The end of reality as we knew it
The search for reality in the 21st century has become a task of unprecedented complexity, marking the dawn of the “Information Disorder” era where trust in global information ecosystems is being deliberately eroded. By 2025, estimates suggest that up to 62% of online content may be false or artificially generated, exposing 86% of the population to deceptive narratives. This book, The End of Reality: Disinformation and the Fact-Checking Era, serves as a comprehensive cartography of this landscape, integrating perspectives from 75 internationally renowned scholars across 20 countries. Through six sections, the authors discuss the philosophical foundations of our post-truth condition, exploring concepts like “I-pistemology”, where subjective life experience replaces institutional expertise. The volume unmasks the “synthetic illusions” of Large Language Models and the rise of “synthetic friends”: AI companions that create impenetrable epistemic cocoons. From the information warfare in geopolitical conflicts to the visual distortions during natural disasters like the 2024 DANA foods in Spain, this work provides a multidisciplinary exploration of how truth is contested. It goes beyond simple debunking to propose new technological and collaborative frameworks for verification, such as the MonitorIA project for Telegram and the DISINFOX platform. By addressing the “human factor” through cognitive resilience models like the “Wave and Wall”, this book offers a roadmap for navigating an ecosystem where the distinction between truth and synthetic illusion has become a defining battlefeld of our time. Finally, these chapters remind us that reality is a collective achievement requiring constant defense and ethical stewardship of our informational behaviour.
Searching for reality: an introduction to the current disinformation landscape / Daniel Catalan-Matamoros & Carlos Elías
SECTION I: LIVING IN THE FOG: PHILOSOPHICAL AND RHETORICAL FOUNDATIONS OF REALITY
Speculative attitude in the construction of truth: a discussion on the weakening of factual truth consciousness in a post-truth era / Luis Pedro Ribeiro Rodrigues
Beyond fact-checking: a contestivist approach to disinformation / Jim Joquico
To scroll or to trust? the new battleground of truth on social media / Margarida Raposo Alves
From information disorder to epistemic trust: rethinking disinformation in climate communication / Felipe Núñez Sánchez
Re-signifying resistance: platform drift and the sonic afterlives of Bella Ciao and Grândola, Vila Morena / Paula Gomes-Ribeiro
SECTION II: SYNTHETIC ILLUSIONS: THE ALGORITHMIC MECHANICS OF TRUTH DISTORTION
Good vs evil: artificial intelligence in the battle against disinformation / Almudena Barreiro Carrillo
The role of social media platforms in amplifying fake news and rumours: societal risks in the era of unmoderated content / Stefano Lovi
Users’ perception of information manipulation by potentially automated accounts on x: the case of the covid-19 health crisis / Thuy Duong; Sarah Theroine; Gilles Brachotte; Alexander Frame & Laurent Gautier
Selective Agreement in LLM Debates: anchoring effects and resistance to disinformation / Daniel Dovger; Marcio Fückner & Pascal Wiggers
Synthetic friends: ai companions and the future of disinformation / Massimo Flore
Crowdsourced truth and ideological imbalance: the case of community notes / Uxía Carral & Roger Cuartielles
SECTION III: THE FABRIC OF REALITIES: IDENTITY, GEOPOLITICS, AND NARRATIVES
The effect of information warfare on national security in a geopolitical context: the case of the United Kingdom / Yuliia Turchenko
“The parallel battlefield: how disinformation and bots shaped narratives. In the 12-day Israel-Iran war” / Mahsa Rabipour Dehshali
War Reporters In Conflict Zones : Professional Practices, Disinformation, Security Risks And Strategic Responses / Klervi Le Collen
“Disinformation and migrant narratives: analyzing spanish-language posts on x about migrants and refugees in Chile (2024)” / Miguel Cembellín Fernández
