Graduation Year

2024

Document Type

Open Access Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Sociology

Reader 1

Erich Steinman

Reader 2

Theodore Bartholomew

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Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

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© 2024 Rachel L Anderson

Abstract

Underpinning injurious right-wing political coalitions, anti-vaccination campaigns, out-group derogation, and, in drastic circumstances, instances of genocide, conspiracy theory informs myriad anthropogenic movements that jeopardize pillars of democracy and scientific reasoning. Yet, the label of “conspiracy theorist” is also manipulated and weaponized as a mechanism of social control. The epithet of conspiracy theorist may systematically deflect “questions or concerns about power, corruption, and motive” thus “demobilizing certain voices and issues in public discourse” (Husting and Orr 2007:127). The construction of conspiracy theorists as primitive champions of paranoid fantasy thus symbolically silences socially anomalous or embargoed discourse. Using a content analysis of twenty narrative accounts gathered from online news media aggregate, Reddit, I intend to advance scholarly understandings of conspiracy theory ideation by extending the present body of empirical and theoretical literature. The present study is thus guided by the following research question: how do postmodern social actors interact with online conspiracy communities and what are the pretexts upon which they subscribe to conspiracy ideology? Based on a thorough structured analysis of conspiracist narratives, three patterns of social phenomena were particularly salient: 1) Perceived Societal Marginalization: individuals who feel pushed to the periphery of swiftly modernizing society utilize conspiracy theory to explain their societal positionality, 2) Distrust of Traditional Institutions: conspiracy theories may restore a sense of agency to individuals who feel unsupported by or suspicious of traditional institutions, and 3) Paranoid Politics in the Technological Renaissance: conspiracy theory flourishes when unfettered access to information via the internet combines in proper proportions with a culture of anxious agitation. While these themes do not explain conspiracy theory ideation in its entirety, the identified patterns reveal that conspiracist thought can be interpreted as an attempt to restore social solidarity amid an increasingly disintegrated social environment pervaded by feelings of loss, economic instability, government secrecy, and a cultural mythos of fear.

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