Introduction

Since the declaration of words of the year, in 2016 and 2017, of the terms “post-truth” and “fake news” (Oxford English Dictionary and Collins Dictionary, respectively), the political and everyday use attributed to these words meant for some researchers the opportunity to confront whether their progressive popularity could translate into an increase in scientific research on both topics (^{Parra-Valero & Oliveira, 2018}).

From this approach, the research by ^{Parra-Valero and Oliveira (2018)} performs a systematic review of a set of scientific articles retrieved from the Scopus database (n = 91) and available in full text, where an increase in the visibility of research on post-truth and fake news is reported, evidencing the exponential growth in the production of publications related to both terms since 2016. The approach to the subject is carried out in various scientific disciplines of knowledge, with more incidence in communication studies. In particular, this area addresses the concepts to propose alternative solutions and mitigation to the problem of fake news. Other studies suggest the problematic and negative character of fake news because of what they seem to symbolize in the scenario of public deliberation and citizen participation. From studies such as that of ^{Capilla (2019)}, the idea emerges that “post-truth attempts to encompass a good part of the changes wrought by digitalized political communication, and especially by the use of (digital) social networks as an instrument of political communication” (p. 9).

This type of conceptual approaches argue post-truth as the process that encompasses or contains in itself other problems, phenomena and processes, granting the term a sense of generic epistemological nature, which owes its existence as a “new denomination” to a sociocultural reality that currently cannot conceive itself without the instrumental vision of Information and Communication Technologies (TICS) (Caridad- Sebastián et al., 2018).

As ^{Clavero (2018)} explains, referring to Waisbord’s reflection (2018), “this is a phenomenon symptomatic of concerns about the status and status of truth in contemporary societies, in the context of new forms of propaganda and deception that are facilitated by the digital revolution” (p. 169).

Indeed, ^{McIntyre (2018)} defines post-truth as a kind of ideological supremacy “through which its practitioners attempt to compel someone to believe something, whether there is evidence in favor of that belief or not” (p. 42). Through this stance, post-truth is interpreted as a deliberate distortion of reality. However, it is a distortion with multiple expressive vehicles and concrete instruments of our time, whose conceptual essence “is located beyond the mere intentional manipulation of an object (of the communicative channel and content) insofar as it sinks its anchors in the irrational convictions of the subjects or recipients of the ‘social corpus’” (^{Moles Plaza, 2017, p. 118}).

For their part, fake news, having a more specific aspect, come to constitute one of the various expressions of this post-truth paradigm (^{D ‘Ancona, 2017}; ^{Harsin & Harsin, 2018}). Fake news “are false information designed to pass themselves off as news with the aim of spreading a deception or deliberate disinformation, in order to obtain an end” (^{Amorós, 2018, p. 36}). Its effectiveness is much more perceptible, due to the realism of its appearance, so it is reproduced by the users of digital networks and information channels themselves at an unprecedented scale and speed. It is easier to assign responsibility for its potential effects, since its form is tangible, although its creation and propagation may be due to different motivations.

A demonstrative example of the disturbing reasons behind the indiscriminate use of fake news is provided by ^{Aparici and Marín (2019)} recalling the large concentration of Internet pages with “fake” content, in support of Donald Trump and against Hillary Clinton, that reached American voters from Veles (Macedonia) during the 2016 election period:

Although their impact in the most powerful country in the world proved decisive, the young Macedonians’ goal was not to help Trump defeat Clinton, but to make money by selling advertising space on their pages, taking advantage of the high traffic they registered. Who cares about the truth when it comes to getting rich? Welcome to the post-truth era (p. 25).

These types of observations bring to the table the complementary relationship of post-truth and fake news. Although post-truth is usually recognized in a broad and historical sense, while fake news is assigned specific traits, “almost subsidiary to post- truth” (Carrera, 2018, p. 1 472), both notions feed and reinforce each other (^{Blanco-Herrero & Arcila-Calderón, 2019}).

However, there are critical views such as that of ^{Habgood-Coote (2018)}, who argues that the use of the terms post-truth and fakenews has three major problems: first, they do not have stable public meanings, which implies that they are meaningless and context-sensitive; second, they are unnecessary, because there is a rich vocabulary for thinking about epistemic dysfunction; third, they have propagandistic uses, which means that the use of these terms legitimizes anti-democratic advertising.

