From Fact‐checking to Value‐checking

Normative Reasoning in the New Public Sphere

Bibliographic Data

ID10359597
AuthorsDavid Yarrow (0000-0003-0461-4029, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume92
Issue4
Pages621-628
Publication date2021-05-06
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Political Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0032-3179 • E-ISSN: 1467-923X
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1467-923x.12999
OpenAlexW3161117672
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited4

This article suggests that fact checking is a useful but incomplete framework for delivering an epistemically healthy public sphere. Through a brief history of the fact/value distinction, it is argued that there is no secure justification for limiting interventions aimed at improving the emergent digital public sphere only to factual claims. On this basis, the heuristic principle of ‘value checking’ is outlined, as a complement to fact checking in the epistemic regulation of democratic discourse. Value checking would accept that more sophisticated and deliberative communication is a vital requirement for a well‐functioning public sphere, and that this can be promoted through new forms of epistemic regulation. However, it would reject the notion that fact checking is sufficient to achieve this, suggesting that the promotion of healthy political communication should also extend to value‐based reasoning. The principle of value checking could be added to the fact‐checking paradigm as a means of further enriching the public sphere in the ‘post‐truth’ age

Algorithm · Deliberative democracy · Democracy · Epistemology · Law and economics · Model checking · Normative · Political science · Politics · Public sphere · Public value · Sociology · Value (mathematics · Computer Science · Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection · Law · Philosophy · Public Administration and Political Analysis · Social Media and Politics

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Open DOIOpen Access