'The Truth Society' seeks to understand how a period of Italian political spectacle, which regularly blurred fact and fiction, has shaped how people understand truth, mass-mediated information, scientific knowledge, and forms of governance. The book scrutinizes Italy's late-twentieth-century political culture, particularly the impact of the former prime minister and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi. By doing so, the book examines how this truth-bending political era made science, logic, and rationality into ideas that needed saving. With the prevalence of fake news and our seeming lack of shared reality in the 'post-truth' world, many people struggle to figure out where this new normal came from. The book argues that seemingly disparate events and practices that have unfolded in Italy are historical reactions to mediatized political forms and particular, cultivated ways of knowing.

Previously issued in print: 2020.

Introduction : The Disinformation Society -- Manifest Disguise and The Rise of Mediatized Politics -- The Soldiers of Rationality -- The Rise of Algorithm Populism -- The Trial Against Disinformation -- Scientific Anesthetization in the Anthropocene -- Conclusion : The Mirrored Window Society : Customized Data and Democratic Futures.