This research article examines post-truth fatigue as a structural condition of contemporary information societies and analyzes its consequences for journalism, media trust, and the possibility of shared public reality. Moving beyond explanatory frameworks focused on misinformation, disinformation, or polarization alone, the study argues that prolonged exposure to unresolved information conflict produces not merely skepticism, but a widespread exhaustion of interpretive capacity. Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship in media studies, political communication, and the sociology of knowledge, the article conceptualizes post-truth fatigue as a systemic outcome shaped by narrative overload, platform-driven acceleration, identity-based trust, and chronic uncertainty. It demonstrates how these dynamics undermine journalism’s traditional role as a mediator of common understanding and transform media consumption into fragmented, audience-specific practices of meaning-making. The analysis introduces the concept of epistemic enclaves or “trust islands” to describe the reconfiguration of credibility in fragmented public spheres. In the absence of a shared media reality, trust becomes localized and selective rather than universal, limiting the social effectiveness of fact-checking and verification while preserving bounded forms of engagement within specific audiences. The article argues that analytical journalism retains critical significance under conditions of post-truth fatigue, not as a mechanism for restoring consensus or shared reality, but as a form of epistemic mediation. By preserving context, continuity, and long-term interpretive frameworks, analytical journalism sustains spaces of intelligibility within fragmented information environments, even when consensus is unattainable. The version deposited in Zenodo is presented as a peer-reviewed research article intended to support open academic access, citation, and further interdisciplinary research. The content and analytical structure correspond to the author’s original scholarly contribution and have not been substantively modified.
Oleksandr Hryhoriev (Fri,) studied this question.