Conspiracy Theories Research Articles

Comment on 'A cross-sectional analysis of TikTok content relating to sunscreen conspiracy theories and correlation with published evidence on sunscreen risks': Debunking Sunscreen Myths and Trends - Lessons for Dermatology Educators.

The TikTok #AntiSunscreen movement, now garnering millions of views, has spread misleading claims about sunscreen ingredients, fostering unnecessary fear and confusion, especially among younger users relying heavily on social media for health guidance. This letter examines the accuracy and reliability of #AntiSunscreen-related content on TikTok, a popular social media platform predominantly utilised by the younger generation by providing an evidence-based critique.

What does it mean to “do your own research?” A comparative content analysis of DYOR messages in Instagram and Facebook posts about reproductive health, food, and vaccines

Calls to “do your own research” (DYOR) on social media promote a range of claims, from expert-recommended treatments to conspiracy theories. Exploring how the slogan is used offers insight into how individuals navigate concerns about information accuracy in an abundant but low-trust media ecosystem. This quantitative content analysis investigates how DYOR messages in Facebook and Instagram posts about reproductive health, food and diet, and vaccination are used to raise alarms, promote personal agency, and disclaim responsibility. We additionally examine how DYOR messages are associated with content including risk information and product promotion. While DYOR messages sometimes raise alarms about suspected conspiracies and misinformation, more often they advocate for personal agency and education, encouraging people to become as informed as possible to make the best decisions for themselves. In this way, DYOR messages promote individual responsibility for navigating information risks and reflect wider concerns about (mis-)information and distrust of institutions.

« Les sinistres seuils » : Sexualité et paranoïa dans la littérature templière

This paper aims to study one ramification of the Knights Templar modern mythology in which paranoid imagination intersects with the most sophisticated BDSM rituals. Since its dissolution at the beginning of the 14th century, the Order of the Temple has reappeared, through the ages, notably to fuel the development of conspiracy theories. In this monstrous bibliography, the work of American researcher Gershon Legman stands out by taking up the sexual accusations made against the order by the royal authorities during its famous trial in 1307. His focus on abjection points to the Templars as the true ancestors of the sexual heretics of the 20th and 21st centuries. As a proto-queer intellectual figure, Legman will inspire our comparative reading of two fictional scenes of Templar secret initiation. The comparison invites us to distance ourselves from traditional literary hierarchies. It also highlights the need of a reparative reading, as a complement to paranoid decipherment, in order to think not only of sexual violence but also of the resurgence of trauma within the queer counter-canon. From such a cultural anamnesis, we believe that a joyful literary exploration of the sexual byways becomes possible again.

Récits de l’entente criminelle dans la « société en réseaux » : Quelles reconfigurations littéraires pour quels complots ?

This article argues that contemporary fictions of organized crime reinscribe, in many ways, the imaginary of conspiracy in narrative structures rooted in immediate history, while aiming to critique new ramified and diffuse systems of power. Which procedures are used to uncover the secrecy surrounding these organizations? How do these works reformulate concerns about the localization of power in today’s “network society” that has emerged with economic globalization? Using examples from contemporary Italian literature, I will examine the ways in which authors write about mafia practices, accompanying the social sciences’ reclassification of organized crime as a phenomenon of power. I will also ponder the effects generated by these narratives, in which the distancing of conspiracy theories does not exclude certain reformulations of them with other terms.

Experiences and perceptions of migrant populations in South Africa on COVID-19 immunization: an interpretative phenomenological analysis.

