Abstract

Have we entered a ‘post-truth’ era? The present paper attempts to answer this question by (a) offering an explication of the notion of ‘post-truth’ drawn from recent discussions; (b) deriving a testable implication from that explication, to the effect that we should expect to see decreasing information effects – i.e. differences between actual preferences and estimated, fully informed preferences – on central political issues over time; and then (c.) putting the relevant narrative to the test by way of counterfactual modelling, using election year data for the period of 2004–2016 from the American National Election Studies’ (ANES) Times Series Study. The implication in question turns out to be consistent with the data: at least in a US context, we do see evidence of a decrease in information effects on key, political issues – immigration, same-sex adoption and gun laws, in particular – in the period 2004 to 2016. This offers some novel, empirical evidence for the ‘post-truth’ narrative.