Even so, among the perspectives that do validate the use of the term post-truth, an argument emerges: the irrelevance that (as an important feature of the current scenario), acquires the truth for the average citizen, “in a kind of overcoming or voluntary cancellation of it” (^{Rodríguez-Ferrándiz, 2019, p. 2}). This stance towards truth and facts would be in the background facilitating the popular endorsement of fake news (^{Keyes, 2004}; ^{Harsin, 2015}). From this point of view, what is manifested today through the idea of post-truth, is not the simple disinterest or laziness to know the veracity of events (^{Espinosa Zarate, 2019}); it would also be a loss of confidence in those who were the main institutional narrators: journalists and media, owners of the informative monopoly and collective truth in another time (^{D ‘Ancona, 2017}). This added to an intricate technological scenario, has become problematic and would be among the reasons why both notions acquire a special existence (^{Rodrigo-Alsina & Cerqueira, 2019}).

Precisely in this era, the refinement of TICS exposes media audiences to all kinds of information, in the words of ^{Aguaded (2014)}: “We are undoubtedly witnessing a compulsive hyperconnection and global overinformation...” (p. 7). Much of this excessive information, although produced more in line with people’s tastes, convictions, beliefs and political ideologies (^{Pariser, 2017}), is not necessarily based on criteria of objectivity, thoroughness, rationality, balance or truthfulness.

Recent literature is attending to a challenging scenario in which false truths have sought to impose themselves (^{Tandoc et al., 2018}; ^{Zhang & Ghorbani, 2020}). This paper, in particular, does not focus on delving conceptually into other connected phenomena such as could be disinformation (^{Fallis, 2016}) or informational disorders (^{Del-Fresno-García, 2019}), but recognizes the need for a reflection aimed at attending to the critical threat of informational quality (^{Fallis, 2015}).

This is reflected in cases of public significance: the ascension of Donald Trump to the US presidency in 2016 and the Brexit, or exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union (^{Allcott & Gentzkow 2017}; ^{Rodríguez-Andrés, 2018}; ^{Yeste & Franch, 2018}). In fact, the global crisis over the CoviD-19, has been approached from the perspective of the informative treatment, leaving in evidence the concern about the disinformation and the viralization of fake news about the pandemic and the disease generated by the new coronavirus (^{Guan et al., 2021}; ^{Mauri-Ríos et al., 2021}; ^{Mora-Rodríguez & Melero-López, 2021}).

In this sense, this paper proposes a systematic analysis of the terms post-truth and fake news, combining content analysis (CA) and bibliometric analysis (BA) to examine bibliometric and analytical characteristics of scientific articles from Ibero-American communication journals that address these two notions, both in their central descriptors or keywords, as well as in the display of their content.

The body of articles (n = 46) was selected after exploring an observation window of 19 years (2000 to 2019) within the framework of a study population delimited by the set of 17 journals from Latin America (13) and Spain (4), specialized in communication with high impact indexes (indexed in Web of Science (WoS), Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) and Scopus).

Material and method

The analytical perspective takes up ^{Krippendorff (2003}), in order to systematically explore the contents in order to subsequently formulate valid conclusions about the textual content, within the framework of its context of use.

Results

Figure 1 responds to RQ1 about the geographic regions of IberoAmerica where scientific communication studies on post-truth and fake news are concentrated. According to the review, the country with the highest representation of studies on post-truth and fake news is Spain with 80.43% within the study sample, i.e. 37 out of 46 papers were generated and published in high-impact Spanish communication journals. This is followed by statistically smaller contributions from Latin America, with Argentina (4.35%), Chile (4.35%), Brazil (2.1%) and Colombia (2.17%). Croatia and Portugal appear with a contribution of 2.17% and 4.35%, respectively.

Source: Own elaboration

Figure 1 Georeferenced map of communication studies on post-truth and fake news 

In order to answer RQ2, an analysis from the VOSviewer application was necessary to obtain the keyword co-occurrence index. A total of 62 Keywords (KW+), with a frequency ≥2, in which the degree of similarity of the KW+ was analyzed from their semantic homogeneity and from which clusters were formed and visualized through a labeled bibliometric map (Figure 2).

