Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Fake News in
Contemporary
Science and Politics
A Requiem for the Real?
Keith Moser
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
We Don’t reply in this website, you need to contact by email for all chapters
Instant download. Just send email and get all chapters download.
Get all Chapters For E-books Instant Download by email at
etutorsource@gmail.com
You can also order by WhatsApp
https://api.whatsapp.com/send/?phone=%2B447507735190&text&type=ph
one_number&app_absent=0
Send email or WhatsApp with complete Book title, Edition Number and
Author Name.
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Fake News in Contemporary Science and Politics
“In this compelling new book, Keith Moser powerfully illustrates how post-truth
peddlers have hijacked postmodernism to advance wildly absurd “alternative facts”
and conspiracy theories. From misinformation about climate change and
COVID-19 to Russian propaganda, Moser takes a much needed stance in favor of
reclaiming evidence-based narratives and the important role of the humanities in
promoting critical thinking around the globe. But how you might ask? The answer
is simple: read this book!”
—Sander van der Linden, University of Cambridge (United Kingdom)
“Moser’s latest book provides a critical analysis of the underpinning of the explosive conversations on fake news, misinformation, and lying in the contemporary
media world and public sphere. Moser’s highly original and illuminating approach,
grounded in postmodern theory, persuasively demonstrates that truth, reality, and
democracy are all at stake.”
—Douglas Kellner, University of California, Los Angeles (United States)
“Moser’s book makes a heroic effort to grapple with the major problem of our
political culture: the replacing of weighing statements for their truth value by
unreflective repetition of biases. Moser does not just moan about the hyperreal.
His last chapter provides convincing hopes for a cure that everyone should read.”
—Charles Altieri, University of California, Berkeley (United States)
“Recently, thanks to the feats of AI, Twitter, political propaganda pretending to be
news, brainwashing advertisements, big pharma greed and jingoism dressed up as
“national security”-paranoia, robust reality went six feet under. This fearlessly
truthful, philosophically sophisticated yet jargon-free ‘global warning’ for good
science and caring politics offers us—not a requiem, but a resurrection. A paradigm of parrhesia!”
—Arindam Chakrabarti, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy,
University of Hawaii, Manoa (United States)/Professor of Philosophy,
Ashoka University (Sonipat, India)
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
“Our civilization, mother of the Ancient Greeks, the Renaissance and the
Enlightenment, is based on the development of rationality, particularly scientific,
and the search for truth. In his masterful book, Moser demonstrates that the
spread of fake news and “false truths” generates waves that threaten humanity with
a terminal apocalypse.”
—Gérard Gouesbet, University of Rouen Normandy (France)
“Drawing on postmodern continental French philosophy, Moser’s timely exposé
of the social impacts of hyperreality and its proliferation, delivers a politically
charged interrogation of alternative facts and the post-truth era, from Covid and
climate change to the war in Ukraine, with insightful and sophisticated analyses of
our current cultural predicament.”
—Isaac Joslin, Arizona State University (United States)
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Keith Moser
Fake News in
Contemporary Science
and Politics
A Requiem for the Real?
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
I would like to dedicate this book to all the teachers who taught me to not
believe everything that I read, see, or hear. To all educators in the twenty-­
first century, I wish you the best of luck helping your students navigate the
murky epistemic waters that are emblematic of contemporary life. To
Addison, may you one day inherit a world that is less scarred by the visible
effects of fake news and conspiracy theories.
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
About the Book
Heavily grounded in French postmodern theory, this transdisciplinary
reflection investigates the profound repercussions of living in a post-truth
world in which “alternative facts” have replaced the real in the collective
imagination of millions of people around the planet. The gravity of the
current infodemic, or the increasing inability of a large segment of the
population to distinguish between reality and its ubiquitous misrepresentation on a plethora of divergent screens, not only threatens the existence
of every sentient being on this planet at the advent of the AnthropoceneTechnocene, but has also destabilized democratic models of governance
around the globe coinciding with the rise of autocratic forms of populism.
As evidenced by climate change denial, the anti-vaccination movement,
the January 6th insurrection, and Putin’s calculated informational warfare,
contesting the scourge of fake news that has created an alternative version
of (hyper-) reality is now a matter of life and death for the human and
other-than-human population. As we become more submerged in a deluge of post-truth metanarratives with each passing day, which have hollowed out our already tenuous grasp of reality to the point of delegitimizing
all truth claims, is a requiem for the real on the horizon as the planet teeters on the edge of oblivion?
Divided into two main parts, this book probes the deleterious effects of
the incessant transmission of a steady stream of post-truth knowledge
claims that sometimes border on the absurd in both the scientific and
political arena. In this regard, Chap. 1 deconstructs the anti-science rhetoric promulgated by Big Carbon and Alt-Right media outlets, including the
ix
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
We Don’t reply in this website, you need to contact by email for all chapters
Instant download. Just send email and get all chapters download.
Get all Chapters For E-books Instant Download by email at
etutorsource@gmail.com
You can also order by WhatsApp
https://api.whatsapp.com/send/?phone=%2B447507735190&text&type=ph
one_number&app_absent=0
Send email or WhatsApp with complete Book title, Edition Number and
Author Name.
