Abstract
Today's technological developments have enabled the digitalization of communication and transform it into different forms. With the said digitalization, individuals have had the opportunity to communicate very quickly, exchange information, produce content, and access information about their environment much more. Besides many opportunities brought by digital transformation are reflected to individuals, it reflected to the field of news media, which provides information flow to individuals. The reflection of digitalization in the news media emerged as a result of especially distributing and producing information very quickly and reaching large masses. The acceleration of the flow of information has made it necessary to focus on the concept of truth. So that, as a result of the intense information flow in the 2016 US Presidential Elections and the Brexit referendum in England, the production and distribution of news in the post-truth era has become questionable. From this point of view, the truth of the information produced in the news media will be examined in this study.
TopTruth, Post-Truth And Information
Oxford Dictionaries defines the concept of “Post-Truth”, which it chose as the word of the year 2016, as “the situation in which objective truths on a particular subject are less effective than emotions and personal thoughts in determining public opinion” (Oxford Dictionary, 2021). According to Oxford Dictionaries, the word “post”, a prefix in the concept, does not reference an event or a later event. On the contrary, the prefix “post” refers to the trivialization and loss of meaning or shift of meaning of the concept (Carlson, 2018, p. 1881; Uluk, 2018, p. 90).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Post-Truth: The loss of the reality of the event or information rather than a reference to the aftermath of an event or information.
Media: All of the tools provide information flow and a communication environment to the masses.
Journalism: It is the dissemination of news or events, phenomenon, and truths that concern the society to the public.
Information: It is the sum of thought and reality outputs communicated, disseminated, informed, or broadcast.
News: Summary information about an event, an existing phenomenon, or a situation.