1. Introduction

1.1 Post-truth: What are we talking about?

To begin talking about this concept, it is important to try to establish a minimum theoretical framework that allows us to delimit the path along which we are going to proceed. The prefix “pos” or “post” of “pos(t)truth” does not so much refer us to a question of chronology or dialectical overcoming, but to the irrelevance into which the truth (and the truth) of facts have fallen in the post-truth era. Is it a lie or a fallacy? Of what kind and to what degree would it be, and what would be the purpose of ethics, journalism and communicators through traditional and digital media? What role will facts, evidence, theoretical frameworks and critical thinking play in this post-truth era? The Dictionary of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language (RAE) defines post-truth as “the deliberate distortion of a reality that manipulates beliefs and emotions in order to influence public opinion and social attitudes” (Post-Truth, n.d.). The Cambridge Dictionary (Post-Truth, n.d. a. ) considers post-truth to be related to a situation in which people are more likely to accept an argument based on their emotions and beliefs, rather than one based on facts. For the English Oxford Living Dictionary (n.d.b.), post-truth relates to or denotes circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than those appealing to emotion or personal belief. The two Anglo-Saxon dictionary definitions are not only very similar to each other, but basically aim to separate facts on the one hand, and emotions and beliefs on the other hand, to underline that the latter have a greater impact on the shaping of public opinion or audience. The Spanish source, on the other hand, refers to a deliberate distortion of reality by the enunciator with the preponderant intention of manipulating, and thus lying or misrepresenting. In this sense, post-truth would be close to the idea of Fake News, the latter being part of the universe of the former, and not synonyms, as we shall see (Brisman, 2018; Caridad-Sebastían, Morales-García, Martínez-Cardama & García López, 2018; Carrera, 2018; Carlson, 2018; Carson & Farhall, 2018; Hannan, 2018; Himma-Kadakas, 2017; McIntyre, 2018; Müller Spinelli & de Almeida Santos, 2018; Palomo & Sedano, 2018; Slavtcheca-Petko- va, 2018; Waisbord, 2018).

Post-truth, by including fake news, alludes to a much broader problematic spectrum (for example: epistemological, ontological-political, ethical-political, among others) than fake news (communicative, journalistic, among others). Hence, when operating together, fake news feeds post-truth. “Fake or fabricated news is disseminated expressly to earn money through “clicks” and “views”, and it is also used to mislead and misinform” (Cooke, 2018:VII). From this follows the conjecture that objective facts in the post-truth regime are less decisive than personal opinions or emotions in the formation of personal judgement and public opinion (Villena, 2017). Says Hannan, “the problem with focusing on fake news as the culprit of a post-truth world is that it does not explain what is promo- ting fake news” (2018:224). For McIntyre, “post-truth amounts to a form of ideological supremacy, through which its practitioners attempt to force someone to believe some- thing, whether there is evidence in favour of that belief or not” (2018:42).

Although post-truth as a socio-cultural-historical-historical-political-economic phenomenon has always been linked to the exercise of power, nowadays its emergence acquires new and dangerous nuances due to the impact of social networks in the hyper-connected world we live in, where power is decentralised to make it ubiquitous, diffuse, confused, without limits, as are some of the characteristics of the digital. In other words, post-truth acquires other complex functions, because with digital culture, which encompasses cyberspace, cyber-time, cyber-anthrope, it produces and reproduces the hyperreality in which we live (Haidar, 2018:2).

It should be noted that ethics and politics cannot remain immune to these types of communicative and informational practices due to the connotations that derive from them for decision-making in their daily lives as human beings, professionals, public-audience, consumers, voters, producers of knowledge, dispensers of justice, designers of public policies, citizens who make decisions regarding activities aimed at the common good, democratic coexistence and sustainable development, among other social roles. Closely related to the RAE’s definition of post-truth, Gelfert considers “that any definition of fake news is related to different forms of public disinformation and distortions in the communicative process” (2018:95). For Caridad-Sebastían et al. (2018:893–894), on the other hand, post-truth is due to a complex phenomenon in which three key elements coincide: 1) citizen habits shaped by access to and use of information; 2) the social and economic polarisation that spectacular capitalism has produced; and 3) the technological context and circumstances that affect practically all areas of citizens’ lives, thus producing a new culture. This complexity shows that the definitions, similarities and differences between fake news and post-truth are not so easy to establish and delimit. What cannot be denied, as Waisbord points out, is that “neither fake news nor post-truth is strictly about journalism. They are, however, indicative of fluid conditions in public communication globally that have destabilised modern assumptions about news and truth” (2018:1868). We can also agree that the post-truth society moves mainly in social networks (Cebrián, 2018). But since it does not exist only there in a neutral way, without causing effects and consequences in the lives of human beings, its control and surveillance is not only the responsibility of the people who work in the media where it circulates, but of all citizens (Marcos et al., 2017:22). This, together with the fact that the major political (states and governments) and economic (transnationals and mass media) powers are the main propagators (not without the conscious and unconscious help of citizens) and beneficiaries of fake news in this post-truth era. Thus, political truths have a high emotional component that is based on factors beyond a historical, economic and sociological analysis, or on an analytical reflection on global geopolitics, the capitalist economic system with its conditions and cycles of behaviour, the concrete conditions of education, the sociological-economic explanation of poverty or the conditions of competition resulting from globalisation. Political truths focus on the attack and defamation of an alleged perpetrator or enemy, which is constructed with manipulated data and, above all, images and audio that, thanks to their verisimilitude, seem irrefutable (Lomelí, 2019:359).It is therefore no coincidence that fake news is born and its distribution begins in the highest spheres of power, leaving the function of reproduction and massive or global redistribution to the users of social networks through the internet.