Post-truth can be described as a cultural phenomenon in which emotional or personal beliefs have more influence on public opinion and policy decisions than facts, evidence, or rational discourse (McIntyre, 2018), writes Christina Hajisoteriou. Objective facts and evidence may be downplayed, dismissed, or manipulated to support a particular narrative or agenda. In a post-truth environment, emotional or anecdotal appeals often take precedence over verifiable data or evidence when shaping public perception and influencing decision-making (Lilleker, 2018). In this sense, media reportage, social media (including fake news and hoaxes), popular culture, and interpersonal communication can build up perceptions of reality that become more “real” than reality itself. This allows people, groups, and political parties in power to use strategies, including “falsification, manipulation, or deception” to create “false consciousness” as means to colonize life, as it “promotes social pathologies but also limits the democratic, secular, and plural spirits of multicultural nations” (Ghosh, 2022, p. 7).

Critical scholars, therefore, caution that post-truth fuels intolerance, leading to “new” forms of racism, and xenophobia by distorting perceptions of “otherness” and creating fear (i.e., Giroux, 2020; Ghosh, 2022). As in this era, racism is not so much overt or blatant, “new” racism appears as the enduring or covert presence of inequality, injustice, and racial distinctions. It encompasses the codes, logics, and ideologies that enable, justify, and normalize power imbalances even when formal and explicit racism is no longer the case (Noon, 2018). Noon (2018) explains that “traditional, blatant racism has been suppressed and that expressions of racism take more subtle, covert and less visible forms […] a result of changing social norms that render it no longer acceptable openly to express racist views” (p. 200).

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