Policy-making and truthiness: Can existing policy models cope with politicized evidence and willful ignorance in a “post-fact” world?

Abstract

From “alternative facts” to “fake news,” in recent years the influence of misinformation on political life has become amplified in unprecedented ways through electronic communications and social media. While misinformation and spin are age-old tactics in policy making, and poor information and poorly informed opinion a constant challenge for policy analysts, both the volume of erroneous evidence and the difficulties encountered in differentiating subjectively constructed opinion from objectively verified policy inputs have increased significantly. The resulting amalgamation of unsubstantiated and verifiable data and well and poorly informed opinion raises many questions for a policy science which emerged in an earlier, less problematic era. This article examines these developments and their provenance and asks whether, and how, existing policy making models and practices developed and advocated during an earlier era of a sharper duality between fact and fiction have grappled with the new world of “truthiness,” and whether these models require serious revision in light of the impact of social media and other forces affecting contemporary policy discourses and processes.