CRITICAL THINKING
IN A POST-TRUTH ERA

As part of the Que se passe-t-il? (What's Happening?) series of talks developed by the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in partnership with the City of Paris, I attended a lecture in October 2025 given by Cyril Lemieux, sociologist and director of studies at EHESS, on the topic of Fake News and Conspiracy Theories: How to Strengthen Critical Thinking?.

This researcher, also a member of the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Studies on Reflexivity - Yan Thomas Fund (LIER-FYT), offered some interesting insights on the subject, using the case of France, which I explore further below.

Socio-historical context

When medias reinvent their modes of production and dissemination, a phenomenon of moral panic systematically occurs among the general public (1). In the 18th and 19th centuries, medias faced criticism from intellectual elites, leading to public opinion becoming a new principle of authority, with journalists acting as its guardians.

At the end of the 19th century, the press experienced a crisis due to its industrialisation: this marked the birth of miscellaneous news stories and reportages, journalists became salaried employees, and readership surged from 25K to over a million (2). In response, reactionary elites accused newspapers of dumbing down public debate, while progressive elites accused the press of depoliticising the working classes and defending the interests of large capitalist corporations. Consequently, journalistic professionalism became the new principle of authority, leading to the Law of the 29th of March 1935, stemming from the Brachard Report, which legally recognised the status of journalists and their independence, and notably generated an antitrust movement aimed at preventing media concentration in the hands of corporations, the creation of monopolies, and price controls (3).

In the 20th century, the press was then considered the 'fourth estate', or more accurately, the institutionalised counter-power, a guarantor of democracy, standing up to the three branches of government (executive, legislative and judicial) (4). However, the internet crisis has challenged traditional medias by providing a space conducive to the rise of self-publishing, self-promotion, and whistleblowers.

We arrive in the 2010s to see the sophistication of commercial strategies, notably through the sponsorship of online content and the development of recommendation algorithms that generate information bubbles ('echo chambers'), and finally the advent of the 'clickbait' business model. Subsequently, influence strategies are refined to serve political communication, propaganda in favour of foreign interests (e.g., RT, Sputnik)(5), and merchants of doubt (6). The concentration of certain media outlets and their use to serve vested interests finally leads the general public to reconsider the independence of journalists (7).

Accountability: the socio-political imperative

It is in the context described above that social movements of conspiracy theories, post-truth, and fake news developed, calling into question the credibility of the masses. The challenge then becomes to develop ways to resist these societal phenomena, and faced with the loss of trust in journalists and media companies, a new principle of authority emerges: the imperative of accountability, the duty to be held accountable – thus the necessity of transparency – applied to all public and private actors, including the medias, and citizens as well.

On the 22nd of December 2018, the law “relating to the fight against the manipulation of information” was adopted, signaling a trend towards the judicialisation of the press through modifications to freedom of communication, the fight against the dissemination of false information, and media and information literacy (8).

Beyond state power, the imperative of accountability takes on its full meaning with regards to social networks as the primary source of the mass dissemination of false information and the manipulation of public opinion, and it imposes on their bearers and internet service providers a duty of cooperation for transparency and collective verification.

The arising challenge concerns the development of these regulatory principles to everyone. What are the keys?

• Transmit the experience of enquiring contradiction and the rigour of the scientific process: transparent, reproducible (with the same data and experimental conditions), and replicable (under new experimental conditions).

• Promote the reversal of the burden of proof: when faced with an argument, seek to provide counter-arguments and supporting evidence to ensure an informed position/decision (9).

• Develop fact-checking services: examples include the Intox section of France 24's 'Les Observateurs' (10), the AFP Factuel service of Agence France-Presse (11), and the section 'Les Décodeurs' of the newspaper Le Monde (12).

• Deconstruct information bubbles by seeking perspectives and experiences outside of our groups, and regulate algorithms on the internet and social media.

• Provide media literacy education as early as possible.

In such ways, we can foster critical thinking between communities and within our own. Out of necessity to co-habit places, it is our duty to create inclusive spaces of discussion and debate to address these very issues and thus promote independent and informed thinking and decision-making.