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
x
About the Book
Murdoch empire that reverberates throughout online echo chambers in
cyberspace. Within these information silos, the simulators of hyperreality
have successfully sown the seeds of epistemic doubt despite the overwhelming consensus amongst the scientific community that anthropogenic climate change is indeed an existential threat. In a brave new world
in which life-saving vaccines have nearly eradicated deadly diseases such as
measles, mumps, rubella, and polio that decimated our not-so-­distant
human ancestors, Chap. 2 delves into the initially baffling phenomenon of
COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Similar to global warming skepticism, the
anti-vaccination movement demonstrates that trust in scientific explanations of the world has been eroded by far-fetched conspiracy theories that
find their origins outside of concrete reality.
The final two chapters illustrate how leaders around the world have
harnessed the force of the hyperreal like never before to manufacture their
own (post-) truth that is often contradicted by a litany of proof. Building
upon the theories of Jean Baudrillard and Guy Debord, Chap. 3 recounts
the harrowing story of America’s first Twitter president, whose entire
presidency could be described as a pure simulacrum, that culminated in a
violent coup d’état attempt sending shock waves around the world. The
January 6th insurrection also sounded the alarm that alternative facts have
real-life consequences, especially when these “signs” in the semiotic sense
obfuscate other truth claims supported by nearly irrefutable evidence
linked to treason, election tampering, and the intended overthrow of a
democratically elected government. The last chapter devoted to Putin’s
digital iron curtain in Russia reveals that the dawn of post-truth politics is
a global predicament that knows no borders. Owing to his stranglehold
over the dissemination of disinformation to the masses in Russia through
a state media consortium that includes Russia-1, Russia-24, Russia-K,
Radio Mayak, Radio Rossii, and Vesti FM in addition to a cyber squad
comprised of elite hackers and trollers, Putin has been able to create a
political spin justifying his unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine that
only makes sense within the confines of the hyperreal. Trump’s “Stop the
Steal” campaign and Putin’s false flag operation to denazify a country
governed by a Jewish president are two sides of the same hyperreal coin.
Trump and Putin are agents of what Debord refers to as the omnipresent
realm of spectacle who strategically take advantage of what Baudrillard
describes as the withering away of the “reality principle” to fabricate their
own universe of simulation in which millions of their supporters reside.
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
About the Book xi
They are quintessential examples of how the essence of power is wielded
in the post-truth era.
Without falling into the trap of offering too much hopium, a concept
coined by the theorist Guy McPherson, this exploration of the perils of the
hyperreal within the scientific and political establishment explores potential counter-hegemonic techniques designed to poke a hole in the pervasive fabric of simulated reality. Pushing back on Baudrillard’s cynical stance
that resistance is futile in a world from which all semblance of meaning has
been excised by the hostile takeover of the real through the power of
simulation and Jean-François Lyotard’s position that promoting one
truth-knowledge claim over another is always tyrannical, this interdisciplinary discussion proposes a point of departure for stemming the tide of
the infodemic crisis that is upon us. Specifically, researchers from numerous disciplines have reported positive results from visual critical media literacy training in schools and the implementation of what contemporary
psychologists have labeled “inoculation theory.” For students who have
been exposed to these counter-hegemonic strategies, they are able to identify fake new stories and conspiracy theories more effectively. The findings
from these studies provide a basis for cautious optimism that all hope is
not lost. Regardless, given that we are in the early stages of a battle that
could very well determine the future of all organisms including Homo
sapiens, or the lack thereof, we have no choice but to fight against the new
face of obscurantism in the digital age.
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Contents
1 Introduction 1
References 11
2 Climate
Change Denial: An Ecocidal, Parallel Universe of
Simulation 15
Introduction 16
Brief Historical Overview of Climate Change Denial: Hyperreal
Smoke and Mirrors in the Service of the Profit Motive 17
Dominant Post-Truth Metanarratives About Climate Change 21
The Force of Proliferation in the Alt-Right Media Ecosystem 25
The Hegemonic Role of Far-Right Populist Leaders 30
The Ubiquity of Competing (Post-) Truth Claims in Evangelical
Culture 34
Counter-hegemonic Efforts to Restore Faith in Science 40
Environmental Challenges from the Past 43
Conclusion 45
References 46
3 COVID-19
Vaccine Hesitancy: The Ongoing, Hyperreal
Saga of a Deadly Epidemic and Infodemic 53
Introduction 54
The Dawn of Modern Medicine and the Historical Backdrop of
the Anti-vaccination Movement 56
xiii
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
xiv
Contents
The Manufactured Pseudo-event That Preceded COVID-19: The
American Ebola “Crisis” 59
The Hegemonic Role of Political Leaders in Creating and
Sustaining Hyperreal Fictions 64
The Hostile Takeover of the Real in Online Echo Chambers and
Alt-Right Media 68
The Hyperreal, Anti-science Crusade Within the Evangelical
Community 73
Dominant Post-factual Truth Claims About COVID-19 in an
Alternate Universe 76
The Deconstruction of Post-factual, Anti-science Rhetoric
Through Inoculation Theory 80
Conclusion 85
References 86
4 Alternative
Facts Trump Reality: The Spectacular Anatomy
of an Insurrection 95
Introduction 96
Brief Overview of Hyperreality in American Politics 98
The Spectacular Rise of Donald Trump as a Celebrity Persona 102
The Trump Administration’s Delegitimization of the “Reality
Principle” and the Concept of Objective Truth 105
The “Alternative Facts” Culminating in an Insurrection 110
The Complicity of Right-Wing Media and Culture in the
United States 115
The Hegemonic Force of the Twittersphere and QAnon 120
The Urgency of Contesting Alt-Right, Post-Truth Politics 125
The Contentious Issue of Fake News Legislation 128
Conclusion 131
References 132
5 The
Baudrillardian “Discourse of the Good:” Putin’s
False Flag Operation to Denazify Ukraine139
Introduction 140
A Brief Historical Overview of Dezinformatsiya in Russia 142
The Shift from a Military Superpower to Sophisticated Forms of
Informational Warfare 144
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Contents xv
Putin’s Hyperreal Stranglehold Over the Russian State Media
Apparatus 148
Putin’s Post-truth, False Flag Operation to Denazify Ukraine
and His Complicity with Neo-­Nazis in Russia 151
The Baudrillardian “Discourse of the Good”: The Cinematic
Hyperreality of the Ukraine War in Russia 154
The “Prebunking” or Inoculation Theory Campaign Led by the
Ukrainian Government and Western Allies 159
Other Counter-hegemonic Efforts to Poke a Hole in the Fabric of
the Hyperreal 162
The Postmodern, Situationist Techniques of Russian Street Artists
to Resist the Imposition of Hyperreality 165
Conclusion 167
References 169
6 Conclusion175
References 193
Index197
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
We Don’t reply in this website, you need to contact by email for all chapters
Instant download. Just send email and get all chapters download.
