A Political Theory of Post-Truth [Hardcover]

This book combines political theory with media and communications studies in order to formulate a theory of post-truth, concentrating on the latters preconditions, context, and functions in todays societies. Contrary to the prevalent view of post-truth as primarily manipulative, it is argued that post-truth is, instead, a collusion in which audiences willingly engage with aspirational narratives co-created with the communicators. Meanwhile, the broader meta-framework for post-truth is provided by mediatisationincreasing subjection of a variety of social spheres to media logic and the primacy of media in everyday human activities. Ultimately, post-truth is governed by collective efforts to maximise the pleasure of encountering the world and attempts to set hegemonic benchmarks for such pleasure.1. IntroductionIn A Political Theory of Post-Truth, Ignas Kalpokas offers a nuanced and lucid description of the conditions and content of a post-truth world, drawing particularly on the work of the seventeen-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza with support from the twentieth-century post-structuralist Gilles Deleuze. Going beyond cliches and superficial diagnosis, this is a perceptive, yet alarming, vision of an ever-more embedded post-truth future & . (Roderick Howlett, LSE Review of Books, blogs.lse.ac.uk, February, 2019)Ignas Kalpokas is Assistant Professor of International Relations and Development in the Department of Social Sciences at LCC International University, Lithuania, and Lecturer in the Department of Public Communication at Vytautas Magnus University, LithulC5