Source: Own elaboration

Figure 2 Keyword co-occurrence chart 

The KW+ that presented the highest representativeness at frequency level are fake news (24), post-truth (16), social media (16), disinformation (11), political communication (9), fact-checking (8), media (7) and Twitter (7). However, if the frequencies on KW+ dedicated to social media (Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, digital journalism) were added in total, it would be the thematic core with the highest presence (32).

In addition, Figure 3 shows the word cloud that presents the descriptors as central axes and that was extracted from a different application (Voyant Tools) with similar results: communication, posttruth, news, fake news, networks, news and disinformation.

Source: Own elaboration

Figure 3 Keyword cloud 

By its configuration and grouping can be identified from left to right (four) segments: the first one concentrates on checking associated with the analysis of digital content, the second segment presents the connection between disinformation and news which in turn are linked to social media, politics and cybermedia; the central segment takes as its vertical axis the communication associated with fake news, post-truth, the analysis of Internet sources and information networks; finally the fourth segment corresponds to journalism in its informational role, the scientific dimension and the analysis of credibility.

Figure 4 responds to RQ3 and identifies a series of trends related to the use of methods and techniques that support post-truth and fake news studies. The approach that prevails in the articles is quantitative, present in 34.8% of the sample, followed by the mixed model in 21.7% and the qualitative paradigm in 15.2%. On the other hand, the graph allows us to identify two trends in terms of techniques related to the quantitative perspective, the first corresponds to the development of mixed designs applied with bibliometric content analysis and the second trend refers to the survey as a technique mainly associated with the quantitative approach. A third methodological trend is qualitative studies supported by the interview technique.

Source: Own elaboration.

Figure 4 Predominant methodological approaches and techniques 

On the other hand, the academic production examined on post-truth and fake news is mostly from a scientific approach. Of the total sample, 65.2% of the articles analyzed were research articles, followed by 32.6% corresponding to reflection articles and the remaining 2.2% of theoretical documents with systematic review. It is particularly noteworthy that the sub-discipline of communication, RQ4, that most reflects an inclination towards examination with declared research methodology are Journalism and Communication studies (35 out of 46 units). In turn, it was found that within these there is a significant association towards Digital Communication, Networks and Processes in 32.6%.

With respect to RQ5 and taking into account the author co citation network, a total of 1 874 authors were found (Figure 5), of which, with a frequency ≥ 2 in total there were 358 represented in 8 clusters. It can be noted that the main authors who received citations in the last 19 years are: Allcott H., red cluster and 16 citations; Graves I., red cluster and 14 citations; Newman N., green cluster and 13 citations; CaseroRipolles A., dark blue cluster and 13 citations; Bennett W. L., turquoise blue cluster and 12 citations; Vasougui S., red cluster and 12 citations; Hermida A., green cluster and 10 citations; and European Commission, purple cluster and 10 citations. Other authors appearing in this review are Pariser E., Castells M., McCombs M., Masip P., Arguete N., and López-García, G.

Source: Own elaboration.

Figure 5 Graph of co-citation of authors 

The main trends in terms of the theoretical approach of the articles, RQ6 in Figure 6, in relation to ^{Craig’s (1999)} constitutive metamodel and the communication theories chosen for the codebook, reveal three associations towards the Rhetorical tradition, the Socio-Psychological tradition and the Critical tradition, especially among the group of articles that are concretely and explicitly grounded in some of the communication theories put forward in the codebook as alternatives to Craig’s metamodel. However, the Framing Theory (or news framing) is illustrated as being more strongly associated with the rhetorical tradition and to a lesser extent with the social-psychological tradition. On the other hand, Agenda Setting Theory has a marked association with the socio-cultural tradition and the rhetorical tradition. It is noteworthy that ^{Pariser’s (2011}, ²⁰¹⁷⁾ recently emerged theory of bubble filters has associations with the Rhetorical, Socio-Psychological, Cybernetic and Critical traditions. Although, it should be noted, there is also a suggested absence of relationship with any of the communication traditions in some of those articles that do explicitly point to Pariser’s theory as a theoretical underpinning.

Source: Own elaboration.