Get all Chapters For E-books Instant Download by email at
etutorsource@gmail.com
You can also order by WhatsApp
https://api.whatsapp.com/send/?phone=%2B447507735190&text&type=ph
one_number&app_absent=0
Send email or WhatsApp with complete Book title, Edition Number and
Author Name.
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
About the Author
Keith Moser is Professor of French and Francophone Studies at
Mississippi State University. He has more than 100 major publications,
including nine books and 85 articles. Moser’s research examines many
issues linked to social-ecological justice. His research focuses on environmental ethics (environmental philosophy, philosophy of science, ecocriticism, ecolinguistics, and biosemiotics) and postmodern French thought as
it relates to literature, popular culture, and society in general.
xvii
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Abstract In the introduction, I frame my postmodern approach to
exploring the ubiquity of fake news and conspiracy theories in the scientific and political realm. Specifically, I probe the philosophical, social, and
ecological repercussions of living in an age of (dis-) information in which
a large segment of the population appears to have lost the ability to distinguish between reality and its pervasive misrepresentation on a plethora of
screens. Although the parallel universes of simulation in which millions of
people spend nearly every waking moment of their existence within echo
chambers may bear little to no connection to the real, the real-life consequences of the infodemic cannot be overstated. As evidenced by climate
change skepticism-denial and the anti-vaccination movement, the scourge
of fake news threatens the health of an imperiled planet in the Anthropocene
and the astounding progress of modern science that has eradicated many
diseases that used to decimate our ancestors. In the political arena, the
simulacral truth claims of postmodern politicians like Trump have begun
to destabilize democratic paradigms of governance around the globe.
Furthermore, autocratic leaders such as Putin have taken advantage of a
steady stream of pro-administration “signs” to suppress dissent and to
consolidate even more power.
Keywords Hyperreality • Postmodernism • Infodemic • Echo
chambers • Inoculation theory • Simulation theory
1
K. Moser, Fake News in Contemporary Science and Politics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-56180-1_1
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
2
K. MOSER
Heavily grounded in French postmodern theory, this transdisciplinary
reflection investigates the profound repercussions of living in a post-truth
world in which “alternative facts” have replaced the real in the collective
imagination of millions of people around the planet. The gravity of the
current infodemic, or the increasing inability of a large segment of the
population to distinguish between reality and its ubiquitous misrepresentation on a plethora of divergent screens, not only threatens the existence
of every sentient being on this planet at the advent of the Anthropocene-­
Technocene, but has also destabilized democratic models of governance
around the globe coinciding with the rise of autocratic forms of populism.
As evidenced by climate change denial, the anti-vaccination movement,
the January 6th insurrection, and Putin’s calculated informational warfare,
contesting the scourge of fake news that has created an alternative version
of (hyper-) reality is now a matter of life and death for the human and
other-than-human population. As we become more submerged in a deluge of post-truth metanarratives with each passing day, which have hollowed out our already tenuous grasp of reality to the point of delegitimizing
all truth claims, is a requiem for the real on the horizon as the planet teeters on the edge of oblivion?
Divided into two main parts, this book probes the deleterious effects of
the incessant transmission of a steady stream of post-truth knowledge
claims that sometimes border on the absurd in both the scientific and
political arena. In this regard, Chap. 2 deconstructs the anti-science rhetoric promulgated by Big Carbon and Alt-Right media outlets, including the
Murdoch empire that reverberates throughout online echo chambers in
cyberspace. Within these information silos, the simulators of hyperreality
have successfully sown the seeds of epistemic doubt despite the overwhelming consensus among the scientific community that anthropogenic
climate change is indeed an existential threat. This anti-science discourse,
which has generated uncertainty where very little exists and its “own horizon of meaning” that has taken on a life of its own within information filter
bubbles, has convinced “around 20% of the U.S. public” that “climate
change is a scientific hoax” (Cook, 2019, p. 287, p. 6; Vincenti, 2021,
p. 196, italics in original). As the first main chapter underscores, “the climate change denial movement is part and parcel of […] (a) larger corporate effort to hinder regulations” within echo chambers that “destroy
truth altogether” for the sake of short-term, myopic profits (Collomb,
2014, p. 3, my insertion; Gabler qtd. in Lopez & Share, 2020, p. 2).
