Intersubjective agreement as a fiction and the conceptual tensions regarding credibility

Abstract

This study addresses the concept of credibility based on a theoretical and empirical review that, moreover, seeks explicitly to understand its meaning for disciplines such as political communication, political science, and communication. It seeks to question the apparent homogeneity of the term and also highlight conceptual tensions in its everyday and academic use. To this propose, qualitative research is conducted based on in-depth interviews with experts in the aforementioned areas. The findings reveal the existence of what we have termed a “fiction of intersubjective agreement” regarding credibility, where a conceptual consensus is assumed that in practice does not exist. It is confirmed that credibility is based on a triad of truth, evidence, and verification, while highlighting the conceptual difference with the concept of trust, which is configured as an act of faith, sustained by emotional and subjective factors. Likewise, it is demonstrated that credibility is a relational and situated construct, conditioned by sociocultural frameworks and narrative disputes between different actors. Based on this, the research proposes a redefinition of credibility as a social, epistemic, and emotional construction that mediates between truth and trust, which in real is differentiated from the latter. It is defined as a situated and multidimensional concept, the understanding of which requires the articulation of rational-positivist, constructivist, and critical-hermeneutic approaches, all within a contemporary context of post-truth, disinformation, democratic regression, and technological transformation.