Page Not Found

Conspiracy

Conspiracy Theories, Mistrust Take Root During Pandemic

School Shootings in the U.S.: What Is the State of Evidence?

School shootings have been traditionally viewed as a unique form of violence in which disgruntled suburban White boys indiscriminately target their peers and cause mass injury; however, a series of recent studies that employ broader definitions of school shootings suggest they more closely resemble community-based gun violence. This study tests the fundamental assumption that school shootings are a unique form of violence using multi-level logistic regression models to compare the individual and contextual correlates of 752 nonfatal school shootings to 28,109 nonfatal public shootings across 1,098 counties and 45 U.S. states from 2015 to 2019. Results indicate minimal differences between school shootings and public shootings, which are likely shaped by the school context. The analysis suggests that school gun violence is not a unique phenomenon from community gun violence and may share a similar etiology.

Look to the Crisis Actors Meredith Conti Tragedy. Travesty. Circus. Burlesque. Commentators have plumbed the depths of popular theatre history in hopes of describing Donald Trump’s administration and the corresponding sociopolitical climate of a bruised, divided nation. These Trump-as-spectacle narratives—in which the president is variously depicted as ringmaster, puppet, Shakespearean tyrant, or melodramatic villain—and the progressive handwringing they inspire fittingly gesture toward the “smoke-and-mirrors” politics of an aspiring autocrat. However, they also operate on simplistic or imprecise definitions of theatricality and performativity that equate both terms with inauthenticity, treachery, or vainglory.1 Trump and his supporters also engage with and organize around notions of vigilant public spectatorship in a hyper-performative age, although to different ends. Certainly, the campaign’s routine allegations of “fake news” presuppose that journalists script fictional events and impersonate principled reporters in order to deceive an increasingly credulous public. On the far end of the conservative spectrum, a faction of conspiracy theorists have weaponized antitheatrical biases by recasting the victims and survivors of traumatic events as duplicitous and paid “crisis actors.” However, the work of student-activists emerging from one such trauma, the 2018 school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, demands that we reevaluate and reposition the notion of crisis acting. In the wake of the shooting, a group of Parkland students, many of them members of the school’s drama club, documented, narrated, and politicized their collective trauma through a multimodal performance of survivorship and activism that was no less genuine because of its performativity. Indeed, the self-described “dramatic” students sparked the coalescing of a visible and persuasive youth-led gun-control movement, one that models how to organize efficiently and communicate widely, how to acknowledge privilege and practice inclusionary activism, how to take up space traditionally occupied by adults, and how speak truth to power.2 David Hogg conducted [End Page 439] and filmed hushed interviews with classmates during the school’s lockdown, the viral cell-phone footage of which is simultaneously raw in content and deliberate in intent. In her March for Our Lives speech, Emma González ritualized protracted silence as a means of memorializing the shooting’s victims, while unapologetically rejecting the codes governing protest speeches and the ubiquitous though insufficient “moment of silence.”3 And when their theatre teacher, Melody Herzfeld, received the 2018 Tony Award in Excellence in Theatre Education, the school’s drama club and choir students marked the honor by singing Rent’s “Seasons of Love” on the live telecast. The Parkland students anchor their gun-control activism in a precocious awareness—likely a product of their liberal education, arts training, and upbringings in a digitally saturated world—that the theatrical necessarily infuses the real. Parkland’s survivor-activists weathered accusations of being crisis actors—a claim that, in light of the teens’ involvement in theatre, struck a dissonant but reverberative chord. When CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Parkland student Cameron Kasky his thoughts on the conspiracy, he cheekily replied, “Well, if you had seen me in our school production of Fiddler on the Roof, you would know that no one would pay me to act, for anything.”4 While using antitheatrical rhetoric to weaken outrage or sow seeds of doubt is not new, the purposeful rebranding of trauma survivors as paid actors has become increasingly popular during the last few years. This lie works in several interdependent ways. First, it exploits the same spectatorial anxieties (and pleasures) activated by Barnum’s famed humbugs and Houdini’s underwater escapes: it calls into question the perceivers’ ability to interpret fact from fiction. “You were hoodwinked,” it scolds. “Perhaps you are not as good of a judge of character as you believed.” Second, recasting trauma survivors as professional actors presupposes that there are many more deceptions at play within the event in question. Videos can be doctored, victims and perpetrators invented, evacuations staged, and news stories faked. Third and perhaps most importantly, in their cries of “It’s all pretend!,” conspiracy theorists attempt to disable or inhibit natural empathetic responses to human suffering. Tagging Parkland survivors as crisis actors insinuates that they are benefiting monetarily from...

