The elective affinity between post-truth communication and populist politics
Abstract
Here I propose an ‘elective affinity’ between populism and post-truth communication. Trends in public communication, specifically the breakdown of the twentieth century mass media order and the consolidation of disaggregated mediated spheres, lay the ground for populist politics. The upsurge of populist politics is symptomatic of the consolidation of post-truth communication as a distinctive feature of contemporary politics. The kind of post-truth politics represented by populism thrives in the current conditions of public communication. Populism’s Manichean politics stands in opposition to the possibility of truth-telling as a collective effort to produce agreed-upon facts and reach consensus on the correspondence between assertions and reality.
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Los líderes populistas han utilizado la desinformación como herramienta estratégica para difundir sus mensajes y consolidar su apoyo político.
“Los líderes populistas han utilizado la desinformación como una herramienta estratégica para difundir sus mensajes y consolidar su apoyo político (Waisbord, 2018).”
From Populismo, desinformación y polarización política en la comunicación en redes sociales de los presidentes populistas latinoamericanos (2024) · cites this paper as Waisbord, 2018
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References 37 · Cited by 411
- Authors
- Waisbord, S.
- Affiliations
- George Washington University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Waisbord, Silvio
- ORCID
- Waisbord, Silvio
- Venue
- Communication Research and Practice
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2018-01-02
- Volume
- 4
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 17-34
- ISSN
- 2204-1451 (ISSN-L)
- 2206-3374
- OpenAlex
- W2784662992
- Cited by
- 411
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 59 · 2025: 57 · 2024: 60 · 2023: 49 · 2022: 59 · 2021: 68 · 2020: 35 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 5
- FWCI
- 138.18
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Communication Research and Practice (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Populism, Right-Wing Movements
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Social Sciences › Communication › Social Media and Politics
- Keywords
- populism, populist politics, public communication, truth-telling, consensus
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