Speaking truth to power, Kahl and Atay’s perfectly timed and much-needed edited collection comprehensively conceptualizes, compellingly critiques, and carefully considers how critical communication pedagogy can contribute to college students’ capacity to recognize and resist the contemporary post-truth context in which politicians, media personnel, and other parties seek to preserve power and further persecute oppressed populations, by purposefully promoting false/fake “facts” that prey on people who are persuaded by their emotions and beliefs rather than by factual truths.

Lawrence R. Frey, University of Colorado Boulder

Post-truth messages, as communication that functions to 'falsify, obfuscate and shape information for nefarious reasons' (Kahl, Jr. and Atay, preface par. 7), are as pervasive as they are pernicious. The messages and the organizations and individuals who craft them effectively infiltrate our classrooms and undermine the role of colleges and universities in knowledge construction for individual and community transformation. Kahl, Jr. and Atay have assembled a collection of scholars who illuminate the challenges before us and offer pathways for educators to explore with our students in analyzing, evaluating, and rejecting hegemony, and strengthening agency. It is essential reading for navigating what comes next.

Deanna L. Fassett, San José State University