Representations of veridictory modalities and post-truth in the digital transition: discourse and corporeality in the Netflix show Clickbait

The article discusses the representation of truth and falsity in the Netflix show Clickbait (2021), utilising its diegesis to review Greimas’ (1983) Veridiction Contract and Keyes’ (2004) text on Post-truth. A show presenting a commentary on the various challenges the digital substance poses to the construction and sanction of truth, the analysis of selected sequences facilitates the debate of two facets of truth-making in the digital transition: the manipulation of discursive substances—verbal language and iconic representation—and the emergence of a modality of truth anchored in the corporeality of subjects. The analysis approaches digital platforms and the intersubjective relations they enable and the extent to which different substances are capable of producing separate levels of reality. The examination of the crisis of truth emerging from the clash between “real life” and life post-digital transition permits the interrogation of mechanisms of sanction, which are replaced with an artificial enlargement of attention.