Production's processes of historical truth in digital media & post-truth times: a dialogue between Arendt and theory of History

• Grant number: 22/09768-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: May 01, 2023
• Status: Discontinued
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Theory and Philosophy of History
• Principal Investigator: Hélio Rebello Cardoso Júnior
• Grantee: Kelly Janaína Souza da Silva
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL-ASSIS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Assis. Assis , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/00714-8 - Truths of fact and digital memory: processes of preserving facts in the Information Society, BE.EP.PD

Abstract

The human memory is one of the faultiest faculties and it is able to be reconstructed, and therefore, it can be led or induced to change. In this way, facts need reliable testimonies, in order to establish safe conditions in the complex web of human affairs, under penalty of slipping into lies or even manipulation that may be present in the flow of opinions. In this sense, the question of the legitimacy of truths of fact is an important factor for these truths to be perpetuated for generations, in order to raise their prominence historically. Given the feasibility of "contaminating" an event by the expression of its observer, any record, document, monument or file can portray an approach to be questioned, even in an event on which many testimonies are based. Thus, the main question to be observed in our research is how technologies and new forms of information dissemination can interfere with the preservation of factual truths in their historical foundation. What will be told of today to those generations that will live 50 or 60 years from now? How can factual truths survive the harassment of those in power to tell future generations in the form of a historical record as close as possible to what happened? There is no possibility of setting up a high court to attest to the truth. Although the verification of experience and the accuracy of historical concepts are supported by solid processes and a long tradition of critical documentary, we can ask whether the legitimacy and preservation of factual truths in the face of new ways of human-technological interaction may be affected by the profusion of information and the "new relativism" that a post-truth era provides. These are some of the main questions to be approached. (AU)