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Truth in a Hyperconnected Society: Educate, an Outlandish Answer to the Post-truth Phenomenon

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Identity in a Hyperconnected Society

Abstract

This chapter examines the sources of the political dimension of the post-truth phenomenon as well as how the social media have multiplied and exacerbated the problem. From there, the pedagogical dimension of the matter is considered. Post-truth phenomenon poses serious obstacles to teaching: how to respond to the conditions post-truth creates in educational situations? The chapter begins by encompassing the problematic relationship between the search for truth and political practice and the place post-truth practices hold in that relationship. It then goes to explore how essential social media are to understanding the workings and scope of post-truth practices. From there three post-truth scenarios are recreated in which education becomes impossible. The chapter concludes with two very basic but nonetheless outlandish ideas in the current context: that the pedagogical dimension of the post-truth problem must be taken on in pedagogical terms and that education is only possible if it is practiced affirmatively.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For further details on this point, one of the best works on the numericalization of our lives was written by Colin Koopman [12] (2019).

  2. 2.

    From there, The Twittering Machine unfolds in six chapters, each titled in first person plural “we all” followed by a list of figures and common behaviors on social media: “We are all connected,” “We are all addicts,” “We are all famous,” “We are all trolls,” “We are all liars,” “We are all dying” and the conclusion: “We are all writers.”

  3. 3.

    All three keep a different relation with fiction and reality. Being the first one an adaptation of an expert from the short story “Comfort” written by the Canadian writer Alice Munro [19]. The second and third are reality-based stories.

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Acknowledgments

The ideas in this chapter are the fruit of work and discussions underway in the framework of the research project “Difference, Tolerance, and Censure in Europe: Freedom of speech in contemporary public discourse” (SI1/PJI/2019-0) as well as the project #LobbyingTeachers: Theoretical foundations, political structures, and social practices in the public-private relations in matters of teachers in Spain” (PID2019-104566RA-I00/AEI/https://doi.org/10.13039/501100011033). My most sincere gratitude to the members of the project “The hyper-connected identity of youth and their perception of time in digital leisure” (PGC2018-097884-B-I00) for their invitation to contribute and share with them in this volume.

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  1. Departament of Pedagogy, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Bianca Thoilliez

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  1. Bianca Thoilliez
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Correspondence to Bianca Thoilliez .

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  1. Faculty of Education, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain

    José Manuel Muñoz-Rodríguez

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Thoilliez, B. (2021). Truth in a Hyperconnected Society: Educate, an Outlandish Answer to the Post-truth Phenomenon. In: Muñoz-Rodríguez, J.M. (eds) Identity in a Hyperconnected Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85788-2_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85788-2_5

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