The Construction of Truth in Contemporary Media Narratives about Risk provides a theoretical framework for how, in a post-truth era, media audiences are able to understand and navigate everyday risk. The book examines media risk narratives and explores forms of truth, experiential knowledge, and authority. Using the concept of parrhesia to show how we invest trust in various types of knowledge in a changing media environment, the book demonstrates how we choose between expert and non-expert information when navigating a seemingly risky world. It considers how news media formats have previously engaged audiences through risk narratives and examines how experiential knowledge has come to hold a valuable place for individuals navigating what we are often told is an increasingly risky and uncertain world. The book also examines the increasingly precarious position of expert knowledge and examines how contemporary truth-games play out between experts and non-experts, and considers how this extends into the world of online and social media. This book will be of interest to those researching or teaching in the areas of criminology, sociology, media and cultural studies, and of interest to readers in professional areas such as journalism and politics.

Taking stock of the technological, political, economic, and social trends that exist today, this book extends the discussion to analyze and predict how these trends will affect the public relations and strategic communication industry of the future. This book is divided into two sections, the first addressing such key topics as artificial intelligence (AI), big data, political polarization, and misinformation, the second looking at key facets of the profession, such as media relations, crisis communication, and measurement and evaluation. Leading researchers in the discipline share their analysis of these topics while also providing theoretically based and practically relevant insights on how the industry must evolve to keep up with, and perhaps anticipate, changes in culture, society, and technology. This book will be of interest to scholars, industry professionals, and advanced undergraduate and graduate students in public relations and strategic communication.

Investigating a Corpus of Historical Oral Testimonies guides the reader through the process of sourcing a relevant oral history archive for linguistic analysis, constructing a representative corpus out of this archive and analysing this using corpus tools. Focusing on the oral history archive at the Irish Bureau of Military History, this book shows how corpus linguistics can illuminate themes worthy of investigation that may otherwise remain hidden. This is exemplified through the investigation of how certainty is constructed in this archive through a number of expressions and which serves as a template for both how oral history can aid linguistic understanding and how corpus linguistics can contribute to oral history investigation. Highlighting why oral history archives are worthy of linguistic analysis and showing what readers can gain from blending linguistic tools and competencies with oral history data, this book is essential reading for all researchers and students working in the areas of corpus linguistics, discourse analysis and oral history.

Contemporary Sociological Theory and Its Classical Roots: The Basics, is a brief survey of sociology′s major theorists and theoretical approaches, from the Classical founders to the present. The content is adapted from Ritzer/Stepnisky, Sociological Theory, and the authors connect many theorists together into chapters with broad headings (Contemporary Integrative Theories, Contemporary Theories of Everyday Life, etc.) that offer students a big-picture, synthesized view of sociological theory. Because of its size, price, and flexible organization, the text can be used in a variety of undergraduate sociological theory classes: Classical, Contemporary, or Combined.

This edited volume looks at whether it is possible to be more transparent about uncertainty in scientific evidence without undermining public understanding and trust. With contributions from leading experts in the field, this book explores the communication of risk and decision-making in an increasingly post-truth world. Drawing on case studies from climate change to genetic testing, the authors argue for better quality evidence synthesis to cut through the noise and highlight the need for more structured public dialogue. For uncertainty in scientific evidence to be communicated effectively, they conclude that trustworthiness is vital: the data and methods underlying statistics must be transparent, valid, and sound, and the numbers need to demonstrate practical utility and add social value to people’s lives. Presenting a conceptual framework to help navigate the reader through the key social and scientific challenges of a post-truth era, this book will be of great relevance to students, scholars, and policy makers with an interest in risk analysis and communication.

The Routledge Companion to Narrative Theory brings together top scholars in the field to explore the significance of narrative to pressing social, cultural, and theoretical issues. How does narrative both inform and limit the way we think today? From conspiracy theories and social media movements to racial politics and climate change future scenarios, the reach is broad. This volume is distinctive for addressing the complicated relations between the interdisciplinary narrative turn in the academy and the contemporary boom of instrumental storytelling in the public sphere. The scholars collected here explore new theories of causality, experientiality, and fictionality; challenge normative modes of storytelling; and offer polemical accounts of narrative fiction, nonfiction, and video games. Drawing upon the latest research in areas from cognitive sciences to complexity theory, the volume provides an accessible entry point for those new to the myriad applications of narrative theory and a point of departure for new scholarship.

Western societies are under siege, as fake news, post-truth and alternative facts are undermining the very core of democracy. This dystopian narrative is currently circulated by intellectuals, journalists and policy makers worldwide. In this book, Johan Farkas and Jannick Schou deliver a comprehensive study of post-truth discourses. They critically map the normative ideas contained in these and present a forceful call for deepening democracy. The dominant narrative of our time is that democracy is in a state of emergency caused by social media, changes to journalism and misinformed masses. This crisis needs to be resolved by reinstating truth at the heart of democracy, even if this means curtailing civic participation and popular sovereignty. Engaging with critical political philosophy, Farkas and Schou argue that these solutions neglect the fact that democracy has never been about truth alone: it is equally about the voice of the democratic people. Post-Truth, Fake News and Democracy delivers a sobering diagnosis of our times. It maps contemporary discourses on truth and democracy, foregrounds their normative foundations and connects these to historical changes within liberal democracies. The book will be of interest to students and scholars studying the current state and future of democracy, as well as to a politically informed readership.

The title of this book, Derivative Lives, alludes to the challenge of finding one's way within the contemporary market of virtually limitless information and claims to veracity. Amid this profusion of options, it is easy to feel lost in spaces of uncertainty where biographical truth teeters between the real and the imaginative. The title thus also points to the prolific market of biographical novels that openly and intentionally play in the speculative space between the real and the fictional. Drawing on theories of risk and uncertainty, Derivative Lives considers the surge in biofiction in Spain and globally, relating literary expression to concepts such as circumstantiality, derivatives, speculation, and game studies.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer Prize–winning critic comes an impassioned critique of America’s retreat from reason We live in a time when the very idea of objective truth is mocked and discounted by the occupants of the White House. Discredited conspiracy theories and ideologies have resurfaced, proven science is once more up for debate, and Russian propaganda floods our screens. The wisdom of the crowd has usurped research and expertise, and we are each left clinging to the beliefs that best confirm our biases. How did truth become an endangered species in contemporary America? This decline began decades ago, and in The Death of Truth, former New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani takes a penetrating look at the cultural forces that contributed to this gathering storm. In social media and literature, television, academia, and politics, Kakutani identifies the trends—originating on both the right and the left—that have combined to elevate subjectivity over factuality, science, and common values. And she returns us to the words of the great critics of authoritarianism, writers like George Orwell and Hannah Arendt, whose work is newly and eerily relevant. With remarkable erudition and insight, Kakutani offers a provocative diagnosis of our current condition and points toward a new path for our truth-challenged times.