How Useful is the Concept of Post-Truth in Analysing Genocide Denial?: Analysis of Online Comments on the Jedwabne Massacre
How Useful is the Concept of Post-Truth in Analysing Genocide Denial?: Analysis of Online Comments on the Jedwabne Massacre
Author(s): Marius GudonisSubject(s): Politics, Political Theory, Political history
Published by: Collegium Civitas
Keywords: post-truth; genocide denial; Holocaust; Jedwabne; indifference; Newsweek Polska; typology
Summary/Abstract: The choice of “post-truth” as the OED’s 2016 word of the year spawned a large number of academic and popular texts. Some authors considered genocide denial to be an example of post-truth rhetoric. This study analysed the emerging literature on the subject and identified the notion of “indifference to truth” as a key defining characteristic that was distinct from neighbouring concepts. User comments to four online Newsweek Polska articles concerning the 1941 Jedwabne massacre of Jews were then scrutinized through the conceptual lens of indifference to truth. As a result, five types of post-truth rhetoric were constructed, identifying, tentatively, new forms of online genocide denial: (i) Explicit Indifference, (ii) Unsubstantiated Fabrication, (iii) Unconcerned Contradiction, (iv) Political Instrumentalization, and (v) Gratuitous Perversion.
Journal: Zoon Politikon
- Issue Year: 8/2017
- Issue No: 8
- Page Range: 141-182
- Page Count: 42
- Language: English