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
1
INTRODUCTION
3
This profound suspicion of the validity of scientific knowledge and the
cultivation of competing truth claims erected upon a shaky, hyperreal edifice that could be easily discredited by decades of empirical research have
permeated all facets of society in the post-truth age. The worst public
health crisis since the birth of modern medicine in the form of the
COVID-19 outbreak presents another case in point. In a brave new world
in which life-saving vaccines have nearly eradicated deadly diseases such as
measles, mumps, rubella, and polio that decimated our not-so-distant
human ancestors, Chap. 3 delves into the initially baffling phenomenon of
COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Like global warming skepticism, the anti-­
vaccination movement demonstrates that trust in scientific explanations of
the world has been eroded by far-fetched conspiracy theories that find
their origins outside of concrete reality. Tired of waging a war on two
fronts and desperate to avoid preventable deaths connected to the omnipresence of anti-vaccination propaganda on Alt-Right “news” channels
and social media networks, the World Health Organization (WHO) director declared, “We’re not just fighting an epidemic, we’re fighting an infodemic” (qtd. in Sogi, 2022, p. 1). Perhaps, the most disconcerting
manifestation of the alternate reality conceived and widely transmitted
through the veritable sophistication of (post-) modern technology is the
stories around the world of numerous COVID-19 patients denying the
reality of the coronavirus on their death bed (Miranda, 2021, n.p.).
Whereas some post-factual metanarratives such as the flat earth theory and
the moon walk “hoax” might make us chuckle momentarily given that no
one is being directly hurt, the anti-vaccination coalition is no laughing
matter for people are dying because of it, despite the existence of vaccines
that have been proven to be safe and effective. From a historical perspective, Chap. 3 also traces the contemporary roots of vaccine hesitancy to
thoroughly debunked post-factual beliefs “linking the MMR vaccine with
autism” (Niedringhaus, 2018, p. 97).
The final two chapters illustrate how leaders around the world have
harnessed the force of the hyperreal like never before to manufacture their
own (post-) truth that is often contradicted by a litany of proof. Building
upon the theories of Jean Baudrillard and Guy Debord, Chap. 4 recounts
the harrowing story of America’s first Twitter president, whose entire
presidency could be described as a pure simulacrum, that culminated in a
violent coup d’état attempt sending shock waves around the world. The
January 6th insurrection also sounded the alarm that alternative facts have
real-life consequences, especially when these “signs” in the semiotic sense
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
4
K. MOSER
obfuscate other truth claims supported by nearly irrefutable evidence
linked to treason, election tampering, and the intended overthrow of a
democratically elected government. In the words of the renowned
Baudrillard scholar and media theorist Douglas Kellner (2021), “the
Trump attack on truth, alternative facts and fake news-defined by Trump
and his minions as anything critical of Trump-threatened to erode the
heart of democratic discourse, civility, and the norms of democratic life”
(n.p.). Alan Shapiro’s frank analysis of the aftermath of the January 6th
insurrection and the inflammatory, hyperreal simulacra that inspired it
highlights that “Donald Trump is a product of this culture of postmodern
anything goes images and rhetoric” (Shapiro, 2021, n.p., italics in original). According to Baudrillard (1998), “the entire substance of the political is crumbling” in front of our eyes in a parallel universe governed by
simulation where the nexus of power originates from a purely symbolic
realm (p. 61). Not only does Trump’s leadership style epitomized by the
conception and unending diffusion of a web of floating signifiers with no
basis in commonplace reality concretize “post-truthism’s threat to democracy,” but it also suggests that “the profusion of signs parodies a by now
unobtainable reality […] Power is only the parody of the signs of power-­
the cannibalization of reality by signs” (Baudrillard, 2010, p. 35; Haan,
2019, p. 1362). Whether we like it or not, the Trump administration
could represent the essence of power and how it is now wielded in a post-­
truth, political landscape.
The last chapter devoted to Putin’s digital iron curtain in Russia reveals
that the dawn of post-truth politics is a global predicament that knows no
borders. Owing to his stranglehold over the dissemination of disinformation to the masses in Russia through a state media consortium that includes
Russia-1, Russia-24, Russia-K, Radio Mayak, Radio Rossii, and Vesti FM
in addition to a cyber squad comprised of elite hackers and trollers, Putin
has been able to create a political spin justifying his unprovoked war of
aggression in Ukraine that only makes sense within the confines of the
hyperreal. Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign and Putin’s false flag operation to denazify a country governed by a Jewish president are two sides of
the same hyperreal coin. Trump and Putin are agents of what Debord
refers to as the omnipresent realm of spectacle who strategically take advantage of what Baudrillard describes as the withering away of the “reality
principle” to fabricate their own universe of simulation in which millions
of their supporters reside.
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
We Don’t reply in this website, you need to contact by email for all chapters
Instant download. Just send email and get all chapters download.
Get all Chapters For E-books Instant Download by email at
etutorsource@gmail.com
You can also order by WhatsApp
https://api.whatsapp.com/send/?phone=%2B447507735190&text&type=ph
one_number&app_absent=0
Send email or WhatsApp with complete Book title, Edition Number and
Author Name.
