"Garber writes that Boorstin conceived of image as a strict "replica of reality, be it a movie or a news report or a poster of Monet's water lilies, that manages to be more interesting and dramatic and seductive than anything reality could hope to be" and as a "fundamentally democratic... illusion [that] we have repeatedly chosen for ourselves until we have ceased to see it as a choice at all.""
"...the history of "truthiness" goes back well beyond a decade ago. A recent article in The Atlantic by Megan Garber credits the historian Daniel Boorstin with the theory that "image" in America became preferred over reality in the century leading up to the 1960s. Boorstin, Garber says, "worried that we don't know what reality is anymore... and we don't seem to care.""
Technological advances from television to artificial intelligence have progressively lowered the barriers to fabricating convincing falsehoods. The concept of "truthiness" captures a preference for gut-based beliefs over verified facts. Daniel Boorstin warned that image often becomes more compelling than reality, describing image as a replica that can be more interesting, dramatic, and seductive than reality and as a democratic illusion repeatedly chosen until it ceases to seem a choice. Emerging media historically amplified the gap between image and reality long before reality television. The rise of AI in 2026 intensifies risks of large-scale misinformation and the use of AI-generated propaganda to manipulate belief and behavior.
Read at Psychology Today
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