Countering Disinformation Efforts during the General Elections in Kenya: Identifying Challenges with Fact-checking Initiatives / Katerina Tsetsura; Dane Kiambi & Prisca Ngondo
How right-wing media sabotaged a judge’s appointment: the brosius-gersdorf disinformation campaign / Marten Neelsen
Micro-influencers and disinformation: shaping environmental narratives online / Letizia Sacco
In Brazil, a president “sent by god”: fake news as a communication tool of the far-right / Tatiana Ávila Gomes
Between documentation and distortion: visual disinformation and photojournalistic framing of the 2024 dana foods in Spain / Celia Ramos Vera & Carolina Fernández-Castrillo
SECTION IV: THE FRAGILE PERCEPTION: COGNITIVE VULNERABILITY AND PUBLIC OPINION
Cognitive overload – the new normal / Isabelle Bale
Integrating information behaviour and technocognition: a methodological approach to ai-driven misinformation / Ivan Smekalin
Who dares to share? Assessing perceptions of disinformation in Cyprus / Dimitrios Giomelakis; Theodora A. Maniou; Costas Constandinides & Maria Noti
From content to publics: a case for focusing on disinformation audiences / Gulnara Zakharova
Trust in fact-checking: a literature review on public perceptions and credibility challenges / Leonardo Desideri
Negativism and sensationalism in tv news: between information overload and emotional impact / Patrícia Nagyová & Zora Hudíková
Memory literacy, remix culture, and the future of remembrance in the digital age / Valdemir Santos Neto
The role of racial science in disinformation and misinformation / Holly Randell-Moon
SECTION V: THE REALITY LAB: DIGITAL TOOLS AND HUMAN NETWORKS IN FACT-CHECKING
The Future of Check-Worthiness Detection / Charlie Roadhouse; Ashley Williams & Matthew Shardlow
Designing AI tools to combat disinformation on Telegram within a human-inthe-loop approach: the monitorIA project / Javier Cantón-Correa
The epistemic community of fact-checkers: a case study on the meaningmaking of audience engagement in a platformized public sphere / Francesco Maria Parente
Enabling European Fact-Checker Cooperation through the DISINFOX Platform / T. García-Alcaraz; J. Pastor-Galindo; J. A. Ruipérez-Valiente &J. M. Aguado-Terrón
Disinformation and political polarization – fact-checking examples from the atena project / Miran ÄŒoklo; Ivan Dolanc; Ivan Balabanić & Gordan Akrap
AI as tool for detecting disinformation and developing critical thinking / Norbert Vrabec & Klára Zubková
Digital activism and empowerment in the promotion of public health: the role of social media in vaccine mobilization in Brazil / Anna J. Teixeira De Oliveira; Lucas Bragança; Francis Sodré & Fábio Malini
Disinformation of infographics in health communication: a comparative analysis of brazilian and spanish newspapers / Guillermina Franco-Álvarez & David García-Martul
SECTION VI: THE FUTURE OF REALITY: ETHICS, RESILIENCE, AND SUSTAINABLE TRUTH
The gossiping machine: ethical tensions in ai-assisted verification systems. As information ecosystem actors / Hanna Gawel
On their terms: designing intervention against misinformation with games designers. and social media influencers / Andrew Fowler; Clémentine Guilbaud Demaison & Ed Hodgson
Gamification for disinformation prevention / Martin PauÄin & Andrej Trnka
Sustainability and visibility: rethinking fact-checking beyond platform funding / Luca Serafini; Mauro Bomba & Laurens Lauer
Legal Liability and the Propagation of Misinformation: Will Social Media Go the Way of Big Tobacco? / Neil H. Wasserman
Reforms from yesterday that were lost in translation / Michael Ray Smith
Strategic Communication on Social Media in the Fight Against Disinformation: An Analysis of Slovak Ministry of Interior Before the 2023 Parliamentary Elections / Denis JavoÅ™ík
Cita 'Chicago'
Catalán-Matamoros, Daniel y Carlos Elías, coords. The end of reality as we knew it. Disinformation, Artificial Intelligence and the new era of fact-checking. Madrid: Dykinson, 2026.
Cita 'APA'
Catalán-Matamoros, Daniel & Elías, Carlos (Coords.) (2026). The end of reality as we knew it. Disinformation, Artificial Intelligence and the new era of fact-checking. Dykinson.
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