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
1
INTRODUCTION
5
Positing that this disappearance is just another symptom of the all-­
encompassing crisis of representation that defines the postmodern condition, Baudrillard (2005) affirms, “Reality continues to exist; it is its
principle that is dead. Now, reality without its principle is no longer the
same at all. If, for many different reasons, the principle of representation
which alone gives it a meaning falters, then the whole of the real falters”
(p. 18). Astutely cognizant of this “collapse of the real,” the master narrative of the Russia–Ukraine War peddled by Putin and his supporters more
closely resembles a nationalistic, propaganda film than an accurate portrayal of the events that have transpired since the beginning of this conflict
(Van Veeren, 2011, p. 202). In keeping with the provocative title of
Baudrillard’s essay The Gulf War Did Not Take Place, Putin’s account of a
denazification operation predicated upon “simplistic moral narratives of
good versus evil” centered around binary logic did not happen outside of
the parameters of simulated reality (Hammond, 2011, p. 313). “With a
script, a screenplay, that has to be followed unswervingly,” Putin’s hyperreal caricature of the Russia–Ukraine War is “merely the visible allegory of
the cinematic form that has taken over everything-social and political life,
the landscape, war, etc.” (Baudrillard, 2005, p. 124, p. 125).
Although numerous researchers, including Daniel Dennett, Helen
Pluckrose, and Roger Scruton (Crilley & Chatterje-Doody, 2019, p. 166),
assert that postmodernism is to blame for the omnipresence of the “gigantic apparatus of simulation” in which the subject is drowning in a sea of
seductive, banal simulacra that are “beyond truth and falsehood,” the
postmodern worldview is best understood as a diagnosis of a problem
rather than the root cause itself (Baudrillard, 2005, p. 27; Coulter, 2012,
p. 6). The enthusiasm of some postmodern thinkers for the existence of
multiple knowledge claims as opposed to having access to a single, definitive version of the truth borders on euphoria at times. Nonetheless, nearly
all of the philosophers who have been placed under the umbrella term
“postmodernism” persuasively contend that the emergence of late capitalism ushered in the hyperreal era. Even Lyotard, who often lauds the multiplicity of truth as the antidote to intellectual tyranny, recognizes that his
theories are “a symptom of the state […] (he) seeks to diagnose” linked to
a structural adaptation in the capitalist paradigm (Jameson, 1984, p. xi,
my insertion).
To be more precise, Baudrillard, Debord, and Lyotard explain that
capitalism suddenly found itself in a state of crisis when “all of the basic
needs of the masses have been satisfied” (Messier, 2007, p. 25). Given that
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
6
K. MOSER
the capitalist system relies on constant growth and expansion in order to
keep the monetary wheels spinning at all times, it had to reinvent itself to
survive. This “shift from production-oriented capitalism to consumption-­
oriented capitalism” is characterized by the creation of pseudo-needs corresponding to pre-existing models of the good(s) life disseminated to the
masses as a constant flow of symbolic images bombarding us at every waking moment (Stratton, 2020, p. 212). This hegemonic strategy to reinforce and revitalize the capitalist paradigm succeeded beyond the wildest
imagination of the marketers in charge of selling hyperreal fantasies that
never really existed anywhere with the exception of a digital screen.
Unfortunately, this unprecedented avalanche of images laden with purely
symbolic value adversely impacted our “capacity to distinguish the real
from the hyperreal and simulated” (Hancock & Garner, 2015, p. 169). As
Pierre Berthon et al. (2020) elucidate, “marketers became proponents and
propagators of a postmodern world view, one in which reality gives way to
hyperreality” (p. 144). When Debord published The Society of the Spectacle
at the end of the sixties, “[s]uch is the extent and power of commodity
fetishism by 1967 that it no longer makes sense to refer to it as an illusion.
The result […] is the complete dominance of representation-the ‘spectacle’-over what had been thought of as reality” (Hawkes, 1996, p. 169).
Baudrillard, Debord, and Lyotard boldly predicted that the situation
would degenerate even further in the coming years.
Derived from their larger reflections about late capitalism, Baudrillard’s
theories of hyperreality and integral reality in addition to Debord’s concept of the society of spectacle are an indispensable theoretical framework
for understanding the pervasiveness of fake news in the scientific and political realm. Compared to other philosophers-sociologists such as Roland
Barthes and Henri Lefebvre with whom Baudrillard studied at The
University of Paris, Nanterre, Gerry Coulter (2014) notes that Baudrillard
and Debord “had more time to digest” how this evolutionary shift in capitalism would transform the totality of human relations (p. 199). Baudrillard
and Debord both owe a debt of gratitude to Barthes and Lefebvre whose
theories represented a starting point for their reworking and extension of
the linguistic-semiotic concept of a “sign.” Realizing that we were already
on the cusp of living in a post-Marxist universe in which the most salient
feature of the capitalist system was no longer the production of material
goods themselves but rather the reproduction of simulacral images at the
end of the sixties, Baudrillard and Debord expanded “Barthesian semiotic
thought to a concern for digitality and the sign” (Coulter, 2014, p. 207).
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
1
INTRODUCTION
7
Likewise, Baudrillard and Debord fleshed out Lefebvre’s sociological
observation “that capitalism had colonized everyday life and had turned it
into a zone of consumption, pushing people to believe that they needed
to relieve the boredom of everydayness through purchasing products or
experiences” (Giles, 2022, n.p.). Baudrillard and Debord “thought that
Lefebvre’s Marxist critique of life as everydayness had some merit but was
insufficient and needed to be enhanced by a theory of signs” (Giles, 2022,
n.p.). Given that their reformulation and extension of Barthesian and
Lefebvrian philosophy provides the most complete picture of how alternate realities emerge and are sustained in consumer republics (a phrase
coined by the historian Lizabeth Cohen1), their theories are the main theoretical lens adopted in this investigation of the prevalence of fake news
along with a few key concepts developed by Lyotard, Morin, and Serres.
