The Ambivalent Creation of Truth in the Digital Age

Abstract

Truth is a complex concept that was able to fascinate the individuals since the dawn of time. The relevance of the truth is confirmed by the centrality that the concept has had in the philosophical debate.The philosophers, from the Presocratics onwards, have questioned the concept of truth providing different interpretations. The global, cosmopolitan and liquid society in which we live can be represented as a labyrinth where it is difficult to navigate as the great narratives are entered into a crisis. The crisis of values and the consequent social anomie, on one hand, and the collective effervescence and democratizing power of the network, on the other hand, open the space to an interpretative antonymic perspective. So the truth can be perceived as an artifact produced by the culture industry in order to become an instrument of political propaganda and social indoctrination in a digital risk society. But, at the same time, the shared horizon of participation, produced by the advent of the digital age, introduces us in new scenarios in which the individual, as a digital prosumer, is able to exercises his/her own right and duty to speak the truth. Like Socrates taught us the search for truth is a process of looking inside ourselves and the aim of this essay is to highlighted that in a social context that gathers more visions of the world, the problem is not in the interpretation of the truth that we choose, but in the way truth is communicated to others, and especially in the use we made of it.