Migrant populations (asylum seekers, permit holders, refugees, and undocumented migrants) living in South Africa face various individual, social, and physical circumstances that underpin their decisions, motivation, and ability to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. We conducted a qualitative study to explore the experiences and perceptions of migrant populations in South Africa on COVID-19 vaccines to inform recommendations for improved COVID-19 immunization. We conducted an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) with 20 asylum seekers, permit holders, refugees, and undocumented migrants living in South Africa. We applied a maximum variation purposive sampling approach to capture all three categories of migrants in South Africa. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and recorded electronically with consent and permission from the study participants. The recordings were transcribed and analyzed thematically following the IPA using Atlas.ti version 9. Four major reflective themes emanated from the data analysis. (1) While some migrants perceived being excluded from the South African national immunization program at the level of advertisement and felt discriminated against at the immunization centers, others felt included in the program at all levels. (2) Skepticism, myths, and conspiracy theories around the origin of SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 vaccine are pervasive among migrant populations in South Africa. (3) There is a continuum of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance/hesitancy ranging from being vaccinated through waiting for the chance to be vaccinated to refusal. (4) Accepting the vaccine or being hesitant follows the beliefs of the participant, knowledge of the vaccine's benefits, and lessons learned from others already vaccinated. COVID-19 vaccine inclusiveness, awareness, and uptake should be enhanced through migrant-aware policies and actions such as community mobilization, healthcare professional training, and mass media campaigns.

New Wine in an Old Bottle? The Ideological Morphology of the Thai Online Right

Abstract In recent years, a number of online outlets aligned with the right has emerged in Thai politics. Though it is often assumed that such actors are merely an extension of the Thai state propaganda apparatus, as the moniker “IO (short for Information Operation)” implies, closer inspection of their contents suggests a more complicated picture. Employing the morphological approach of ideological analysis, this article argues that the Thai Online Right articulates a decidedly conservative worldview, upholding a social order centred around the monarchy, and opposing particular instigators of change, similar to more traditional Thai conservatives. The concepts and ideas they deploy to bolster these core ideas, however, seem to emphasise more materialistic and personalised elements, as well as draw from more contemporaneous “Western” right-wing conspiracy theories, making their conservative expression a strange blend of the old and the new. The findings have implications to the study of conservatisms, both in the Thai context and comparatively.

Coupled infectious disease and behavior dynamics. A review of model assumptions.

To comprehend the dynamics of infectious disease transmission, it is imperative to incorporate human protective behavior into models of disease spreading. While models exist for both infectious disease and behavior dynamics independently, the integration of these aspects has yet to yield a cohesive body of literature. Such an integration is crucial for gaining insights into phenomena like the rise of infodemics, the polarization of opinions regarding vaccines, and the dissemination of conspiracy theories during a pandemic. 
We make a threefold contribution. First, we introduce a framework to describe models coupling infectious disease and behavior dynamics, delineating four distinct update functions. Reviewing existing literature, we highlight a substantial diversity in the implementation of each update function. This variation, coupled with a dearth of model comparisons, renders the literature hardly informative for researchers seeking to develop models tailored to specific populations, infectious diseases, and forms of protection.
Second, we advocate an approach to comparing models' assumptions about human behavior, the model aspect characterized by the strongest disagreement. Rather than representing the psychological complexity of decision-making, we show that "influence-response functions'' allow one to identify which model differences generate different disease dynamics and which do not, guiding both model development and empirical research testing model assumptions. 
Third, we propose recommendations for future modeling endeavors and empirical research aimed at selecting models of coupled infectious disease and behavior dynamics. We underscore the importance of incorporating empirical approaches from the social sciences to propel the literature forward.

Countering Holocaust Trivialization: How Educational Resources Support Teachers in the Context of Political Extremism

In this study, we used Terrance L. Furin’s concept of transformational countering to examine six Holocaust education resources designed to address Holocaust trivialization and antisemitism. While academic comparisons are useful to helping students understand challenging content, superficial Holocaust analogies for political purposes are identified as Holocaust trivialization. Given that the current context consists of a growing white nationalist movement characterized by authoritarianism, antisemitism, and conspiracy theories, we enter the study understanding that Holocaust trivialization and far-right extremism must be understood together. We, therefore, examined the type of support teachers receive from Holocaust and human rights organizations in countering extremism and Holocaust trivialization. After analyzing the six resources, our findings demonstrate that resources produced to counter Holocaust trivialization become quickly outdated given the rapid evolution of extremism. Also, findings indicate that teachers receive stronger support in countering extremism and Holocaust trivialization from organizations that focus broadly on supporting human rights compared to the organizations that focus exclusively on Holocaust education.

