5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

Politicization and moralization characterize the ongoing debate on “conspiracy theories”, “fake news,” “disinformation” and our alleged “post-truth” era. To be sure, there is nothing new about the idea that “truth” (in the most basic sense of factual veracity) is losing significance in public and political debate (see Arendt 1967). Yet, in the wake of increasingly powerful far-right and identitarian political movements across the globe, sociologists and their academic peers are divided as to what side to take in this debate, and how to discuss it. Does one need to call out conspiracists’ extremist ideologies (Cassam 2023), or governments’ and media’s attempts to silence critical voices by stigmatizing them as “disinformation” or “conspiracy theories” (Orr & Husting 2019), or simply embrace the “greater epistemic democracy” that a post-truth world affords (Fuller 2016)? Is the moral panic over post-truth an indication of withering Euro-American truth regimes (Mbembe 2024)—and what is emerging in their place? Last but not least: how do researchers deal with their own uncertainties in contexts of vastly heterogeneous narratives and information, and in increasingly politicized and polarized academic environments (Philipps 2024)?

This panel invites panelists to present research on the conditions under which veracity emerges as a socio-political battleground for diverse interest groups. It asks panelists to address the normative and epistemological concerns that underlie debates on (post-)truth and politics, and to ideally connect their research to debates that cut across the global ‘north’ and ‘south.’