Truth after post-truth: for a Strong Programme in Discourse Studies

Abstract

Contemporary post-truth discourses put the constructivist foundations of Discourse Studies to a test. According to critical observers, discourse analysts have been playing into the hands of Trump, Brexit and right-wing populists by politicising scientific knowledge and undermining the idea of scientific truth. In order to respond to these concerns, this article outlines a Strong Programme in Discourse Studies. While the Strong Programme insists on truths as discursive constructions, in no way does it claim that all ideas have the same truth value or that an idea can become true because somebody wants it to be true. The Strong Programme makes the case for discourse research that is constructivist (it asks how truths are constructed practically) without being relativist (all ideas do not have the same normative quality). Taking inspiration from debates in Science and Technology Studies of the 1970s, the Strong Programme formulates principles for discourse researchers dealing with conflicting truth claims. Discourse analytical explanations of truths of first-order participants and of second-order observers should be symmetrical, heterogeneous, multi-perspectival and reflexive. The Strong Programme discourse research is grounded in the founding traditions of "French" and "Critical" Discourse Studies, which have struggled over questions of truth and reality since the beginning. While critically interrogating the structuralist heritage of these strands, the Strong Programme insists on the practices of making and unmaking ideas through language use no matter whether they appear as true or false to participants and observers. Discourse Studies are encouraged to critically reflect on how hierarchies between knowledges are not only represented but, through their representation, also constituted through discursive practices.

Propaganda through ‘reflexive control’ and the mediated construction of reality

“…Changes to the 'media ensemble' have transformed the fundamental dynamics of social figurations and therefore the ways in which meaning is produced (Couldry and Hepp, 2017: 77). This is neither relativist nor consistent with the post-truth claims or the politicisation of scientific knowledge in contemporary populist rhetoric, rather, it is an acknowledgement that 'truths' are the product of discursive practices and material relations of power and politi-cal economy (Angermuller, 2018;Sismondo, 2018).…”

Accumulating discursive capital, valuating subject positions. From Marx to Foucault

“…Both examples, the production of 'fake news' and 'scientific truths', will be accounted for through the same mechanism of discursive capital accumulation. By applying a symmetrical explanation, I will give an example of how discourse research following the Strong Programme (Angermuller, 2018) can account for discourses critically no matter whether one considers them as true or false.…”

“…The structuralism of early French and Critical Discourse Analysis has been challenged by pragmatic and interactional strands of research, which consider the social context as a practical achievement of those who use language rather than something that can be given by social theorists. A longer discussion of the structuralist heritage in these classical approaches and their limits can be found elsewhere (Angermuller, 2018).…”

An Operational Framework for an Online Community Based on the Commons, Dissensus and Shared Knowledge

“…During the process of bricolage, conflicts occur naturally because truth, as a social construct, can have multiple facades. Starting with Weber's criticism of objectivity in social science, philosophers such as Nietzsche, Lyotard, Derrida, Heidegger, and Foucault made significant efforts to dismantle the idea of factual truth (Angermuller 2018), discussed its unreliability, and even invented concepts to replace it (McIntyre 2018).…”