QAnon, Women, and the American Culture Wars Mia Bloom (bio) and Sophia Moskalenko (bio) qanon, a baseless conspiracy theory, originated in the darkest recesses of the internet, including online message boards such as 4chan and 8chan. The QAnon conspiracy theory posits that former president Donald Trump is fighting a battle against a cabal of "deep state" Democratic saboteurs (that includes Hollywood elites) who worship Satan and traffic children for pedophilic torture with the goal of harvesting their blood, allegedly rich in adrenochrome, a substance with magical properties. QAnon's ideas are, on their face, absurd. It is easy for a reasonable person to dismiss those who believe in lizard people and a cabal of pedophiles that feed on children's blood, or that Joe Biden will be executed at Guantanamo Bay. However, these conspiracy theories tap into people's psychological need to be part of an in-group. QAnon allows people, particularly women (the self-identified "Pastel QAnon"), to feel they are saving children from powerful abusers, giving themselves a sense of empowerment. QAnon creates a shadowy, nefarious other from which "traditional Americans" need to be protected, and a rallying cry for women who subscribe to the QAnon conspiracy. Our ongoing research on conspiracy theories examines the narratives and images used by groups like QAnon and assesses the psychology of believers. As a social psychologist and a scholar of international relations who have spent decades studying radical political movements, we have used open-source data, representative national polls, peer-reviewed academic publications, and journalistic accounts [End Page 525] related to the QAnon phenomenon. We have approached the subject from a variety of angles and spent over two and a half years on semi-encrypted platforms, like Telegram, following dozens of QAnon influencers to understand the myths and motivations undergirding the conspiracy. In this essay we present some of our findings: first, that women played a significant role in amplifying, disseminating, and funding QAnon as a mass movement; and second, that the mass psychology that made QAnon popular among many Americans comprised a process of mass "unfreezing"—shattering of normative ideas about legal and moral authorities of government and religion, loss of trust in science, and rapidly shifting gender roles. In addition to collecting a treasure trove of data and other published materials, we surveyed the family members of QAnon believers, sometimes called QAnon casualties, as well as various populations in which there are differing degrees of conspiratorial belief. In this article we present the significance of the QAnon and its causes and correlates in the context of cultural values and democratic governance. While there were no messages left on the 8chan/8kun for almost two years, suddenly in the summer of 2022 QAnon made a brief return to comment on Cassidy Hutchison's testimony before the January 6 committee. Someone with access to Q's login credentials appeared to have posted on 8kun, the anarchic internet message board where Q had not posted since December 2020. The post asked: "Shall we play a game once more?" It was signed "Q." The [June 2022] message was written in the same clue-like format as thousands of earlier Q posts, dubbed "Q Drops" by their fans, that led to the creation of QAnon in late 2017. Q's followers believe the cryptic messages explain the world at it really is, controlled by Satan-worshipping, child-eating pedophiles in the Democratic Party, finance, and other institutions. (Sommer 2022) [End Page 526] Supporters of the conspiracy theory helped promote, fund, and organize the planning of the events of January 6, 2021. Since then, it has become clear that social media facilitated the failed attempt to overthrow the US government (Frenkel 2021). As it played out on live TV, we witnessed a pro-Trump mob at the Capitol Hill overwhelming Capitol police officers, injuring dozens. Brian Sicknick, a Washington, DC, police officer who bravely defended the Capitol, died of his wounds. In the storming crowd, a woman, Ashli Babbitt, "was fatally shot by police inside the Capitol, and three other people died of medical emergencies" (Harwell et al. 2021). The conspiracy theory has metastasized, evolving at lightning speed as it moved through social media platforms...

