Many observers have expressed concern about the status of evidence and facts in current political discourse, in particular in the United States and United Kingdom. The word “post-truth” was word of the year in 2016, only to be replaced by “fake news” in 2017. According to fact-checkers, Donald Trump has issued more than 9,000 false or misleading claims since assuming the presidency. What are the consequences of the apparent deterioration of public discourse? Why do some voters consider politicians who serially make false claims to be honest? How can we move on from here? I present data from a number of studies that explored those questions, and I point towards a solution based on the idea of “technocognition”; that is, the cognitively-inspired redesign of information architecture to convert the current attention economy to a cognitive society.
Professor Stephan Lewandowsky FAcSS FAPS
School of Psychological Science and Cabot Institute
University of Bristol
12A Priory Road
Bristol BS8 1TU
Twitter: @STWorg
Office: +44 117 928 8465
Mobile: +44 74401 89544
Access to >80 global experts in misinformation research: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/expsych/research/posttruthexperts/
Homepage: http://www.cogsciwa.com
Blog: http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org<http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/>
GitHub: https://git.io/lewandowsky
A top 10 UK university (QS Rankings 2019)
A top 4 UK university with leading employers (High Fliers 2018)
A top 5 UK university for research (THE analysis of REF 2014)