. The book scrutinizes Italy's late-twentieth-century political culture, particularly the impact of the former prime minister and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi. By doing so, the book examines how this truth-bending political era made science, logic, and rationality into ideas that needed saving. With the prevalence of fake news and our seeming lack of shared reality in the 'post-truth' world, many people struggle to figure out where this new normal came from. The book argues that seemingly disparate events and practices that have unfolded in Italy are historical reactions to mediatized political forms and particular, cultivated ways of knowing The Truth Society 1 Contents 8 List of Illustrations 10 Preface 12 Acknowledgments 14 List of Abbreviations 18 Introduction 22 1. Manifest Disguise and Mediatized Politics 52 2. The Soldiers of Rationality 73 3. The Rise of Algorithm Populism 94 4. The Trial against Disinformation 117 5. Scientific Anesthetization in the Anthropocene 141 Conclusion: Mirrored Window World 163 Notes 186 Bibliography 202 Index 228 A 228 B 229 C 229 D 230 E 231 F 231 G 231 H 232 I 232 J 232 K 232 L 232 M 233 N 233 O 234 P 234 Q 234 R 234 S 235 T 236 U 236 V 236 W 236 Y 236 Z 236 Introduction : The Disinformation Society -- Manifest Disguise and The Rise of Mediatized Politics -- The Soldiers of Rationality -- The Rise of Algorithm Populism -- The Trial Against Disinformation -- Scientific Anesthetization in the Anthropocene -- Conclusion : The Mirrored Window Society : Customized Data and Democratic Futures "This book seeks to understand how the late-twentieth-century era of Italian political spectacle, which regularly blurred fact and fiction, has shaped how people understand truth, particularly mass mediated information, and in turn, scientific knowledge and forms of governance"-- Provided by publisher