Alternative Facts: The Shifting Realities of Community, Media and Public Opinion

Author: Mark Lukasiewicz, Hofstra University, USA
Email: ijah@iafor.org
Published: June 26, 2019
https://doi.org/10.22492/ijah.6.1.01

Citation: Lukasiewicz, M. (2019). Alternative Facts: The Shifting Realities of Community, Media and Public Opinion. IAFOR Journal of Arts & Humanities, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.22492/ijah.6.1.01


Abstract

Mark Lukasiewicz’s Keynote Address, delivered in November 2018 at The IAFOR Conference on Heritage & the City – New York (HCNY), Hofstra University. Therein he affirms that increased participation and voter enthusiasm, in and of itself, would be considered by most committed lovers of democracy as a “good” – as a positive development, reflective of positive trends in our society. But he adds that we cannot celebrate increased participation in our democracy in isolation. He goes on to consider other trends in this election – including the rapid spread of demonstrably false information, the adoption of previously extremist views and so-called “conspiracy theories” by mainstream participants in the process, and the frightening increase in nationalist, misogynistic, racist, and even overtly violent rhetoric.