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ABSTRACT
It is argued in this paper that the rise of populism worldwide can be seen as arising from a more general crisis of trust in social institutions and in the project of globalisation that has prevailed in Western liberal democracies. The circulation of fake news is best seen as a symptom of the crisis of trust rather than as a primary driver, as so-called filter bubbles are more reflective of political polarisation than of algorithmic sorting, and the interaction between so-called mainstream media and social media is readily apparent in the circulation of social news. Anti-elitism extends to journalists and news organisations as much as it does to political and business elites, but there are signs that trust in news is improving, as questions are increasingly being raised about trust in digital platforms.
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Acknowledgments
An earlier version of this paper was presented as a keynote address to the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA) 2018 annual conference, Multiple Realities, held at the University of Auckland from 4 to 6 July 2018, and hosted by the University of Auckland, Massey University, Auckland University of Technology, and the University of Waikato. My thanks to the conference organisers for the invitation to present, and to the editors of this special issue of Communication Research and Practice, and anonymous referees, for feedback on the submitted draft.
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Terry Flew
Terry Flew is Professor of Communication and Creative Industries in the Creative Industries Faculty at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. He is the author of 11 books (three edited), including Understanding Global Media, Politics, Media and Democracy in Australia, Media Economics, and Global Creative Industries. He has authored 53 book chapters, 86 refereed journal articles, and 16 reports and research monographs. He is currently President-elect of the International Communications Association (ICA) from 2019 to 2020, organising the 69th ICA Annual Conference in Washington DC in 2019, and has been an Executive Board member of the International Communications Association since 2013. He is on the Editorial Board of 13 academic journals, and was the founding Editor-in-Chief of Communication Research and Practice. In 2011–2012, Professor Flew chaired the Australian Law Reform Commission Review of the National Media Classification Scheme, and he has advised the Australian Department of Communication and the Arts on reforms to media classification laws. He served on the Australian Research Council (ARC) College of Experts for Humanities and Creative Arts (HCA) from 2013 to 2015, and was on the Research Evaluation Committee for HCA in the 2012 Excellence in Research for Australia research evaluation exercise. He leads an Australian Research Council Discovery Project on regulating digital platforms, and is contracted to compete Regulating Platforms for Polity, to be published in 2020.