Media Manipulation And Propaganda In The Post-Truth Era

The birth of the post-truth era, i.e. the advent of alternative media and internet social networks, has brought along a great deal of demagoguery, nonsense, lies, hoaxes, disinformation (a trendier term being ‘fake news’) and conspiracy theories, with propaganda and manipulation being the key features here. Dissemination of disinformation and its effects on individuals, society and politics are among the most debated topics of our day, although, frankly, it is in fact a very old phenomenon. The advent of digital media has brought, apart from other things, a decline of public trust in traditional (mainstream) media, and conversely a boom in alternative information sources. Meanwhile, it is not entirely clear what the term alternative with respect to mass media should actually mean. Perhaps free media? Independent media? Attempts to define alternative media against the background of mainstream media contain quite a few options to grasp the alternateness. In our contribution we endeavour to find the causes of the strongly negative connotations surrounding the term alternative media. This term is not infrequently linked to an unprecedented rise of media with disinformation and conspiracy agenda. Nevertheless, we point out why it perhaps should be more appropriate to grasp this term in a more neutral way, not only in academia, considering that such sources in many cases provide scope for different interpretation of the dominant ideology in society and information disseminated under its aegis.