Figure 6 Theoretical approaches to communication in post-truth and fake news 

Regarding the trends noted in the conceptual approach to posttruth (RQ7), the most relevant finding shows that 37.0% of the sample considers that post-truth has been consolidating as a research topic during the last few years. At the same time, 34.8% expressly state or assume that post-truth is a danger to democratic systems due to the effect of disinformation. Consistent with this finding, 34.8% clearly express the need and/or emergence of studying post-truth and 32.6% of the cases consider that post-truth has evolved as a study phenomenon with the media use of TICS and the different communication dynamics. TICS and the different communicational dynamics established in digital social networks. Finally, 28.3% focus on the Media, Technological and Informational Ecosystem.

Discussion

The first of the relevant findings lies in confirming that the central interest in post-truth and fake news within the academic production scenario of Ibero-American communication journals is accentuated and developed as of 2016, which coincides with the notoriety granted to the concepts when they were chosen “words of the year”, in 2016 and 2017 respectively, by prestigious authorities such as the Oxford English Dictionary and the Collins Dictionary.

However, scientific production in high impact communication journals is predominantly concentrated in Spain, as the results reflect that 80.43% of the study sample, i.e. 37 of 46 documents, were generated and published in Spanish high impact communication journals. Latin America appears a little further behind under these parameters of analysis from the study sample, with the specific participation of Argentina (4.35%), Chile (4.35%), Brazil (2.1%) and Colombia (2.17%).

This result may suggest an interest associated with the editorial nature of the selected journals, since it was El Profesional de la Información (ePi), the Spanish publication with 45.7% of the representation, which led the list of journals with the greatest interest and production related to post-truth and fake news; followed by Communication and Society (21.7%) and the Revista Latina de Comunicación Social (15.2%), the latter also Spanish publications.

It should be recalled that with regard to EPI, its evident inclination towards both topics coincides with what is described by ^{López-Robles et al. (2019)} in establishing that the Iberian journal has a preference for researching and reflecting on: “communication, information, indicators, libraries and information technologies, with important considerations to the use and treatment of data, as well as its storage and dissemination” (p.15).

In this sense, the results of the systematic review provide evidence of the contribution and bibliometric, scientometric and analytical impact of EPI to understand the nature and evolution of the studies referred to in the framework of post-truth and fake news. Indeed, this interest was reaffirmed in the publication of its special issue “28(3) (2019): PostTruth and Disinformation” dedicated exclusively to reflect on these issues.

This result is consistent, in turn, with the review of semantic clusters through the counting of keywords in the articles in which the connection of the terms post-truth and fake news with the words “disinformation”, “political communication”, social media (Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and digital journalism) or fact-checking is clear and strong. This affinity is noted in the conceptual approach that emphasizes the technological dimension of post-truth, if we take into account that at least 13 of the 46 articles (28.3%) focus on the “Media, Technological and Informational Ecosystem”. In turn, 32.6% of the papers state that post-truth has evolved as a study phenomenon with the media use of TICS and the different communication dynamics. TICS and the different communicational dynamics established in digital social networks.

This does not rule out the rest of the conceptual dimensions of post-truth, such as its novelty or historical recycling or political and epistemological designation, but it does express a certain degree of consensus that its nominal existence and meaning could not be separated from the mass media, digital and informational ecosystem, with its tangible dynamics and interrelationships in a reality such as the present reference.

Consequently, it is not surprising that the sub-discipline of communication that has been most interested in post-truth and fake news within the selected sample is “Journalism and Communication” (35 out of 46 units). And that additionally, within these papers, the trend is towards “Digital Communication, Networks and Processes”, in 15 articles of the final sample (32.6%).

Another important aspect of this finding is the empirical approach, or the concern that research and academic production of the notions of post-truth and fake news should be carried out from one of the methodological approaches that support and rigorously support the work of the Academy. Thus, 65.2% of the articles analyzed are research articles, followed by 32.6% of reflection articles and the remaining 2.2% of theoretical approach with systematic review.

Regarding the theoretical foundation of the articles, an appeal to ^{Craig’s (1999)} communication traditions is observed in most of them. The Rhetorical and Sociopsychological traditions stand out, each with 17.4% of the sample; followed by the Cybernetic tradition (15.2%) in seven of the documents; then, the Sociocultural tradition and the Critical tradition each with 13%, that is, each present in six articles of the sample.