Inundated with signs manufactured within disinformational silos, which
substitute themselves for the real, Baudrillard and Debord compellingly
insist that millions of individuals reside within a space from which all reality has been removed and supplanted by alternative facts.
From the publication of his first essay The System of Objects in 1968 until
his death in 2007, Baudrillard examines how “artificial realms of pseudo-­
agency” tied to a vast array of consumer goods and services would “become
a world unto itself” bearing little or no connection to the real (Root,
2012, p. 240). In simple terms, Baudrillard’s notion of hyperreality
describes a dystopian, tragic situation in which any meaningful frame of
reference to an external, objective reality has been replaced by insignificant, commercial simulacra from which there is no exit. Owing to the
extreme proliferation of the hyperreal code, Baudrillard theorizes that the
postmodern subject is condemned to dwell in an alternate universe in
which all signifiers “have lost their referents entirely” (Penaloza & Price,
1993, p. 127). Baudrillard’s deep-seated anxiety about “the murder of the
real,” or “the invention of an increasingly artificial reality such that there
is no longer anything standing over against it or any ideal alternative to it,
no longer any mirror or negative,” sheds light on the representational
crisis at the heart of the infodemic (Baudrillard, 1996, p. 25; Baudrillard,
2005, p. 34). Even if Baudrillard takes it a step too far in the so-called
second genealogy in works like The Perfect Crime, The Intelligence of Evil,
and The Transparency of Evil by proclaiming that “the (hyperreal) substitution of the world is total,” the maverick philosopher’s description of
1
See A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption (Cohen, 2003).
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
8
K. MOSER
integral reality helps us to understand the symbolic structure undergirding the echo chambers that misinform millions of individuals around the
globe (Baudrillard, 2005, p. 27, my insertion; Rubenstein, 2008, p. 12).
While rejecting the strong version of Baudrillard’s theory of integral reality, which stipulates that we have entered into the “final phase of this
enterprise of simulation” exemplified by the complete effacement of the
real, this present study of the scientific and political ramifications of fake
news maintains that his main arguments are cogent overall (Baudrillard,
2005, p. 34). Baudrillard may occasionally overstate his points, yet the
“acute crisis of simulation” is undoubtedly upon us (Baudrillard, 1990,
p. 48). Since an exponentially increasing percentage of society has lost the
ability to “know what is real anymore” immersed in a cesspool of disinformation, the dilemma to which Baudrillard refers is painfully apparent
(Penaloza & Price, 1993, p. 127).
This same logic applies to Debord’s concept of the society of spectacle
that he develops in his philosophical treatises and experimental films.
Similar to Baudrillard, Debord does not hypothesize that hyperreality is an
entirely new philosophical problem. The infamous bread and circuses of
the Roman empire are a quintessential example of older vestiges of the
hyperreal. Nevertheless, Debord concurs with Baudrillard that various
technological advances, which have allowed late-stage capitalism to extend
its cultural-social sphere of influence like never before, have severely weakened our capacity to discern between reality and its representation. Due to
the never-ending flood of symbolic images that flicker across our screens,
Debord argues that we dwell within a spectacular universe “where little
distinguishes the real and the imaginary” (Wright, 2006, p. 171). Offering
an operational definition of what he terms the spectacle, Debord (1992)
opines, “The spectacle, understood in its totality, is both the result and the
project of the existing world of production. It is not a supplement to the
real world, its added decoration. It is the heart of the unrealism of real
society […] the spectacle constitutes the present model of socially dominant life” (p. 17, italics in original). Twenty-one years after the publication
of The Society of the Spectacle, Debord (1990) reaches the same conclusion
as Baudrillard in Comments on the Society of the Spectacle that reality itself
may have already disappeared for good. Debord grumbles in disgust, “The
integrated spectacle shows itself to be simultaneously concentrated and
diffuse […] When the spectacle was concentrated, the greater part of surrounding society escaped it, when diffuse, a small part, no part. The spectacle has spread itself to the point where it now permeates all reality”
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
1
INTRODUCTION
9
(p. 9). First of all, Debord’s “integrated spectacle” bears a striking resemblance to Baudrillard’s idea of integral reality. However, even if we find
ourselves in perilous, uncharted waters, Debord never completely gives up
on the possibility of resisting the substitution of the real. Baudrillard
implies that all we can do is to wait for late capitalism to implode from the
inside, since “all systems create the conditions of their own demise”
(Coulter, 2012, p. 1). Conversely, the goal of Debord’s Situationist
International (SI) group was to investigate the possibilities of liberating
ourselves from the empire of stray signs through concrete action designed
to interrupt the transmission of empty, hyperreal codes, at least temporarily thereby creating a space for critical reflection to occur. Chapter 5 briefly
discusses how contemporary, avant-garde Russian artists have embraced
one of these counter-hegemonic techniques that Debord calls le détournement (hijacking/rerouting) to subvert Putin’s appropriation of the real
through dezinformatsiya.
