Endless social media feeds, 24-hour news cycles, and AI-driven search engines have empowered us to curate the content we consume and even the people we interact with. It’s an unprecedented development in human history that has profoundly shifted our understanding of the world. While global connectivity and mass information access can have enormous upsides (e.g. exposure to new ideas), they’ve created a hyperreality—a simulated existence that separates us from what actually occurs outside our digital ecosystems.
In hyperreal environments like Instagram and X, fine-tuned narratives—cultivated by capable but ethically suspect storytellers like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr—create a “reality” that feels authentic but lacks an original reference point. Author and legal scholar Ron Chapman argues that these platforms surgically exploit psychological truths to guide decisions, fostering a world where emotion trumps fact. Combined with the prevailing social dogma that “my lived experience” is the ultimate standard of morality, hyperreality distorts our judgement—driving us to make decisions that could harm ourselves and others.
The core challenge in hyperreality for both content creators and consumers is balancing persuasion’s power with ethical responsibility. But how do we do that exactly?
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In his book Truth and Persuasion: In the Digital Revolution, Chapman explores how influence shapes our world in an era of competing truths, examining how persuasion is crafted, consumed, and contested across political speeches, TikTok trends, and brand campaigns. It offers a roadmap to decode, resist, and responsibly wield influence in a digital age dominated by social media algorithms and viral content.
Join Dr. Liza Lockwood and Cam English on this episode of Facts and Fallacies as they explore the consequences of hyperreality with Ron Chapman.
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Ron Chapman is a federal criminal defense attorney and author of the book Truth and Persuasion. Visit his Substack and follow him on X @RonChapmanAtty.
Dr. Liza Lockwood is a medical toxicologist and the medical affairs lead at Bayer Crop Science. Follow her on X @DrLizaMD
Cameron J. English is the director of bio-sciences at the American Council on Science and Health. Follow him on X @camjenglish