Each year, more than 20,000 children and youth under age 20 are killed or injured by firearms in the United States. (1) Thousands of young people are shot by peers, family members, or strangers, either intentionally or unintentionally. Thousands more use guns to attempt suicide, and these attempts prove successful more often than suicides attempted by other means. (2) Countless other children and youth, though not injured or killed themselves, are survivors of gun violence, scarred by the effects of such violence in their homes, schools, or communities. Although children and youth are often victimized by gun violence, they also can become perpetrators, using guns to kill or maim others. Despite a dramatic drop in violent crime throughout the mid- to late 1990s, (3) youth gun violence remains a significant concern among the public, policymakers, and researchers. The school shootings of the late 1990s, most notably at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in April 1999, brought home the issue of youth gun violence to many Americans. School shootings remain very rare; between 1993 and 1998, they accounted for fewer than 1% of firearm deaths among children and youth under age 20. Youth gun violence is most likely to affect minority youth in inner cities and white youth at risk of suicide. (1) Nonetheless, for many families, school shootings have underscored the fact that no child is safe from gun violence. This journal issue takes a comprehensive look at youth gun violence in the United States, reflecting on the costs and consequences that firearm homicides, suicides, and unintentional shootings impose on young people. The journal summarizes research in youth gun violence prevention, a field that encompasses the work of public health researchers, criminologists, psychologists, sociologists, and legal scholars. By exploring the issue of youth gun violence from these varied perspectives, this journal issue draws a clearer picture of which children and youth are at risk of perpetrating or being victimized by gun violence; how gun violence affects young people; and what society can do to reduce the number of youth gun injuries and deaths. Although youth gun violence is only part of the larger problem of youth violence, guns merit special attention for two key reasons. First, the lethality and widespread availability of guns have worsened youth violence in this country. Gun violence is a significant cause of death and injury among young people, and imposes serious psychological, economic, and social consequences on children, families, and communities. Second, until very recently, public debates about gun policies have not focused on the safety of children and youth. Instead, much of the debate has centered on the meaning of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the appropriate use of guns by adults. The Second Amendment reads, A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. Although there is extensive political and judicial debate over whether these words confer an individual right to bear arms or a collective right pertaining to state militias, (4) few would argue that the Second Amendment gives children a right to possess guns. The wide-ranging public debate about the appropriate uses of guns in society also frequently overlooks youth, focusing instead on the circumstances under which adults should have the right to own and use guns. Gun rights supporters emphasize the legitimate uses of guns for sport and self-defense. (5-7) But here again, few propose that children and youth--especially younger children--should have access to guns for any purpose without adult supervision. As one prominent pro-gun advocate said, No one defends unsupervised access to firearms by children. (8) The key point is that when it comes to gun policy, according to both law and public opinion, children and youth are a special case. …

The manifesto of the Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik is based on the “Eurabia” conspiracy theory. This theory is a key starting point for hate speech amongst many right-wing extremists in Europe, but also has ramifications beyond these environments. In brief, proponents of the Eurabia theory claim that Muslims are occupying Europe and destroying Western culture, with the assistance of the EU and European governments. By contrast, members of Al-Qaeda and other extreme Islamists promote the conspiracy theory “the Crusade” in their hate speech directed against the West. Proponents of the latter theory argue that the West is leading a crusade to eradicate Islam and Muslims, a crusade that is similarly facilitated by their governments. This article presents analyses of texts written by right-wing extremists and Muslim extremists in an effort to shed light on how hate speech promulgates conspiracy theories in order to spread hatred and intolerance.The aim of the article is to contribute to a more thorough understanding of hate speech’s nature by applying rhetorical analysis. Rhetorical analysis is chosen because it offers a means of understanding the persuasive power of speech. It is thus a suitable tool to describe how hate speech works to convince and persuade. The concepts from rhetorical theory used in this article are ethos, logos and pathos. The concept of ethos is used to pinpoint factors that contributed to Osama bin Laden's impact, namely factors that lent credibility to his promotion of the conspiracy theory of the Crusade. In particular, Bin Laden projected common sense, good morals and good will towards his audience. He seemed to have coherent and relevant arguments; he appeared to possess moral credibility; and his use of language demonstrated that he wanted the best for his audience.The concept of pathos is used to define hate speech, since hate speech targets its audience's emotions. In hate speech it is the emotions that prevail, rather than reason. Sensational and dramatic claims are used to exploit existing feelings of anger, irritation and fear. The speech is aimed at those who may be persuaded of its negative content, and who may spread the message further. A distinct feature is its absence of logos: argumentation aimed at listeners' reason. To the extent logos is used in hate speech it is for the most part only apparent logos. The speech is often based on falsehoods, exaggerations, stereotypes, over-generalisations, and startling formulations. Hate speech therefore requires an uncritical audience – an audience that is either unable to see through the fallacies, or unwilling to do so because the arguments and conclusions fit well with their worldview. The overall aim of the article is to contribute to a more thorough understanding of hate speech’s nature and its role in disseminating conspiracy theories. However, through analyses of text examples from al-Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden, and right-wing European extremists the article also contributes to explaining the terror attack in Oslo in July 2011 and the terror attack on September 11, 2001, in New York and other similar acts of terror.

