{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,29]],"date-time":"2026-04-29T09:44:25Z","timestamp":1777455865072,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":96,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,1]],"date-time":"2023-01-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1672531200000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100000155","name":"Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["430-2019-00078"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["430-2019-00078"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100000155","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Big Data &amp; Society"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2023,1]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Post-truth tells the story of a public descending into unreason, aided and abetted by platforms and other data-driven systems. But this apparent collapse of epistemic consensus is, I argue, also dominated by loud and aggressive commitment to the idea of facts and Reason \u2013 a site where an imagined modern past is being pillaged for vestigial legitimacy. This article identifies two common practices of such reappropriation and mythologisation. (1) Fact signalling involves performative invocations of facts and Reason, which are then weaponised to discredit communicative rivals and establish affective solidarity. This is often closely tied to (2) fact nostalgia: the cultivation of an imagined past when \u2018facts were facts\u2019 and we, the good liberal subjects, could recognise facts when we saw them. Both tendencies are underwritten by a myth of connection: the still enduring narrative that maximising the circulation of information regardless of provenance or meaning will eventually yield a more rational public \u2013 even as data-driven systems tend to undermine the very conditions for such a public. Drawing on examples from YouTube-amplified \u2018alternative influencers\u2019 in the American right, and the normative discourses around fact-checking practices, I argue that this continued reliance on the vestigial authority of the modern past is a pernicious obstacle in normative debates around data-driven publics, keeping us stuck on the same dead-end scripts of heroically suspicious individuals and ignorant, irrational masses.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/20539517231164118","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,3,20]],"date-time":"2023-03-20T10:21:23Z","timestamp":1679307683000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":6,"title":["Fact signalling and fact nostalgia in the data-driven society"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"10","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8243-4974","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Sun-ha","family":"Hong","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Communication Department, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,3,20]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr1-20539517231164118","unstructured":"Absolute Proof (2021) One America News Network."},{"key":"bibr2-20539517231164118","unstructured":"Ag\u00fcera y Arcas B, Mitchell M, Todorov A (2017) Physiognomy\u2019s new clothes. 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