doxa.comunicación | nº 29, pp. 197-212 | 203
July-December of 2019
Jesús Miguel Flores Vivar
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
Regarding the concept of Disinformation, which is also called information manipulation or media manipulation, several experts affirm that it is the action and the effect of ensuring a lack of awareness or ignorance and preventing the circulation or disclosure of data, arguments, news or information that is not favorable to those who want to disinform.
Magallon poses the question (2019), why is it more complicated to recognize The Truth if we know more about who we are than at any time in history? Does being more informed mean being better informed today? Disinformation is something that seems to be impossible to understand through the current replication mechanisms. As if a kind of collective empathy were developing around the disillusionment of being informed and the individual feeling of being more and better informed than ever meant the collective acknowledgment that comprehensive education and a life with greater choice paradoxically implies a better understanding of our limitations as a civilization, culture and society.
Serrano (2013) states that most citizens consider themselves to be informed of international news after reading the press or watching the daily news. However, the reality is far from being the univocal image presented by the media since we are not told what has happened.
Wikipedia states that disinformation is usually one of the chicaneries of agnotology and occurs in the media, but these are not the only means by which one can be disinformed. It can happen in countries or religious sects that have prohibited books in places where governments do not accept media or foreigners’ opposition and nations at war which hide information.
Regarding the definition of Postruth, according to the Fundeu BBVA (2016), the concept of Post-truth- or emotional lie- is a neologism that describes deliberate distortion of reality, to create and shape public opinion and influence social attitudes in which objective facts are less influential than appeals to emotions and personal beliefs. For some authors, Post-truth is simply a lie (falsehood) or scam covered up by the politically correct term “Post-truth,” which conceals traditional political propaganda and is a euphemism for public relations and strategic communication as an instrument for manipulation and propaganda.
For Mcintyre (2018), Postruth, in the Spanish Language Dictionary, is described as “deliberate distortion of a reality, which manipulates beliefs and emotions to influence public opinion and social attitudes.” In English, the term post-truth was first used in 1992, in the context of critical reflections on the notorious scandals of the Nixon and Reagan presidencies. It reached its zenith in 2016 when Trump won the elections, coinciding with the Brexit; consequently, The Oxford dictionary consecrated it as the “word of the year.” Several experts wonder how we can be facing a situation in which “alternative facts” replace facts, whereby feelings outweigh indisputable evidence. Mcintyre (Ibid) traces the origins of the phenomenon back to the 50s, when American tobacco companies conspired to conceal the carcinogenic effects of tobacco, creating a roadmap of “scientific denialism,” the most well-known milestones are the questioning of “evolutionism” or the denial of human influence on “climate change.” In this line, Daniel Gascón (2018), affirms that the post-truth is not a usual lie. Even though it is not clear what it is. Gascón refers to the Oxford English Dictionary which defines it as a situation in which “objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to