Keeping Touch with Reality: On the Responsibility of Educators in the Post-truth Era
Sylwester ZIELKA
Zakład Pedagogiki Ogólnej, Wydział Nauk Społecznych, Instytut Pedagogiki, Uniwersytet Gdański, ul. Bażyńskiego 4, 80-309 Gdańsk, Poland , Polandhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-8406-7429
Abstract
The paper aims to draw attention to the issue of responsible education in the post-truth era. Reaching such a goal involves (1) introducing a distinction between the ways of addressing the issue of post-truth, (2) determining the social conditions which favor the occurrence of post-truth as a phenomenon on a mass scale, and (3) discussing the most common ways in which a society may protect itself against the negative consequences of post-truth, among them responsible education, which is the most effective tool in this respect. The author extensively discusses the essence of responsibility within the educational process. Using the method of text analysis, he also investigates available modes of post-truth discourses, which leads to the conclusion that media-focused education remains an insufficient instrument of struggle against fake news. Therefore, education focused on seeking the truth as common good is needed.
Keywords:
post-truth era, media education, falsehood in public discourse, fake news, pseudo-science, fact-checking, responsible education, truth as a common goodZakład Pedagogiki Ogólnej, Wydział Nauk Społecznych, Instytut Pedagogiki, Uniwersytet Gdański, ul. Bażyńskiego 4, 80-309 Gdańsk, Poland https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8406-7429
