A return to the good old days: Populism, fake news, yellow journalism, and the unparalleled virtue of business people

Primo Levi, a victim of Auschwitz, warned in an interview to The New Republic in 1986 that empathy in contemporary industrial societies can disappear without warning and replaced with a new fascism, which “with its trail of intolerance, abuse, and servitude, can be born outside our country and imported into it, walking on tiptoe and calling itself by other names; or it can loose itself from within with such violence that it routs all defenses.” Professor Anthony Gould in his introductory chapter provides a timely reminder, and warning, that public policy and management theory are not necessarily simply a matter of clinical, scientifically constructed, models, but a part of genuine human forces, historical and otherwise, that have led to an age of crisis. Levi’s point is that events in the contemporary moment can move far faster than we recognize and trusted sources disappear even faster. In this chapter, the author provides a brief overview of the rise of digital personae in the context of intentionality and the trusted source.