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Vi lever i det som har kallats postsanningens tidevarv - en tid då falska nyheter, faktaresistens och konspirationer präglar samhällsdebatten. Samtidigt krävs att starkare bevis för att kunskap ska erkännas som legitim. I denna spänning formas det som kallas en sanningskris. I Sanningskris - Det postfaktiska samhället och medielandskapets förändringar samlas forskare och skribenter från humaniora och samhällsvetenskap för att undersöka vad som egentligen står på spel. Här diskuteras allt från klimatförnekelse, museers kunskapsroll och abortmotståndets sanningsanspråk till mytavslöjanden på Tiktok och konspirationsteorier om socialtjänstens arbete. Boken erbjuder inga enkla svar - men den öppnar upp för en djupare förståelse av hur kampen om kunskap och sanning formar vår samtid. 

This paper problematises ideological assumptions about journalism’s epistemic authority among Swedish media professionals in relation to notions of post-truth. The study is based on qualitative interviews with journalists who are active in the Swedish news industry. The concept of discursive logics is applied to showcase how journalism is understood and experienced by journalists themselves during an alleged truth crisis. This paper analyses how journalistic practices and ideals are perceived to be disrupted by an ongoing truth crisis and how such practices are envisioned in the future. This paper identifies two major discursive logics in which these disruptions are manifested. The journalists conceived of new techno-political infrastructures in the media as a horrific fantasy threatening their work practices. The second logic is the beatific fantasy of truth-seeking journalism in current times. Post-truth represents a threat against journalism in a double-edged way: first by creating mistrust in established media, and second because, when attempting to counteract fake news through fact checking, the journalist is instead positioned as an activist or a debater.

With the ‘new museology’ in the 1990s, a paradigm shift took place, and more critical and reflexive museology emerged. Characteristic of this was an increased focus on the museum activities themselves, their conditions, practices and ideological consequences. This paper examines the effects that the new museology has had on Swedish museums, especially in the light of the era of post-truth that has led to a questioning of traditional authorities, including museums. What forms of ideal of knowledge, ambitions and reflexivity characterize museums of today? What does the new museology mean in relation to the era of post-truth?

The study is based on qualitative interviews with Swedish museum directors, and the findings show that they apply different forms of reflexivity to describe the museums’ activities (epistemological, ontological and critical reflexivity). The findings also illustrate that the reflexive museology is problematic in relation to the era of post-truth, because it can reinforce the tendencies that it claims to counteract. 

In this paper, we engage with five Swedish universities’ discursive articulation of, and responses to, an alleged post-truth crisis in communication, aimed at the public. Taking discourse theory as our point of departure, the aim is to analyse how universities are trying to maintain or restore trustworthiness against a backdrop of problems with fact resistance, fake news, and mistrust in academic institutions. The dilemma for universities is how to counteract post-truth without falling into the trap of returning to a realist paradigm, with its strict notions of truth and objectivity. The paper shows how public events are characterised by a crisis rhetoric, a dislocation, together with imaginaries of both external and internal threats of disorder, which convey a narrow and simplified understanding of scientific knowledge as objective and neutral. ‘Defenders of truth’ seem to foreclose any discussion by deeming knowledge relativism an irrational and dangerous position that fuels arguments claiming a truth crisis. A conclusion is that universities risk increasing polarisation, rather than trying to tackle problems of trustworthiness. The authors argue that, instead, universities need to be attentive to matters of democracy, power, and privilege, as well as a plurality of epistemological ideals, when discussing the so-called post-truth crisis.