This article was written on March 30 2026 by Guillaume Bury.

1. Cohen, S. (2011). Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203828250

2. Delporte, C. (2012). Popularité de la presse quotidienne (1890-1910). https://essentiels.bnf.fr/fr/societe/medias/b301c6f3-73f9-4882-81c8-5b81d897a876-gazette-internet/article/75cf2df6-092e-4bae-acdc-ba1e99873479-popularite-la-presse-quotidienne-1890-1910 ; Joffredo, L. (2012). La révolution de la presse populaire. https://essentiels.bnf.fr/fr/societe/medias/b301c6f3-73f9-4882-81c8-5b81d897a876-gazette-internet/article/aac922db-7d9f-484f-85f3-cf0d7cc80117-revolution-la-presse-populaire ; Taveaux-Grandpierre, K. (2001). De la transformation de la presse en industrie culturelle par la diffusion. Communication & Langages, 130(1), 86-99

3. Commission de la carte d’identité des journalistes professionnels. (2025). Rapport Brachard : enfin un statut pour les journalistes !. https://ccijp.fr/rapport-brachard-enfin-un-statut-pour-les-journalistes/ ; Brachard, E. (1935). Rapport. https://www.snj.fr/sites/default/files/documents/Rapport-Brachard.pdf

4. Kessler, D.  (2012). Les médias sont-ils un pouvoir ? Pouvoirs, 143(4), 105-112. https://doi.org/10.3917/pouv.143.0105 ; Eveno, P. (2018). Le journalisme, quatrième pouvoir ?. https://www.vie-publique.fr/files/fiche_produit/pdf/3303330404065_EX.pdf ; Bulla, D. (2022). Fourth estate. In The SAGE encyclopedia of journalism (Vol. 4, pp. 675-679). SAGE Publications, Inc., https://doi.org/10.4135/9781544391199.n164

5. Reporters Sans Frontières. (2025). Propaganda Monitor : RSF publie son rapport sur la géopolitique de la propagande du Kremlin. https://rsf.org/fr/propaganda-monitor-rsf-publie-son-rapport-sur-la-géopolitique-de-la-propagande-du-kremlin ; Secrétariat général de la défense et de la sécurité nationale. (2024). Portal Kombat : un réseau structuré et coordonné de propagande russe. https://www.sgdsn.gouv.fr/publications/portal-kombat-un-reseau-structure-et-coordonne-de-propagande-prorusse

6. Cf. Oreskes, N. & Conway, E. (2010). Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Climate Change.

7. Kaciaf, N. (2022). La concentration des médias, un enjeu démocratique depuis la IIIᵉ République. https://theconversation.com/la-concentration-des-medias-un-enjeu-democratique-depuis-la-iii-republique-179502 ; Fengler, S. (2019). Accountability in Journalism. In The International Encyclopedia of Journalism Studies (eds T.P. Vos, F. Hanusch, D. Dimitrakopoulou, M. Geertsema-Sligh and A. Sehl). https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118841570.iejs0078

8. Légifrance. LOI n° 2018-1202 du 22 décembre 2018 relative à la lutte contre la manipulation de l'information. https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000037847559/

9. Plantin, C. (2021). Charge de la preuve. https://icar.cnrs.fr/dicoplantin/charge-de-la-preuve/ ; Reverdy, T.  (2021). Chapitre 22. L’inversion de la charge de la preuve. Antimanuel de management de projet : Composer avec les incertitudes (p. 225-228). Dunod. https://shs.cairn.info/antimanuel-de-management-de-projet--9782100812066-page-225?lang=fr ; Doury, M.  (2025). Chapitre 5. La structure de l’argumentation. Argumentation : Analyser textes et discours (p. 143-172). Armand Colin. https://shs.cairn.info/argumentation--9782200640422-page-143?lang=fr

10. Les Observateurs. (2026). Intox. https://observers.france24.com/fr/tag/intox/

11. Agence France-Presse. (2026). AFP Factuel. https://factuel.afp.com

12. Le Monde. (2026). Les Décodeurs. https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/