Ecologies of Truth in the Network Age: Fake News and the Pedagogical Task

Abstract

This proposal analyzes how digital co-existence, despite global connectivity, can foster exclusionary “tribal” dynamics rather than an inclusive community grounded in personal dignity. It outlines the conditions for an educating digital polis based on mutual recognition, shared norms, and sustained dialogue. Against this backdrop, it addresses fake news as a defining feature of network life and an epistemic-hermeneutic challenge that demands pedagogical responsibility. The paper advances ecological-digital citizenship as a framework for systemic responsibility toward both informational and environmental ecosystems, and frames discernment—attention, care, source-checking, and shared accountability—as a way to reduce the cognitive footprint of falsehood in an age of informational overproduction.