Post‑Cynical Politics in the Post‑Web Era
Abstract
Post‑Cynical Politics in the Post‑Web Era examines how institutional erosion, platform‑mediated meaning, and AI‑driven epistemic filtering dissolve the structural conditions that once made political cynicism meaningful. Using the SR framework, the essay argues that cynicism collapses not because trust increases but because visibility itself disappears through metadata suppression, infrastructural opacity, and machine‑layer deodorization. It introduces “post‑cynical politics” as a political condition in which critique becomes impossible, manipulation becomes infrastructural, and governance shifts from ideological contestation to affective management.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Social Media and Politics
Misinformation and Its Impacts
Political Theory and Democracy
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
- Publication date
- 1 March 2026
- Language
- EN
- Document type
- Preprint