About the project
RECLAIM takes a multi-disciplinary approach to post-truth politics. The project aims to develop a conceptual definition, as well as operationalisation and empirical indicators for the analysis of information disorder.
The project will also spell out the ways in which post-truth politics constitutes an existential threat to liberal democracy, and analyse the state of play as regards various dimensions of post-truth politics in Europe. It will also use its own empirical findings to develop policy recommendations, methods and toolkits as to how best to respond to various expressions of the phenomenon.
The project is divided into nine academic work packages that address central components of post-truth politics from the perspectives of:
1) preconditions (how such phenomena have come about)
2) expressions (how they manifest themselves in political processes)
3) potential responses (how their effects can and ought to be mitigated).
The project’s academic work packages address post-truth politics from the vantage points of populism, public sphere dynamics and impacts on political culture; the role of technological aspects in fostering the rise of post-truth politics; the twin roles of lack of trust, but at the same time also increased demands for quality journalism; strategic disinformation as an external challenge to liberal democracy; the impacts of regulatory responses to disinformation; and importantly also the role that citizenship education and media literacy can play in mitigating the challenge of post-truth politics.
Partner institutions
Institute for Development and International Relations
Institute of International Relations
University of Ljubljana
Autonomous University of Madrid
Trans European Policy Studies Association
University of Oslo
The Jagiellonian University in Krakow
Scuola Normale Superiore
New Bulgarian University
Istituto Affari Internazionali
ARENA's role in the project
ARENA coordinates Work Package 4, together with Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence. This Work Package will analyse the supply-demand relationships of journalism in the era of post-truth politics and the ambivalence of the post-truth challenge to journalism and truth, which might undermine trust but also create new demands for truth and thus opportunities for quality professional journalism.
The main premise of this work package is that the spread and intensity of misinformation in the digital era is spearheading not only a decline of the democratic public sphere but also enforcement of democratic values, by way of resistance to post-factual politics. The researchers will first design and carry out a public opinion survey and opinion formation experiments which look at two main questions: What do citizens consider quality journalism in the post-truth era? And under what conditions are citizens more likely to see truthfulness as a standard for journalism?
Secondly, interviews with journalists and policymakers, as well as quality content analysis of documents related to the EU Democracy Action Plan, will be conducted in six consortium countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Poland).
Financing
RECLAIM is funded by Horizon Europe Protecting and nurturing democracies
Project period: October 2022 – October 2025
