Virtual conspiracies about Jesus Christ: Pastoral and media perspectives

Conspiracy

The novel coronavirus 2019 pandemic has brought about an overabundance of misinformation concerning the virus (SARS-CoV-2) and the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) it causes spreading rapidly on social media. While some more obviously untrustworthy sources may be easier for social media filters to identify and remove, an early feature was the cobranding of COVID-19 misinformation with other types of misinformation. To examine this, the top 10 Instagram posts (in English) were collected every day for 10 days (April 21-30th, 2020) for each of the hashtags #hoax, #governmentlies, and #plandemic. The #hoax was selected first as it is commonly used in conspiracy theory posts, and #governmentlies because it was the most commonly cotagged with #hoax. For comparison, we selected #plandemic as the most popular cotagged hashtag that was clearly COVID-19-related. This resulted in 300 Instagram posts available for our analysis. We conducted a content analysis by coding the themes contained in the posts, both for the images and the text caption shared by the Instagram users (including hashtags). The broad theme of general mistrust was the most common, including the idea that the government and/or media has fabricated or hidden information pertaining to COVID-19. Conspiracy theories were the second-most frequent theme among posts. Overall, COVID-19 was frequently presented in association with authority-questioning beliefs. Developing an understanding of how the public shares misinformation on COVID-19 alongside conspiracy theories and authority-questioning statements can aid public health officials and policymakers in limiting the spread of potentially life-threatening health misinformation.

#FreeBritney and the Pleasures of Conspiracy

Social media has been an effective vector for spreading disinformation about medicine and science. Informational hygiene can reduce the severity of falsehoods about health.

Burden of the Beast

Playing Conspiracy

This study delves into the profound impact of social media on body image perceptions and overall dissatisfaction among young adults at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. In today's digital age, social media pervades the lives of young people, shaping their self-perceptions and influencing their social interactions. This research aims to understand how the constant exposure to curated and often idealized images on social media platforms contributes to the development of unrealistic body standards, fostering feelings of inadequacy and pressure to conform to societal beauty ideals. Employing a quantitative research approach, the study focused on a sample of 200 undergraduate and postgraduate students aged 18 to 30 years. Data collection utilized systematic sampling techniques and involved the administration of questionnaires via Google Forms. The study drew upon Social Comparison Theory to understand how individuals evaluate their own appearance by comparing themselves to the seemingly flawless images and physiques presented on social media platforms. Data analysis was conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics. The findings revealed a significant correlation between social media usage and body image dissatisfaction among young adults. Frequent comparisons with idealized images of influencers and celebrities on social media platforms were found to be a major contributor to negative body image perceptions, leading to a range of negative emotional and psychological outcomes, including anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. These findings underscore the urgent need for interventions that address the detrimental effects of social media on young adults' mental health. This may include the development and implementation of comprehensive media literacy programs designed to equip young people with the critical thinking skills necessary to navigate the complexities of the digital world and resist the pressures to conform to unrealistic beauty standards. Furthermore, fostering a more inclusive and diverse representation of body images on social media platforms is crucial to promoting healthier body image perceptions and enhancing the overall well-being of young adults in the digital age. References Abi-Jaoude, E., Naylor, K. T., & Pignatiello, A. (2020). Smartphones, social media use and youth mental health. Cmaj, 192(6), E136-E141. Aichner, T., Grünfelder, M., Maurer, O., & Jegeni, D. (2021). Twenty-five years of social media: a review of social media applications and definitions from 1994 to 2019. Cyberpsychology, behavior, and social networking, 24(4), 215-222. Ali, R. (2016). 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Government Surveillance and Counter-Surveillance on Social and Mobile Media: The Case of Iran (2009)

Solace in Social Media: Women Unite Under COVID-19

Social media use occupies a prominent space in social sciences scholarship and beyond. However, the distinction between active and passive use of social media, although important in explaining a variety of users’ behaviours, has been overlooked in terms of its potential to predict key socially relevant outcomes like beliefs in conspiracy theories. In three studies (N = 1388, in total), we provide evidence on (a) the role of passive social media use in believing in conspiracy theories via personal relative deprivation; (b) the interaction effect between social media use and personal relative deprivation on beliefs in conspiracy theories. The results showed that passive social media use is linked to, and increases, beliefs in conspiracy theories and this relationship is partially mediated via increased personal relative deprivation (Studies 1 and 2). In Study 3, personal relative deprivation was also manipulated experimentally in the context of a ʻmoderation‐of‐process' design, yielding a significant interaction with social media use. The results are discussed in the light of their social and media psychological contribution and implications in the digital era, when misinformation often becomes prevalent.

