Deadly Truths and Lively Tensions: Saving Nature in the Era of Post-Truth Politics and Platform Capitalism
The post-truth conundrum presents an acute challenge to environmental conservation: how to share environmental facts in an era where the value of truth is questioned like never before? The answer, for many conservationists, is to share the truth about nature more vigorously than ever before, especially through new media platforms. In this presentation I follow them as they they creatively struggle to do so. By developing an understanding of post-truth as an expression of power under platform capitalism, I argue this this strategy is contradictory, even deadly, but harbors lively tensions that deserve unpacking. Doing so not only has important implications for theory, it implores us to reconsider the importance of searching for truth.
Date: 11 October 2018, 13:00 (Thursday, 1st week, Michaelmas 2018)
Venue: Dyson Perrins Building, off South Parks Road OX1 3QY
Venue Details: SoGE, Herbertson Room
Speaker: Professor Bram Büscher (Professor and chair of sociology of development and Change)
Organising department: School of Geography and the Environment
Organiser contact email address: marion.ernwein@ouce.ox.ac.uk
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Public
Editors: Deborah Strickland, Chris White, Helen Morley, Donna Palfreman