Enabling Post-truth: Mediatisation and Affect

Abstract

This chapter first analyses the context of post-truth, namely, mediatisation, understood as the dominance of media logic in most social spheres. Such dominance has profound influence on both the political and the personal domains. In both cases, affective capacity has become of prime importance since encounters primarily take place in and through the media, meaning that one's social existence depends on the effectiveness of leaving an affective imprint on others. A theory of affective capacity is provided through a snapshot of the philosophy of Spinoza, focusing primarily on the centrality of striving to persevere in existence. The latter, in turn, refers to a deficit at the heart of existence which is the cause of a relentless (but futile) desire to achieve the pleasure of fullness.