Abstract
This study examines the issue of ‘post-truth’ through two entertainment paradigms: citizen performance in social media and reality television (together discussed as reality entertainment), and artistic performance in traditionally scripted drama. The aim is to compare understandings of truth in both types of performance, linking the possibility of truth in drama to the ethical dimension of what is represented, and the level of critical freedom stemming from the dialogue created by the performance. While it is never possible to assert that any particular genre, era, artist or individual work will bring us closer to truth, it is worth investigating - in the context of our current ‘truth’ crises - examples of the way drama, in fictionalising human experience, has succeeded in using mimesis to promote various kinds of understanding. Such ‘productive searches for truth’ will be juxtaposed against the technological apparatus of modern dramatic forms in news, television and online content, to establish how the loss of faith in truth is tied up in new trends of representation. As Harold Pinter noted, drama gives us a perspective on politics through the objective, human experience of its characters. It is for this reason that the current Western crisis of truth, involving our particular set of modern, technological, and media-related problems, requires artistic narration.
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Theme
KEYWORDS
drama, reality television
Digital Media
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