What's Truth Got To Do With It?

Following such events as the UK Brexit vote and the US presidential election, Oxford Dictionaries have identified the word of the year for 2016 as 'Post-Truth'. Although it’s not necessary a new word, its citations in the media have increased by at least 2,000% primarily on the basis of political and social changes towards the end of 2016.

The term can be used to describe how particular audiences are less swayed by objective facts, and its usage could partly have arisen as a result of an increasing distrust of facts presented to us by the ‘establishment.’ In broad terms, the establishment refers to the elite or a group that holds power over society, so this can include the mass media or the government for instance.

Within the Theory and Methods topic of AQA A-Level Sociology, the term could be linked to a number of areas, for example in providing some further evidence in supporting the postmodernist perspective of society where they argue that there is no objective reality. Furthermore, references could also be made in the area of objectivity versus relativism, where postmodernists are critical of established ‘truths’ as these are based on assumptions and are merely meta-narratives (big stories) that are not suitable to describe a postmodern society.

MORE: 'Post-truth' declared word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries