User:Uclqmpa/sandbox

Post-Truth politics in Turkish media
"'... continued adherence to demonstrably false statements about politics and policy strikes at the very heart of democracy...If there are no agreed upon facts, then it becomes impossible for people to make judgments about their government or hold it accountable which is what make people take the rights decisions'"https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/04/13/trumps-lies-corrode-democracy/ (change citation)

“Post-truth" is defined as an adjective  “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief” .  In recent years, Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan and his party, the AKP, have used mass media to promote a post-truth narrative  in order to consolidate for themselves a position of absolute power and appeal to the masses, a phenomenon also prevalent during the BREXIT referendum and often  in the discourse of US president Donald Trump . Such a narrative is based on populist discourse i.e. that the will of the people is absolute and that "what is 'popular' must also be good or true” , and focuses on empowering the people rather than presenting a situation in an objective, impartial, and thus, truthful manner. An article of pro AKP newspaper ,Sabah , applauds Erdogan’s populist speech addressing university students: “''If you do not give up the fight with the people, with the people’s values, history, culture and their representatives, you will drown in your own ugliness. . .What kind of men are these? Who cares if you are an artist, a professor? First you will respect this people; you can never look down to this people''”. Here the essence of the “rebellion” against expert opinion and factual evidence is captured, put forth by Erdogan and his government. Given that anything neutral is defined as “belonging to an impartial group or state” ,  the lack of neutrality and justifiable expert opinion in mainstream media, does not allow information to fulfil our definition of truth which consists of “adequate evidence or argumentation” to support a certain belief”. The lack of impartiality compromises the condition of adequate evidence. As a result, there is an increasing number of people susceptible to politicians' non-truths which consequently makes it impossible for adequate judgements about the government to be made. Huffington Post’s Mahir Zeynalov, points out that Erdogan is supported by Turks who are proud of the leader who is portrayed by mainstream media as the one who “lifted millions out of poverty” and “made long oppressed Muslims feel as “first-class citizens” . In reality, millions of people live in poverty and ,while Islamic values are indeed promoted by the government,  freedom of expression as well as freedoms of religion, assembly and association are still rights yet to be fully respected by Erdogan’s government. Author and journalist ,James Pfiffner, describes this "adherence to demonstrably false statements about politics" as a phenomenon which "strikes at the very heart of democracy and the whole project of enlightenment epistemology ". Indeed, equality which is one of the very basic foundations of democracy is undermined since one party i.e the powerful in this case politicians has more information than another party i.e the powerless in this case the people. In Keane's words "Truth is a trope, but its champions can have unsettling and undermining effects on arrogant and powerful governors... the powerless would become more vulnerable to the powerful."