The great replacement narrative: fear, anxiety and loathing across the West

ABSTRACT The narrative of a coming ‘great replacement’ of long-established European populations by Muslim migrants and their offspring is one of the most widely believed and influential stories being told today by right-wing populists. It is often seen as a marginal conspiracy theory that has somehow become mainstream. In fact, as this article shows, it is neither marginal nor a conspiracy theory, but rather owes more to scholars such as Samuel Huntington than to the extreme Right. Extremists have indeed subsequently adopted the theory, sometimes adding conspiracies to it, but this is an addition to the basic theory, not part of it. As used by politicians, conspiracies are far from central. There are several explanations of the wide popularity of the theory, chief among which, it is suggested, is the fact that it is not a conspiracy theory. After this comes the mistaken idea that figures never lie.

Can Education Save Us From Ourselves? Three Psychological Challenges to Democracy

This review brings social science literature into conversation with education to understand how three psychological challenges—motivated reasoning, misinformation, and conspiracy theories—have been studied in educational research. After describing the challenges, how they function, and how they contribute to democratic backsliding, the authors explore the frequency, orientation, and proposed interventions to these challenges in 59 educational research articles published between 2016 and 2022. We categorize approaches to the challenges as Rational, Affective, or Blended Rational/Affective to describe their framing in educational research. Rational frameworks were the most common, while few studies used Affective frames. The few studies featuring an educational intervention emphasized rational thinking over affective or motivational processes. We suggest ways to bolster understanding of problems created by motivated reasoning, misinformation, and conspiratorial thinking and argue for increased attention to the affective and political nature of these challenges in educational research.

Machine Learning and Deep Learning Applications in Disinformation Detection: A Bibliometric Assessment

Fake news is one of the biggest challenging issues in today’s technological world and has a huge impact on the population’s decision-making and way of thinking. Disinformation can be classified as a subdivision of fake news, the main purpose of which is to manipulate and generate confusion among people in order to influence their opinion and obtain certain advantages in multiple domains (politics, economics, etc.). Propaganda, rumors, and conspiracy theories are just a few examples of common disinformation. Therefore, there is an urgent need to understand this phenomenon and offer the scientific community a paper that provides a comprehensive examination of the existing literature, lay the foundation for future research areas, and contribute to the fight against disinformation. The present manuscript provides a detailed bibliometric analysis of the articles oriented towards disinformation detection, involving high-performance machine learning and deep learning algorithms. The dataset has been collected from the popular Web of Science database, through the use of specific keywords such as “disinformation”, “machine learning”, or “deep learning”, followed by a manual check of the papers included in the dataset. The documents were examined using the popular R tool, Biblioshiny 4.2.0; the bibliometric analysis included multiple perspectives and various facets: dataset overview, sources, authors, papers, n-gram analysis, and mixed analysis. The results highlight an increased interest from the scientific community on disinformation topics in the context of machine learning and deep learning, supported by an annual growth rate of 96.1%. The insights gained from the research bring to light surprising details, while the study provides a solid basis for both future research in this area, as well for the development of new strategies addressing this complex issue of disinformation and ensuring a trustworthy and safe online environment.

Alluring or Alarming? The Polarizing Effect of Forbidden Knowledge in Political Discourse.

"Forbidden knowledge" claims are central to conspiracy theories, yet they have received little systematic study. Forbidden knowledge claims imply that information is censored or suppressed. Theoretically, forbidden knowledge could be alluring or alarming, depending on alignment with recipients' political worldviews. In three studies (N = 2363, two preregistered), we examined censorship claims about (conservative-aligned) controversial COVID-19 topics. In Studies 1a and 2 participants read COVID-19 claims framed as censored or not. Conservatives reported more attraction to and belief in the claims, regardless of censorship condition, while liberals showed decreased interest and belief when information was presented as censored. Study 1b revealed divergent interpretations of suppression motives: liberals assumed censored information was harmful or false, whereas conservatives deemed it valuable and true. In Study 2, conservatives made more critical thinking errors in a vaccine risk reasoning task when information was framed as censored. Findings reveal the polarizing effects of forbidden knowledge frames.

Lifetime prevalence of questionable health behaviors and their psychological roots: A preregistered nationally representative survey.

