Conspiracy Theories in the European Digital Sphere

Conspiracy Theories in the European Digital Sphere offers a comparative account of online conspiracism, considered in terms of platform preferences, ideological content, aesthetic choices, political context, flow of travel and the role online conspiracism plays in the formation of community and identity.

The book examines the assumptions that inform current ways of framing and combatting online conspiracy theories. Rather than approach online conspiracy theories as merely a symptom of post-truth social media, or as simply a problem of either too little or false information and, therefore, as the same as other forms of mis- and disinformation that can be more easily corrected, the book proposes that online conspiracy theories need to be understood as a distinctive mode of digital disinformation because they are a vernacular knowledge and interpretation rooted in, engaged with and defined by regional and supra-regional political histories. The book is concerned with how experiences with freedom of speech, the role of the press, democratic and epistemological norms, levels of state control, conflict, authoritarianism and propaganda shape online conspiracy theories and the response to them.

This book is methodologically ambitious, combining quantitative and qualitative approaches, and will appeal to anyone interested in conspiracy theories, misinformation, culture wars, social media and contemporary society.

Clare Birchall is a professor of Contemporary Culture at King’s College London.

Nebojša Blanuša is a professor of Social and Political Psychology at the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Zagreb, Croatia.

Michael Butter is a professor of American Studies at the University of Tübingen and a member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

Elżbieta Drążkiewicz is an associate professor in the Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences at Lund University. She is also an affiliated researcher with the Institute for Sociology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.

Peter Knight is a professor of American Studies at the University of Manchester.

Mari-Liis Madisson is an associate professor in Semiotics at the University of Tartu.