Post-truth politics, post-factual politics or post-reality politics, is a political culture in which facts are considered irrelevant. It suggests that the distinction between truth and falsity—as well as honesty and lying—have become a focal concern of public life, and are viewed by popular commentators and academic researchers alike as having a determinate role in how politics operates at particular points in history. It is regarded as especially being influenced by the arrival of new communication and media technologies. Popularized as a term in news media and a dictionary definition, post-truth has developed from a short-hand label for the abundance and influence of misleading or false political claims into a concept empirically studied and theorized by academic research. Oxford Dictionaries declared that its international word of the year in 2016 was "post-truth", citing a 20-fold increase in usage compared to 2015, and noted that it was commonly associated with the noun "post-truth politics".
Since post-truth politics are primarily known through public truth statements in specific media contexts (such as commentary on major broadcasting networks, podcasts, YouTube videos, and social media), it is especially studied as a media and communication studies phenomenon with particular forms of truth-telling, including intentional rumors, lies, conspiracy theories, and fake news. According to McComiskey (2017, p. 6), "post-truth signifies a state in which language lacks any reference to facts, truths, and realities. "In a post-truth communication land scape, people (especially politicians) say whatever might work in a given situation, whatever might generate the desired result, without any regard to the truth value or facticity of statements" (McComiskey, 2017, p. 6). In the context of media and politics, it often involves the manipulation of information or the spread of misinformation to shape public perceptions and advance political agendas. Post-truth politics' historical nature has also been discussed with regard to more traditional areas of communication and journalism studies such as propaganda. In communication theory, post-truth is often related to the propaganda theories such as Black propaganda, grey propaganda and white propaganda from Harold Lasswell and Walter Lippmann, as well as those of John Dewey’s alternative perspective (Baron & Davis, 2016). Propaganda is defined as "No-holds-barred use of communication to propagate specific beliefs and expectations" (Baran & Davis, 2016, p. 31).
, political commentators and academic researchers have identified post-truth politics as ascendant in many nations, notably Australia, Brazil, India, Ghana, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, among others. In Ghana, Coker and Afriyie delved into the prevalence of post-truth politics in the Ghanaian context, with a specific focus on publications in print newspapers affiliated with the country's major political parties, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC). The authors highlighted that post-truth practices have become ingrained in the fabric of election campaigns and political discourse in sub-Saharan Africa, including Ghana. Their research aimed to dissect the post-truth strategies employed by Ghanaian politicians affiliated with these two prominent parties, as manifested in their respective politically aligned newspapers, namely, The Daily Statesman and The Enquirer. Coker and Afriyie identified three distinct strategies within this context, which they labeled as kairos, disinformation/misinformation, and the deliberate transmission of strategic falsehoods. These strategies were found to be actively shaping political narratives and public perceptions.