A Culture of Conspiracy

Barkun, Michael

doi:10.1525/9780520956520

Cited by 98 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Indeed, they found evidence for this argument, and also found that conspiracy mindset predicted specific political attitudes, such as anti-American and anti-capitalist attitudes. In describing conspiracy belief as comprising (or arising from) a mindset, this approach follows scholars across disciplines [10, 20,33,34,35,36,37]. However, the mindset construct is importantly ambiguous in both lay meaning and psychological theory.…”

Section: Theorizing the Ideological Relevance Of Conspiracy Beliefsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conspiracy theories and the conspiracy mindset: implications for political ideology

Sutton

Douglas

2020

Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences

147

131

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: Theorizing the Ideological Relevance Of Conspiracy Beliefsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conspiracy theories and the conspiracy mindset: implications for political ideology

Sutton

Douglas

2020

Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences

147

131

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The corollary is that only contrary voices can be trusted, partially accounting for the anti-science permeating conspiracy culture (cf. Barkun 2003).…”

Section: What To Do?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Conspiracy theories tend to be and correlate positively with other explanations that conflict with best academic knowledge (Lobato et al 2014;Stone et al 2018), and belief in them leads to less support for democratic processes and institutions (Imhoff et al 2020;Jolley and Douglas 2014). They typically fill a function as theodicy on the human level (Barkun 2003), explaining the evils of current situations as originating, at least partially, from other social groups. Among them, we find conspiracy theories relating to religion and/or ethnicity as a topic, with, for example, actors from (other) religions being defined as the villains of the narrative (Dyrendal et al 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conspiracy Theories in the Classroom: Problems and Potential Solutions

Dyrendal

Jolley

2020

Religions

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Conspiracy narratives and speculative rumors of a conspiracist nature are intermittently popular in youth culture, as well as in political discourse. The general motivations of conspiracy beliefs relate to essential needs (for knowledge, to feel safe and secure, to feel good about oneself and one’s group), but evidence shows these needs are not actually served by conspiracy beliefs. Conspiracy theories tend to be explanations that conflict with best academic knowledge, and belief in them leads to less support for democratic processes and institutions. They play a role in political polarization, and they are used in identity-protective cognition. They may both express and arouse “strong feelings and divide communities and society”. Conspiracy theories as a general topic thus satisfy general criteria for controversial issues. At the same time, they are particularly interesting because they hover between the superficially and the inherently controversial: although in practice often resistant to contradictory evidence, they generally appeal to reason and evidence. While they sometimes are rooted in deep religious and religion-like beliefs, we argue that this makes them good cases for practicing analytical skills that could better serve all the needs above. Since cases and topics can cover the gamut from the subject-related to the cross-curricular and civic behavior, and the skills should be broadly transferable, using conspiracy theories as a topic has a high possible upside. However, conspiracy theories in a school setting have not yet been a topic of much research. This article takes as its starting point interviews with teachers and preliminary investigations of adolescents, before presenting an outline of possible didactic tools for teachers based on the general findings of effective interventions on conspiracy beliefs and related issues.

show abstract

“…A more penetrating analysis is provided by Barkun, who observes that, while Icke does not deny the Holocaust, he blames it on "mysterious Jewish elites," especially the Rothschild family, which he alleges "brought Hitler to power," created Zionism, and "control[s] the State of Israel." 52 This is a particularly offensive and historically illiterate example of the "Holocaust inversion" that characterises much contemporary antisemitic discourse. 53…”

Section: David Ickementioning

confidence: 99%

“What Others Dare Not Say”: An Antisemitic Conspiracy Fantasy and its YouTube Audience

Allington

Joshi²

2020

JCA

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The YouTube video-sharing platform is one of the most important sites for the dissemination of conspiracy theory, or—to give it a more accurately descriptive term—conspiracy fantasy. After surveying the historical and contemporary evidence for the role of conspiracy fantasy in right-wing violent extremism, this article turns its focus to a YouTube video excerpted from a public lecture in which professional conspiracy theorist David Icke purports to expose members of a “Rothschild Zionist” secret society. First, historical discourse analysis is used to situate Icke’s fantasy within the antisemitic tradition of the extreme right. Then, the reception of Icke’s fantasy is studied through quantitative content analysis of YouTube user comments (n = 1123). Comments supportive of the video and its creator are found to outnumber comments that challenge them, as are comments expressing hostility to Jews or extending the video’s accusations against “Rothschild Zionists” to real-world Jewish collectivities. Moreover, the most popular comments are found to be disproportionately likely to be supportive of Icke or his video or otherwise anti-Jewish. These findings provide evidence that at least the active portion of the video’s YouTube audience may have had a tendency not only towards support of Icke’s ideas but also towards linkage of those ideas with an overtly antisemitic worldview. It is argued that YouTube’s ranking of comments by popularity may be serving to insulate harmful fantasies such as Icke’s from rational challenge by rendering genuinely critical responses invisible. This illustrates the dangers of outsourcing the evaluation of content to an online user community. But it also suggests that YouTube’s user interface design may be actively contributing to the spread of misinformation and bigotry by placing those who try to oppose them at a disadvantage. Keywords: antizionism, audience, conspiracism, conspiracy fantasy, conspiracy theory, content analysis, David Icke, discourse analysis, reception, right-wing extremism, YouTube

show abstract

A Culture of Conspiracy

Cited by 98 publications

References 0 publications

Conspiracy theories and the conspiracy mindset: implications for political ideology

Conspiracy theories and the conspiracy mindset: implications for political ideology

Conspiracy Theories in the Classroom: Problems and Potential Solutions

“What Others Dare Not Say”: An Antisemitic Conspiracy Fantasy and its YouTube Audience

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About