The ‘Trueness’ of ‘Reality’: World-making and World-faking

Resumo

This essay traces the understanding of perception that has occupied philosophy, semioticians and brain researchers. All of them focus on the relationship between sensorial perception, reality in the world of life and interpretive cognition, each with a different emphasis. However, all definitions unanimously show that perception can only ever express a person's idea of or attitude towards the world in which they live. Reality and truth are therefore social and individual constructs. In order to maintain the socially agreed view of the world, the individual thus occupies an important position, especially in the postmodern democratic and highly individualized information society. In it, the individual is a site for the creation and the dissemination of meaning. In order to undermine the social construction of reality and common sense, influencing semiosis is a silent and effective weapon, transforming world-making in world-faking. Using the results of analyses of right-wing populism and conspiracy myths from recent times, the author summarizes how such influence is exerted in the social media via platforms and so called alternative newscast channels and what effect they have on the individual as well as on the socially agreed image of reality. To this end, she combines socio-constructivist with semiotic models.