A growing body of evidence suggests that questionable health behaviors- not following medical recommendations and resorting to non-evidence based treatments-are more frequent than previously thought, and that they seem to have strong psychological roots. We thus aimed to: 1) document the lifetime prevalence of intentional non-adherence to medical recommendations (iNAR) and use of traditional, complementary and alternative medicine (TCAM) in Serbia and 2) understand how they relate to 'distal' psychological factors-personality traits and thinking dispositions, and 'proximal' factors-a set of beliefs and cognitive biases under the term 'irrational mindset'. In this preregistered cross-sectional study on a nationally representative sample (N = 1003), we observed high lifetime prevalence of iNAR (91.3%) and TCAM (99.2%). Irrational beliefs, especially magical health beliefs and medical conspiracy theories, were the strongest predictors of TCAM. They also mediated the relation between Disintegration/lower cognitive reflectiveness and TCAM. High Disintegration, and low Conscientiousness predicted iNAR directly, whilst negative experiences with the healthcare system facilitated both types of questionable health practices. The established psychological profile of people prone to questionable health behaviors and the fact they can be tracked to negative experiences with the system can be used to tailor public health communications.

Exploring vaccine hesitancy in digital public discourse: From tribal polarization to socio-economic disparities.

This study analyzed online public discourse on Twitter (later rebranded as X) during the COVID-19 pandemic to understand key factors associated with vaccine hesitancy by employing deep-learning techniques. Text classification analysis reveals a significant association between attitudes toward vaccination and the unique socio-economic characteristics of US states, such as education, race, income or voting behavior. However, our results indicate that attributing vaccine hesitancy solely to a single social factor is not appropriate. Furthermore, the topic modeling of online discourse identifies two distinct sets of justifications for vaccine hesitancy. The first set pertains to political concerns, including constitutional rights and conspiracy theories. The second pertains to medical concerns about vaccine safety and efficacy. However, vaccine-hesitant social media users pragmatically use broad categories of justification for their beliefs. This behavior may suggest that vaccine hesitancy is influenced by political beliefs, unconscious emotions, and gut-level instinct. Our findings have further implications for the critical role of trust in public institutions in shaping attitudes toward vaccination and the need for tailored communication strategies to restore faith in marginalized communities.

The Polarization Loop: How Emotions Drive Propagation of Disinformation in Online Media—The Case of Conspiracy Theories and Extreme Right Movements in Southern Europe

This paper examines the influence of emotions on political polarization, looking at online propagation of conspiracy thinking by extreme right movements in Southern Europe. Integrating insights from psychology, political science, media studies, and system theory, we propose the ‘polarization loop’, a causal mechanism explaining the cyclical relationship between extreme messages, emotional engagement, media amplification, and societal polarization. We illustrate the utility of the polarization loop observing the use of the Great Replacement Theory by extreme right movements in Italy, Portugal, and Spain. We suggest possible options to mitigate the negative effects of online polarization in democracy, including public oversight of algorithmic decission-making, involving social science and humanities in algorithmic design, and strengthening resilience of citizenship to prevent emotional overflow. We encourage interdisciplinary research where historical analysis can guide computational methods such as Natural Language Processing (NLP), using Large Language Models fine-tunned consistently with political science research. Provided the intimate nature of emotions, the focus of connected research should remain on structural patterns rather than individual behavior, making it explicit that results derived from this research cannot be applied as the base for decisions, automated or not, that may affect individuals.

More Than a Theory: Conspiracy Theorising As a Practical Tradition

In answering the question, ‘What is a conspiracy theory?’ scholars typically take an epistemological view, with many asking whether the term’s pejorative use as a marker of obvious falsehood is justified. Especially among philosophers, a consensus has emerged that conspiracy theories should not be dismissed as prima facie false, that each should be judged on its own merits. However, while some philosophers have encouraged social scientists to embrace this epistemological view of conspiracy theories, this article argues that it is less useful for those of us working in political studies. We are right to worry about being too dismissive of all charges of conspiracy, but conspiracy theorising involves more than just making truth claims; it is about politics, history and culture too. In approaching it through the narrow lens of epistemology, we miss much of what is happening in conspiracy theorising. My aim in this article is to offer a new framework for analysing conspiracy theorising as a practice, rather than as a category of explanation. This framework builds on Michael Billig and Jovan Byford’s idea of the conspiracy theory tradition, showing conspiracy theorising to involve the recycling and adaptation of pre-existing ideas, themes and texts to fit new situations.

