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How Useful is the Concept of Post-Truth in Analysing Genocide Denial?: Analysis of Online Comments on the Jedwabne Massacre

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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.

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This Article is made in Open Access, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode.pl

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8

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141-182

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Link to article including link to pdf, How Useful is the Concept of Post-Truth in Analysing Genocide Denial?: Analysis of Online Comments on the Jedwabne Massacre

Bibliographic Information

Gudonis, Marius How Useful is the Concept of Post-Truth in Analysing Genocide Denial?: Analysis of Online Comments on the Jedwabne Massacre. Zoon Politikon. 2017: 141-182.  https://archive.jpr.org.uk/10.4467/2543408XZOP.17.006.9265