Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life

RAND's Truth Decay flagship report identifies and analyses four interconnected trends in American public life: increasing disagreement about facts and analytical interpretations, the blurring of the line between opinion and fact, a decline in the volume and authority of analysis in political discourse, and declining trust in institutions. At 324 pages, it is the most comprehensive structural account of the epistemic crisis that makes disinformation effective — and it situates that crisis in historical context, showing that earlier periods of 'truth decay' occurred and were eventually resolved.

The historical perspective is the report's most useful analytical contribution. It prevents the assumption that the current information environment is unprecedented and therefore requires entirely novel solutions, while also documenting what is genuinely new about the contemporary period. For practitioners who need to understand the structural conditions that make audiences susceptible to disinformation — rather than focusing on adversary tactics alone — this is the essential reference. It is also the foundation of the RAND Truth Decay research programme, which has produced a substantial body of subsequent work.