Vibocracy and the Collapse of Shared Reality

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Peer Reviewed

This is a peer-reviewed entry published in Encyclopedia Journal, full entry can be found at 10.3390/encyclopedia5040163

Vibocracy refers to societal conditions in which public life and decision-making are shaped by affective resonance, performative legitimacy, and unstable epistemic frames, often amplified by algorithmic media and neo-oral communication environments. Unlike wicked problems, which presuppose shared intelligibility, and post-truth politics, which emphasize the erosion of factual authority, vibocracy designates contexts where problems themselves are enacted and sustained through affective circulation. Recent years have seen the emergence of societal challenges where public life and decision-making are shaped less by shared evidence and deliberative reasoning than by affective resonance and performative legitimacy. This entry introduces the concept of vibocracy to describe these conditions and distinguishes it from existing categories such as wicked problems and messes. The analysis is based on a conceptual synthesis of scholarship from planning, organizational studies, media theory, and political science, combined with illustrative examples from recent societal controversies. The main finding is that vibocratic problems resist not only solutions but stable framing itself, creating volatile, performative arenas where legitimacy is enacted rather than negotiated. The entry concludes by proposing vibocracy as a distinct conceptual lens for understanding emerging societal challenges and outlines methodological implications for researchers and practitioners.

problem framing wicked problems affective publics algorithmic media epistemic fragmentation organizational legitimacy

1.1. Wicked Problems and Shared Intelligibility

When Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber coined wicked problems in 1973, they provided planners, policymakers, and designers with a vocabulary for a new class of societal challenges ^[1]. Wicked problems were not simply complex technical puzzles that could be solved with additional data or sharper analytics. They were open-ended, interconnected, and value-laden situations in which problem definition and solution co-evolved. Every intervention carried irreversible consequences, and no single actor held decisive authority. Russell Ackoff described these conditions as “messes,” highlighting the systems-level interdependence and the futility of optimizing isolated parts without engaging the whole ^[2]. Donald Schön emphasized that professional practice depends on framing and “reflection-in-action,” underscoring that solving complex problems is inseparable from how they are conceptualized ^[3].

For decades, this vocabulary has shaped work in urban planning ^[4], environmental policy ^[5], and organizational strategy ^[6]. Yet the notion of wickedness presupposed at least a minimal common ground. Actors might disagree on values or priorities, but they still inhabited overlapping epistemic worlds. They could argue about what counted as evidence, engage in debate, and recognize shared facts ^[7]. Wicked problems thus assumed shared intelligibility.

1.2. From Post-Truth to Vibocracy

Today, that presupposition is increasingly fragile. Digital platforms, affect-driven politics, and algorithmic information systems have fractured the public sphere ^[8]^[9]. Instead of a common arena for contesting values, proliferating micro-publics have emerged, often insulated from one another and driven more by performative resonance than by deliberative reasoning ^[10]^[11]. In such contexts, problems may not only resist solutions but also appear to resist framing itself. Competing groups inhabit parallel narrative universes: climate change may appear as existential emergency to some and elite conspiracy to others; vaccination may be framed as solidarity or as authoritarian overreach. Scholars of post-truth describe this as a crisis of epistemic authority, in which facts lose traction not only through manipulation but also through indifference to common standards of justification ^[12]^[13]^[14]^[15].

1.3. Defining Vibocratic Problems

These dynamics suggest the emergence of a different category of societal challenge—one that mutates in real time, circulates as affective atmospheres rather than stable facts, and mobilizes loyalty rather than dialog. These can be described as vibocratic problems: issues that derive their power and volatility from affective charge, performative enactment, and epistemic fugacity. By epistemic fugacity, we mean the fleeting and unstable character of knowledge claims, the validity of which dissipates as quickly as it circulates, making shared understanding difficult to sustain. Vibocracy can be defined as a condition in which legitimacy and problem recognition depend less on empirical verification or deliberative reasoning than on the intensity of circulating signals. Unlike post-truth, which emphasizes the erosion of factual authority, vibocracy highlights how resonance, virality, and shared atmospheres organize attention ^[16]. Unlike wicked problems, which presuppose overlapping epistemic arenas, vibocracy denotes contexts in which even the minimal baseline of intelligibility collapses ^[17]. Some scholars might argue that wicked problem theory remains sufficient if adapted to digital and affective conditions, viewing vibocracy as an intensification of existing dynamics ^[5]^[18]. This entry suggests instead that vibocracy represents a distinct category, since it describes contexts where even minimal shared intelligibility dissolves and problems are enacted primarily through affective resonance.

Where wicked problems were plural and value-charged ^[1]^[19], vibocratic problems appear unstable and performative. Their ontology is ephemeral, enacted through vibe rather than verified through evidence ^[14]^[20]. They emerge in fragmented publics ^[18], where even basic problem recognition can become partisan or tribal. Climate change may be narrated either as existential threat or elaborate hoax ^[19]; pandemic response as either social solidarity or authoritarian overreach ^[20]. Corruption can appear as scandal in one setting and spectacle in another—and increasingly as the latter ^[21].

1.4. An Order by Affect

Vibocracy does not necessarily represent accidental chaos. Some evidence suggests that it may instead constitute an order organized through affect. Attention is captured and coordinated by neo-oral media forms—short-form video, livestream performance, and meme logic—that bypass deliberative reasoning and activate shared emotional states ^[22]^[23]. Leaders who once feared scandal now sometimes weaponize it, turning impropriety into a signal of authenticity and dominance ^[24]. Corruption has become genre ^[25], with conventions instantly legible: performative transgression, ironic defiance, memetic circulation, and the collapse of shame as a cultural brake ^[26]^[27]^[28]^[29].

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Book: Encyclopedia of Social Sciences

Online Date: 14 Oct 2025

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