Implementing an unlearning approach to combat counter-knowledge in multiple sclerosis

ABSTRACT In the social domain, the term counter-knowledge has been used to refer to misinformation, gossip, rumours, and conspiracy theories that masquerade as knowledge. An individual’s assimilation of such counter-knowledge can lead to inappropriate individual behaviours and organisational decision-making. This study proposes a framework for investigating the relationship between counter-knowledge and learning myopia at the individual level in the healthcare domain, focusing on Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Given that those suffering from MS can experience symptoms leading to both a slowing down of information processing and a limited capacity. It is argued that these symptoms are likely to lead to exacerbating other symptoms, such as anxiety and depression. In addition to investigating how social counter-knowledge results in individual counter-knowledge, the research proposes a framework for understanding the challenges of implementing machine unlearning approaches, and a set of strategies to disrupt this linkage is also proposed.

Small but Salient: The Securitization of Ukraine’s Ethnic Hungarian Minority

Abstract This article analyzes the key factors behind the securitization of Ukraine’s small ethnic Hungarian minority in recent years and how they affect local interethnic as well as interstate relations. It draws on elite interviews conducted in the Ukrainian-Hungarian borderland, and other sources including speech acts. Four underlying factors were identified. The first two are Hungary’s kin-state aid and dual citizenship law, which have empowered Ukraine’s ethnic Hungarians, with the community appearing larger and potentially more threatening in the eyes of the majority population than its mere size justifies. The other two factors are Ukraine’s language policy and Transcarpathia’s future being subject of conspiracy theories in light of Russia’s invasion of eastern Ukraine, which have negatively affected interethnic ties, although somewhat less in the borderland than between Hungary and Ukraine at large. In Transcarpathia, our different informants had diverging perceptions of who is stirring tensions but agreed that actors from outside their region were to blame. Overall, what has emerged is a clash of Hungary’s kin-state politics and Ukraine’s nation-state-building efforts. The article ends with more general implications for kin- and host-state relations in times of conflict.

빅데이터를 활용한 소셜미디어 기후변화 회의론 네트워크와 인플루언서 메시지 구조 분석: 사회연결망 분석과 의미연결망 분석의 적용

This study examines the information structure, message dissemination patterns, and influencer characteristics of social media users who spread climate change skepticism messages using social and semantic network analysis based on big data. Compared to a random network model, the climate skepticism network exhibits a small-world network structure, with messages led by climate change deniers spreading easily and quickly. The skepticism network is formed by a few large communities and a majority of smaller ones, with users tending to communicate strongly within their communities. The authority group in the network frequently raised conspiracy theories related to climate issues and highlighted farmer protests against Europe's Green Deal and carbon neutrality policies. The network's broadcaster group, on the other hand, tended to mock or criticize climate policy advocates in a harsh tone, often denying scientific evidence. The results can be used to inform the development of climate campaigns.

Shattering Reality: Monsters from the Multiverse

Kaijū media frequently features dangerous scientific experiments as a central theme, invented by scientists who are falsely convinced that they both completely understand and control their advanced technology. In the past few decades, this has included the introduction of high-energy physics (HEP) experiments—especially mammoth particle accelerators—that, among other destructive results, allow for the entrance of equally large and dangerous creatures into our world from parallel dimensions. Public concerns voiced about the safety of the creation of two groundbreaking energy accelerators—the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in New York and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe—in the early 21st century are tied to related science fiction media that capitalize on such fears (including Godzilla vs. Megaguirus [2000], Pacific Rim [2013], The Cloverfield Paradox [2018], The Kaiju Preservation Society [2022]). Particular attention is paid to the Netflix original series Stranger Things (2016–) as a detailed case study. This study concludes with an analysis of scientists’ attempts to embrace the popularity of Stranger Things in their communication with the general public, and suggests that ongoing issues with conspiracy theories have been fueled in part by such attempts, coupled with long-standing issues with the HEP community and their peculiar scientific naming conventions.