It makes sense that the articles reflect a certain theoretical inclination for the aforementioned traditions, if one takes into consideration the interpretations of communication that each one brings together. For example, the Rhetorical tradition is framed in “communication understood as a discourse practice” (^{Craig, 1999, p. 133}), therefore, one could infer that in this conceptual field, it is justified to understand and explain what constitutes for the legitimacy of public discourses the propagation of false news and the configuration of an environment that blurs or trivializes public and social truth.

On the contrary, none of the articles in the sample was sustained neither in the Phenomenological tradition, nor in the Semiotic tradition, which can be assumed as a departure from those theoretical frameworks where the protagonism is given to individual subjectivity or to the intersubjective mediation of signs and symbols. In fact, when more concrete theories are identified, even if they do not directly intersect, or develop inexorably fused to any of the traditions of Craig’s metamodel, a kind of harmony of the central categories of the theory with the larger matrix can be deduced. This can be seen in the associations between, for example, framing theory (or news framing) linked with emphasis to the rhetorical tradition and to a lesser extent to the Sociopsychological tradition, which is interested in communication as “expression, interaction and influence” (Craig, 1999, p. 133).

^{Bauman’s (2004}) perspective of “liquid modernity” appears to be related to the cybernetic tradition and the critical tradition, the former concerned with information processing and the systemic functioning of communication, while the latter questions the discourses of power or dominant discourses.

From another angle, it is interesting to notice in the Theory of “Bubble Filters” (^{Pariser, 2011}, ²⁰¹⁷), represented in 11 of the 46 articles (13% of the sample), a difficulty in framing itself in one tradition or another. It can be thought that this theory is of recent appearance and is “naturally” incorporated into a reading of the social dynamics in the use of technological devices and consumption of information through digital social networks, claiming a certain novelty by explicitly arguing that the information that reaches people on technological platforms occurs through personalization and indicators of liking or affinity such as “likes” and no longer only through the proposal or news and information agenda of traditional media.

^{Pariser (2017)} describes the cognitive distances to which users of digital platforms and social networks are exposed: by reinforcing consumption and interaction only in certain informational niches or digital communities, individuals lose the opportunity to know other opinions and information, other than those that are not congruent with their tastes, interests, beliefs and values. Thus, the visions of the world that each person configures are cut, depending on the personalization that technology provides through the inclusion of “bots” and algorithms, with which it is already possible to map tastes, preferences, psychologically profile and segment the users of technologies (^{Harsin, 2015}; ^{Masip et al., 2019}).

^{Van der Linden et al. (2020)} analyze the impact of fake news in the media and networks, seen as an inadequate mechanism for political manipulation. In this sense, they delve into the framework of the ideological polarization of media affiliation, as it happens in the informational contrast presented at the time by CNN and Fox News, against the Trump administration. Therefore, the assessment of trust in the media and its news from the political scenario is relative according to the affinity that people have, who in their social representations assume the veracity in the contents of the media that reflects their political preference, while they disqualify the contents of politically contradictory media, assuming them as false news.

^{Wardle and Derakhshan (2017)} develop a conceptual, methodological and interdisciplinary approach to one of the emerging categories in the analysis of post-truth considered as “information disorder”. Among their findings, they highlight the need to understand the mechanisms that people use to process information from the framework of the traditions of sociological and cultural theories, generating in turn an additional topic on how content emerges and is socioculturally positioned from a segmented perspective derived from preferences, affinity and relative credibility of source verification strategies and the analysis of the implications of collective narratives built in the media and social networks.

These types of theoretical approaches are a significant input that should lead us to broaden the analytical spectrum of knowledge and understanding of post-truth and fake news, as they reveal substantial elements to face with more awareness and assimilate how, for example, the collapse of citizen confidence in public institutions or in journalism itself, which was previously recognized for its role in the construction of the truth stories that a democratic and free society demands, has been woven.

These findings represent a complex scenario of interaction with networks and the knowledge society, specifically in the field of communication and journalism. In summary, the phenomenon of post- truth and fake news has an impact on democratic systems and merits the need to deepen knowledge and reflection on these topics in order to positively impact the future of the professional work of social communicators, journalists and society as a whole.