1. The “post-truth” era: Post what exactly?
Stephan Lewandowsky
University of Bristol and University of Western Australia
@STWorg
Linköping, December 2017

2. Something is going on … but what?

3. “Post-Fact” World—“Post-Truth” Politics
“post-fact” “post-truth”
Number of media hits
“post-truth”
Word of the year 2016 (Oxford Dictionaries)
“fake news”
Word of the year 2017 (Collins Dictionaries)

4. https://www. washingtonpost. com/graphics/politics/trump-claims/

5. Implicatures of “Post-Truth”
From truth to post-truth …
… implies a ‘fall from grace’
But there were untruths before “post-truth”

6. WMD: Persistence of a Myth
30 sep 2004: duelfer report

7. Post What Exactly?

8. McCright & Dunlap (in press)

9. McCright & Dunlap (in press)
Carefully curated lies in support of distinct goal (WMDs, climate denial)
Epistemic insouciance
(Trump, Brexit)
Contesting the same reality
“Alternative facts”
2000s

10. McCright & Dunlap (in press)
Carefully curated lies in support of distinct goal (WMDs, climate denial)
Epistemic insouciance
(Trump, Brexit)
Contesting the same reality
“Alternative facts”
2000s

11. Misinformation vs. Alternative Realities
Misinformation is not (no longer?) “coincidental contamination” that can be debunked
Many Americans share a belief system that is disconnected from a conventional understanding of “facts” or “evidence”

12. Alternative Realities
“We live in two universes. One universe is a lie... The other universe is where we are, and that’s where reality reigns supreme and we deal with it.” 
Rush Limbaugh

13. Alternative Realities

14. “Reality!”
“Reality!”
Science,
Academia,
Politifact, .
Rush,
Trump, .

15. “Reality!”
“Reality!”

16. McCright & Dunlap (in press)
Epistemic insouciance
(Trump, Brexit)
“Alternative facts”
Alternative realities
Facts do not matter

17. Now what?

18. Conventional Interventions

19. Conventional Interventions

20. Technocognition
Use findings from cognitive science to design information architectures that provide affordances for truth rather than misinformation

21. Technocognition
Ask readers to pass a quiz about an online article before they can comment

22. Politics

23. Thank You http://www.bristol.ac.uk/posttruthexperts/