Online media impact on politics. Views on post-truth politics and post-postmodernism

Abstract

Most of what is considered post-truth politics refers to known features of politics and political propaganda. These are old phenomena boosted by technology, and in particular by social media. To examine the background and genesis of post-truth politics, this article integrates in the analysis the impact of online media and the relativism of postmodernity, in which the truth is always a discursive construction, never a discovery. It also examines populism in the light of this approach. The analysis concludes that all these elements play a definite role in post-truth politics and that the so-called post-truth era is not simply a by-product of populism; relativism, the media and the uses of technology also play an important role.