How to deal with the post-truth era

Yesterday, my graduate student posted photos of our teachers and students climbing Baiyun Mountain and organizing a reading club in WeChat group. It seems like yesterday, but it's been two years in a hurry. It's time to leave. Last year's graduation message, I talked more about Do not forget your initiative mind, struggling forward, but what I want to say most this year is a theme: how do we deal with it in the post-truth era?

Zhang Zhian delivered a speech at the graduation ceremony.

Facts and truth

Not long ago, I watched a movie "Denial" on the plane. The heroine is a historian and a Jew. She is convinced of the fact that the Germans slaughtered Jews in Auschwitz concentration camp. She once accused a "pseudo historian" of denying the existence of the Holocaust in a book. Although everyone is familiar with and convinced of the history of the Holocaust, the sudden emergence of an influential voice of opposition is bound to attract the attention of the media and be sought after by some people.

The Jewish historian was taken to court, and she suddenly realized that it was not easy to defend the history she believed in in court. The trial in England brought her great challenges. If in the United States, who accuses you of lying, you must produce evidence; But in Britain, no matter who accuses you of lying, you must prove that you are not lying.

Fortunately, she finally won the lawsuit. In this process, she had hoped that the witnesses of the massacre would testify in court, but the defense lawyer refused because even the witnesses could not remember all the details accurately. Once the details are pointed out by the other party, they will be humiliated by the other party in court.

This film shows us that historical truth is different from the history perceived by the public and from the historical truth examined by historians. Historical truth and defending historical truth are two different things; Facts are different from the truth. It is not easy to verify the facts, and it is even more difficult to get close to the truth. Similarly, news facts and media facts, objective facts and legal facts, objective facts and historical facts are all different. Historians even say that even if all historical details are true, it is possible to weave a beautiful illusion instead of the truth. Truth is the interpretation and judgment of facts. For example, the truth in in-depth reporting is a "meaningful factual context", which has great uncertainty.

Post-truth era

The key word of Oxford Dictionary 20 16 is "post-truth", which is mainly triggered by Britain's withdrawal from the EU and the US presidential elections. The so-called post-truth is that public emotions and personal values can influence public opinion more than facts. For example, Trump lied countless times, but won the election. He said that his vote was 3 million less than Hillary's because there were illegal immigrants voting. When his nonsense was exposed, he argued that he made this judgment based on the materials he had.

People seem to care less about the facts themselves, but more about their feelings and value expectations. This is undoubtedly very challenging. Philosophers say that post-truth reflects the concentrated expression of "bad subjectivity" in post-modern society; Political scientists say that the post-truth is the challenge of populism to core values in Europe and America today; Communication scholars say that the post-truth highlights the uncertainty of truth dissemination, the challenge of rumor dissemination on the Internet, especially in the social media era, and its negative impact on online public opinion.

We have noticed these worrying situations: some people don't care about the facts themselves, but are more concerned about the emotions expressed by others and their own emotions, and their attitudes are more likely to be misled by the "headline party" than based on the facts themselves; On WeChat or Weibo, all kinds of rumors spread rapidly, and the truth has not been put on, and rumors have spread all over the online world. Making rumors harms commercial interests or personal reputation, but the price paid is minimal; On major social issues such as genetic modification, people don't seem to care about "scientists' knowledge", but only compare the views of most mainstream scientists with a few alternative views and understand them as "some people support it and some people oppose it" ...

How to deal with the post-truth era

To this end, we graduates of journalism and communication should constantly ask: Are facts and truth important? What does truth mean to us? In this post-truth era, how should we respond rationally?

We must know that fact and truth are different. Grasping the facts at the empirical level is only the first step for us to grasp and understand the facts. Just as the imagination of sociology advocates-combining "personal troubles in the environment" with "public problems in the social structure", we can understand the truth in multiple contexts of facts.

You know, even if the truth is false, the truth may still be excavated. For example, the identity and facts of Shanghai women returning to Jiangxi are fabricated, but the social problems discussed by the media or the public, such as the gap between urban and rural areas, identity and Phoenix Man, are real and need to be confronted.

We must know how to check the facts and try to get close to the truth behind them. Even with all kinds of resistance, we understand that fear of the truth is our basic attitude. For example, although the first influential in-depth report on mother killing was not comprehensive in fact, it provided us with an important opportunity to think and understand the truth behind it. If we follow this clue to read more in-depth reports, we can deeply observe the regional political and economic ecology and more complicated social picture.

This is not only the responsibility of professional communicators, but also the embodiment of information literacy and feelings of home and country. I hope everyone who walks out of here will be in awe of the facts and the truth. This may be something that this university can still use after studying for four years and 40 years: respect the facts, be close to the truth, keep their feelings in a rapidly changing society, renew themselves in a challenging society, and stay awake and beyond in the face of various interests and temptations.

I sincerely wish everyone can do great things as Mr. Zhongshan said-do one thing to the end and succeed in life. Even if you haven't accomplished anything important, you can be a free and unrestrained person. Alma mater will always be your home. Welcome to come back and have a look. Our eyes will always be with you!

(This article is a speech to the Dean of School of Communication and Design, Sun Yat-sen University at the graduation ceremony of 20 17)