In today’s social media dominated world the effort to undermine democracy comes in an increasingly wide variety of forms. One example is the use of social media by contemporary leaders and groups where they engage in waging information warfare within their own nations upon their own citizens. This paper will examine how this has occurred with the group QANON. One of QANON’s central conspiracy theories maintains that a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles is not only in control of running the world’s governments, but this cabal is also running a global child sex-trafficking ring. This cabal is also involved in plotting against US President Donald Trump, who is in turn engaged in combatting the cabal. Another QANON theory also claims that Trump is planning a day of reckoning against the cabal and its followers known as “The Storm.” This refers to an event when thousands of members of the supposed cabal will be arrested. There are currently no indications that any part of the theory is based on fact. The conspiracy theory began with an October 2017 online post by a supposed individual known as ‘Q’, who at the time was presumed to be a single American citizen. It is now also assumed and more likely that Q is actually a group of people. Q as an individual claimed to be a high-ranking government official with Q level clearance in the U.S. government with access to classified information related to the Trump administration. Perhaps more significantly Q also claimed to have classified information about the opponents of Trump in the United States. NBC News was the first member of the media to report that three distinct people took the original Q post and distributed it across multiple media and social media platforms in an effort to build an internet following. We take the activities related to Q to be a method of Hybrid Warfare, which here is defined in the context of social media. Hybrid warfare which is now often practiced in all forms of media but particularly within social media, does not have a universally recognized definition. In this analysis the phrase is employed to describe how any individual or group such as QANON can employ non-military tactics in social media in the effort to undermine and destabilize a government. We argue that disinformation and propaganda dissemination, are not new techniques, but that they have been adapted to current technologies and social media. It is assumed in this analysis that every conspiracy theory, when a conspiracy is identified, presents a moral issue. When a conspiracy theory is presented as an explanation for an action or as the cause of an event this serves the function of making an accusation. The accusation that lies at the center of the conspiracy is an attack upon the truthfulness of what is claimed to be true by the party that the conspiracy theorist is attacking. This analysis has as its goal an identification of the ethical issues with conspiracy theories used by political leaders and groups such as QANON in social media and attempts to anticipate ethical and political issues with the continued use of these conspiracy theories in social media in cthe effort to undermine democracy.

Social media technology not only affords opportunities for digital activism and global liberation, but it also poses threats to the freewheeling of democracy. The emergence and prevalence of conspiracy theories on social media stem from communal processes of online political debate or social movements that degenerate into conspiracy beliefs. This study views the online formation of conspiracy theories as a socially emergent process. Subscribing to a social constructionist lens and synthesizing extant literature on social movements and social media affordances, we conducted discourse analysis on discursive data collected from Twitter for the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election Fraud Conspiracy Theory. Through the analysis, we delineate the formation of conspiracy theory into four stages and characterize each stage according to its mobilizing structure, participants, mode of interaction, content created, and discernible collective action. We also identify social media affordances facilitating the formation of conspiracy theories within and across stages. Findings of this study advance contemporary knowledge on conspiracy theories by not only extending our understanding of the role of social media in conspiracy theory formation, but they also aid practitioners in comprehending the formation process of conspiracy theory formation, the latter of which constitutes the foundation for devising appropriate prevention and mitigation strategies.

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How Google Autocomplete Algorithms about Conspiracy Theorists Mislead the Public

The paper reviews the logic of conspiracy theories in the age of internet, emphasizing that the spread of internet usage increased the amount and variety of political information, which has created unprecedented opportunities to communicate with supporters about current events. The wide availability of content provided by users on online social media makes it easier to connect people around common interests, beliefs and narratives. However, the internet also allows you to quickly spread anecdotal rumors and conspiracy theories, which often cause fast, large, but often naive social responses. It is the internet that allows conspiracy theories to travel farther and faster than before. Belief in conspiracy theories reduces trust in traditional media and government institutions, even if they are not associated with conspiracy theories.
 Keywords: conspiracy theories, internet, social media, traditional media.