Authenticity

Authenticity is an important concept in the study of consumer culture, especially with regard to tourism, culinary culture, and popular culture (esp. music) studies. The concept of authenticity refers to at least three ideas: factuality, originality, and sincerity. These three denotations are quite distinct from one another, and as a result of such polysemy, the use of the term authenticity in the social scientific literature can be rather eclectic at best and unscrupulous at worst. This entry briefly examines these three denotations. First, authenticity can be understand to be synonymous with factuality, that is, with substantive truth. Therefore, when a fact, a claim, or an event is believed to be authentic, there ought to exist convincing evidence that this is the case. Second, authenticity is ...