“So New Sincerity”

This chapter examines the relationship between sincerity and digitization and how sincerity relates to such central concepts in the sincerity-and-media debate as amateurism, imperfection, and craft. It considers the many online “produsers”—media expert Axel Bruns's term for denoting that, online, “distinctions between producers and users of content have faded into comparative insignificance”—who use online self-publishing tools to publicly share their views on sincerity. The chapter problematizes existing notions of mediatization and authenticity and discusses current debates about our “mediated” world. It calls for a move beyond Western paradigms and more transcultural sensitiveness in the academic debate on new media, reality, and honesty. It also looks at existing studies' near-exclusive emphasis on authenticity, sincerity's conceptual twin. It shows that in post-Soviet space, those who reflect on the impact of new media on our lives show a special interest not in authenticity but in sincerity.