The manifesto of the Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik is based on the “Eurabia” conspiracy theory. This theory is a key starting point for hate speech amongst many right-wing extremists in Europe, but also has ramifications beyond these environments. In brief, proponents of the Eurabia theory claim that Muslims are occupying Europe and destroying Western culture, with the assistance of the EU and European governments. By contrast, members of Al-Qaeda and other extreme Islamists promote the conspiracy theory “the Crusade” in their hate speech directed against the West. Proponents of the latter theory argue that the West is leading a crusade to eradicate Islam and Muslims, a crusade that is similarly facilitated by their governments. This article presents analyses of texts written by right-wing extremists and Muslim extremists in an effort to shed light on how hate speech promulgates conspiracy theories in order to spread hatred and intolerance.The aim of the article is to contribute to a more thorough understanding of hate speech’s nature by applying rhetorical analysis. Rhetorical analysis is chosen because it offers a means of understanding the persuasive power of speech. It is thus a suitable tool to describe how hate speech works to convince and persuade. The concepts from rhetorical theory used in this article are ethos, logos and pathos. The concept of ethos is used to pinpoint factors that contributed to Osama bin Laden's impact, namely factors that lent credibility to his promotion of the conspiracy theory of the Crusade. In particular, Bin Laden projected common sense, good morals and good will towards his audience. He seemed to have coherent and relevant arguments; he appeared to possess moral credibility; and his use of language demonstrated that he wanted the best for his audience.The concept of pathos is used to define hate speech, since hate speech targets its audience's emotions. In hate speech it is the emotions that prevail, rather than reason. Sensational and dramatic claims are used to exploit existing feelings of anger, irritation and fear. The speech is aimed at those who may be persuaded of its negative content, and who may spread the message further. A distinct feature is its absence of logos: argumentation aimed at listeners' reason. To the extent logos is used in hate speech it is for the most part only apparent logos. The speech is often based on falsehoods, exaggerations, stereotypes, over-generalisations, and startling formulations. Hate speech therefore requires an uncritical audience – an audience that is either unable to see through the fallacies, or unwilling to do so because the arguments and conclusions fit well with their worldview. The overall aim of the article is to contribute to a more thorough understanding of hate speech’s nature and its role in disseminating conspiracy theories. However, through analyses of text examples from al-Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden, and right-wing European extremists the article also contributes to explaining the terror attack in Oslo in July 2011 and the terror attack on September 11, 2001, in New York and other similar acts of terror.

ABSTRACTIn view of the negative connotations associated with conspiracy theories, what have been the effects of the term's entry into popular vocabulary in the second half of the twentieth century? Has the ascendancy of the term “conspiracy theory” been correlated with a reluctance to allege conspiracy? In this article, the authors use Hansard, the record of British parliamentary debates, as a source of empirical data in demonstrating a significant and steady reduction in the number of conspiracy claims advanced in parliament; a pattern consistent with the broader marginalization of conspiracy rhetoric. This trend was reinforced by a trope that established itself in the 1980s and juxtaposed “conspiracies” with “cock-ups.” The British expression “cock-up” denotes a blunder or act of incompetence. In the second part of this article, the authors argue that the preference for “cock-up theories” over “conspiracy theories” reflects how a policy geared towards privatization and deregulation tended to characteriz...

ABSTRACTIn view of the negative connotations associated with conspiracy theories, what have been the effects of the term's entry into popular vocabulary in the second half of the twentieth century? Has the ascendancy of the term “conspiracy theory” been correlated with a reluctance to allege conspiracy? In this article, the authors use Hansard, the record of British parliamentary debates, as a source of empirical data in demonstrating a significant and steady reduction in the number of conspiracy claims advanced in parliament; a pattern consistent with the broader marginalization of conspiracy rhetoric. This trend was reinforced by a trope that established itself in the 1980s and juxtaposed “conspiracies” with “cock-ups.” The British expression “cock-up” denotes a blunder or act of incompetence. In the second part of this article, the authors argue that the preference for “cock-up theories” over “conspiracy theories” reflects how a policy geared towards privatization and deregulation tended to characterize government action in terms of incompetence, and not of malfeasance.

Defining the Problem: 53 Years of Firearm Violence Afflicting America's Schools.

Creating Conspiracy Beliefs: How Our Thoughts Are Shaped

Preventable tragedies: A longitudinal analysis of state firearm laws and K-12 school shootings in the United States (2000-2019).

Conspiracy theories are not fringe ideas, tucked neatly away in the dark corners of society. They are politically, economically, and socially relevant to all of us. They are intertwined with our everyday lives in countless ways. Just like other ideas, they have consequences which can sometimes be deadly. Conspiracy theories can also encourage good behavior and uncover wrongdoing. Beyond shaping the composition and nature of governments through democratic processes, conspiracy theories exert a profound effect on policy choices. Sometimes this is a top-down process by which political elites use conspiracy rhetoric to justify or propagate particular policies; in other instances conspiracy theories can percolate from the bottom up, and affect policy through direct democracy or by influencing the actions of otherwise nonconspiratorial elites. Conspiracy theories are often discussed, but much less understood. What do we know about conspiracy theories and what answers continue to elude us? What makes conspiracy theories so important now?