Without falling into the trap of offering too much hopium, a concept
coined by the theorist Guy McPherson, this exploration of the perils of the
hyperreal within the scientific and political establishment explores potential subversive acts designed to tear “a hole in our artificially protected
universe” (Baudrillard, 1993, p. 95). In addition to pushing back on
Baudrillard’s cynical stance that resistance is futile in a world from which
all semblance of meaning has been excised by the hostile takeover of the
real through the power of simulation, this interdisciplinary discussion proposes a point of departure for stemming the tide of the infodemic crisis
that is upon us by problematizing Lyotard’s position that promoting one
truth-knowledge claim over another is always tyrannical. While simultaneously avoiding the ideological pitfall of trying to “supply reality” that
“would inevitably involve the use of terror,” this thought experiment
inspired by postmodern contributions defends the viewpoint that “the fact
that we cannot know anything for certain and that all insights are to some
degree culturally bounded does not allow for the conclusion that one
error is just as bad or good as another and that researchers cannot at least
attempt to find better solutions for problems” (Holtz, 2020, p. 5; Lyotard,
1984, p. 81, p. 67). In other words, “Value judgements, after all, will still
demand to be made, skepticism notwithstanding; they are unavoidable in
social life” (Sim, 2019, p. 6). Dubious anti-science, anti-intellectual truth
claims now pose a legitimate threat to both the future of the biosphere
and the fate of democratic institutions that were once considered the bedrock of Western civilization. Consequently, the promotion of what
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
We Don’t reply in this website, you need to contact by email for all chapters
Instant download. Just send email and get all chapters download.
Get all Chapters For E-books Instant Download by email at
etutorsource@gmail.com
You can also order by WhatsApp
https://api.whatsapp.com/send/?phone=%2B447507735190&text&type=ph
one_number&app_absent=0
Send email or WhatsApp with complete Book title, Edition Number and
Author Name.
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
10
K. MOSER
Wittgenstein and Lyotard label “language games” connected to available
evidence has become an absolute necessity.
From a postmodern angle, the premise that knowledge is always established or constructed does not mean that all truth claims are equally valid.
This false equivalence is not only dangerous for society, but also an illogical fallacy. Even if “knowledge has always been contested and contingent,”
some competing versions of reality must be uprooted to the greatest
extent possible (Bowden et al., 2021, p. 708). When it comes to the gravity of the issues examined in this book, which demand an all hands on deck
approach, we must prioritize and valorize evidence-based theories “to the
exclusion of other language games” (Lyotard, 1984, p. 30). Unless we
win the “battle between a series of truths, or post-truths” preventing us
from taking action in defense of an imperiled planet, eradicating infectious
diseases, and preserving democratic forms of governance, the future looks
bleak (Sim, 2019, pp. 116–117). The idea that one knowledge claim in
the shape of “alternative facts” is just as good as another has already been
exploited too much by the simulators of hyperreality with mortal repercussions. The concept of absolute, universal truth may be nothing but a
social construct, but operating on the same plane of reality, or “the reassertion of a previously agreed upon ‘reality,’” is paramount for dealing
with the challenges posed by climate change, new zoonotic pandemics,
and authoritarian post-truth politics (Bowden et al., 2021, p. 708).
The key to combatting the infodemic is to discredit anti-science, anti-­
knowledge simulacra, commonly referred to as fake news, before they
become firmly entrenched as an alternative (hyper-) reality within information silos. Before an epistemic crisis erupts pitting an evidenced-based
construction of reality against conspiracy theories that have created their
own version of the real, it may be possible to intervene to avoid what
Lyotard identifies as a différend, a conflict that arises when two or more
groups “do not speak the same language at all and do not share even a
minimum of common ground from which a third party would be able to
exploit in order to ensure that each party makes the effort to put itself in
the place of the other” (Sfez, 2000, p. 12).2 In this vein, researchers from
numerous disciplines have reported positive results from visual critical
media literacy training in schools and the implementation of what contemporary psychologists have labeled “inoculation theory.” In his synopsis of
what this kind of intervention entails, John Cook (2019) reveals, “one
2
All translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
1 INTRODUCTION
11
approach showing a great deal of potential in countering misinformation
comes from inoculation theory: a branch of psychological research that
adopts the vaccination metaphor-just as biological vaccination neutralizes
viruses by exposing people to a weak form of the virus, misinformation can
be neutralized by exposing people to a weak form of misinformation”
(p. 288). Scholars have uncovered that this type of “prebunking” can
“trigger a cognitive process that generates counterarguments to disinformation like a form of ‘cognitive antibodies’” (Fact or fake, 2021, p. 10).
For students who have been exposed to these counter-hegemonic strategies, they are able to identify fake new stories and conspiracy theories
more effectively. The findings from these studies provide a basis for cautious optimism that all hope is not lost. Regardless, given that we are in
the early stages of an informational war that could very well determine the
future of all organisms, including Homo sapiens, or the lack thereof, we
have no choice but to fight against the new face of obscurantism in the
digital age. In a world awash with post-truth claims that are sometimes
utterly divorced from rudimentary realities, which have been clearly established by empirical data, it is time to channel our inner Sisyphus, even if
the arduous task before us at times seems too heavy to shoulder.
References
Baudrillard, J. (1990). Seduction (B. Singer, Trans.). St. Martin’s Press.
Baudrillard, J. (1993). The transparency of evil: Essays on extreme phenomena
(J. Benedict, Trans.). Verso.
Baudrillard, J. (1996). The perfect crime (C. Turner, Trans.). Verso.
Baudrillard, J. (1998). Forget Foucault (P. Beitchman, N. Dufresne, L. Hildreth,
& M. Polizzotti, Trans.). Semiotext(e).
Baudrillard, J. (2005). The intelligence of evil (C. Turner, Trans.). Berg.
Baudrillard, J. (2010). The agony of power (A. Hodges, Trans.). Semiotext(e).
Berthon, P., et al. (2020). True, fake and alternative: A topology of news and its
implications for brands. Journal of Product & Brand Management,
29(2), 144–149.
Bowden, V., Nyberg, D., & Wright, C. (2021). Truth and power: Deliberation
and emotions in climate adaptation processes. Environmental Politics,
30(5), 708–726.
Cohen, L. (2003). A consumers' republic: The politics of mass consumption in postwar America. Vintage Books.
Collomb, J. D. (2014). The ideology of climate change denial in the United
States. European Journal of American Studies, 9(1), 1–22.
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
12
K. MOSER
Cook, J. (2019). Understanding and countering misinformation about climate
change. In I. Chiluwa & S. Samoilenko (Eds.), Handbook on research on deception, fake news, and misinformation online (pp. 281–306). IGI-Global.
Coulter, G. (2012). Jean Baudrillard: From the ocean to the desert, or the poetics of
radicality. Intertheory.
Coulter, G. (2014). The embrace of radical philosophical emptiness as a liberating
conceptualization of thought in Roland Barthes and Jean Baudrillard. Frontiers
of Philosophy in China, 9(2), 194–212.
Crilley, R., & Chatterje-Doody, P. (2019). Security studies in the age of “post-­
truth” politics: In defence of poststructuralism. Critical Studies on Security,
7(2), 166–1770.
Debord, G. (1990). Comments on the society of the spectacle (M. Imrie, Trans.). Verso.
Debord, G. (1992). La société du spectacle. Gallimard.
Fact or fake? Tackling science disinformation (May 2021). ALLEA Discussion
Paper #5. https://allea.org/portfolio-­item/fact-­or-­fake/
Giles, D. (2022, October 16). Jean Baudrillard: Postmodernism’s prophet. Medium.
https://dgilesphilosopher.medium.com/jean-­baudrillard-­postmodernisms­prophet-­3261b15b765.
Haan, S. (2019). The post-truth first amendment. Indiana Law Journal, 94(4),
1351–1406.
Hammond, P. (2011). Simulation and dissimulation. Journal of War and Culture
Studies, 3(3), 305–318.
Hancock, B. H., & Garner, R. (2015). Erving Goffman: Theorizing the self in the
age of advanced consumer capitalism. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour,
45(2), 163–187.
Hawkes, D. (1996). Ideology. Taylor & Francis.
Holtz, P. (2020). Does postmodernism really entail a disregard for the truth?
Similarities and differences in postmodern and critical rationalist conceptualizations of truth, progress, and empirical research methods. Frontiers in
Psychology, 11, 1–11.
Jameson, F. (1984). Foreword. In J.-F. Lyotard (Ed.), The postmodern condition.
(G. Bennington & B. Massumi, Trans., pp. vii–xxi). Manchester University Press.
Kellner, D. (2021). Baudrillard and Trump. Baudrillard Now, 3(1) n.p.
Lopez, A., & Share, J. (2020). Blog post: Fake climate news: How denying climate change is the ultimate in fake news. Journal of Sustainability
Education, 23, 1–11.
Lyotard, J-F. (1984). The postmodern condition (G. Bennington & B. Massumi,
Trans.). Manchester University Press.
Messier, V. (2007). Consumerism after theory: Globalization and the end of transnational discourse in Néstor García Canclini’s cultural empiricism. Atenea,
28(1), 21–40.
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
1 INTRODUCTION
13
Miranda, G. (2021, September 25). “I don’t have COVID”: Doctor says some
COVID patients deny virus, decry vaccines from their deathbed. USA Today.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/09/25/dr-­matthew­trunsky-­says-­some-­dying-­covid-­patients-­deny-­virus/5866695001/.
Niedringhaus, K. (2018). Information literacy in a fake/false news world: Why
does it matter and how does it spread? International Journal of Legal
Information, 46(2), 97–100.
Penaloza, L., & Price, L. (1993). Consumer resistance: A conceptual overview.
Advances in Consumer Research, 20(1), 123–128.
Root, A. (2012). A screen-based world: Finding the real in the hyper-real. Word &
World, 32(3), 237–244.
Rubenstein, D. (2008). This is not a president: Sense, nonsense, and the American
political imaginary. New York University Press.
Sfez, G. (2000). Jean-François Lyotard, la faculté d’une phrase. Éditions Galilée.
Shapiro, A. (2021). Jean Baudrillard and the Donald: Is Trump a fascist or is he
the parody of fascism? Baudrillard Now, 3(1) n.p.
Sim, S. (2019). Post-truth, scepticism & power. Palgrave Macmillan.
Sogi, G. (2022). Infodemics-Are we losing knowledge in information?
Contemporary Clinical Dentistry, 13(1), 1–2.
Stratton, J. (2020). Death and the spectacle in television and social media.
Television & New Media, 21(1), 3–24.
Van Veeren, E. (2011). Guantánamo does not exist: Simulation and the production of “the real” global war on terror. Journal of War & Culture Studies,
4(2), 193–206.
Vincenti, L. (2021). The infodemic in the COVID-19 pandemic: Infodemic
effects in the virtual-real mass communication. Revista de Asistenta̧ ̆ Socială,
20(1–2), 193–208.
Wright, C. (2006). Welcome to the jungle of the real: Simulation, commoditization, and survivor. Journal of American Culture, 29(2), 170–182.
Download Complete Ebook By email at etutorsource@gmail.com
We Don’t reply in this website, you need to contact by email for all chapters
Instant download. Just send email and get all chapters download.
Get all Chapters For E-books Instant Download by email at
etutorsource@gmail.com
You can also order by WhatsApp
https://api.whatsapp.com/send/?phone=%2B447507735190&text&type=ph
one_number&app_absent=0
Send email or WhatsApp with complete Book title, Edition Number and
Author Name.