Conspiracy Theories & the Cycle of History
by Deirbhile Ní Bhranáin
Junior Producer & Editor Global Digital Futures
“We increasingly exist as part of platforms that are global in some ways. Information can be shared especially with the diaspora. Covid conspiracies in france might influence in other Francophone speaking countries so there’s a real global dimension to the communities we are part of. And also it’s very local.”
This week’s podcast episode Demystifying Conspiracies & Infodemics focuses on conspiracy theories. Throughout the last year and a half, examples of worldwide conspiracy theories have become more widely popularised than ever before, with theories surrounding the connection between vaccines and 5G and whether Covid was a hoax created entirely by Bill Gates. Covid has provided seemingly endless opportunities for the growth of popular myths, or infodemics, surrounding health, surveillance and more. In the episode, we interview researchers who worked on the article, “Demystifying the COVID-19 infodemic: Conspiracies, context and the agency of users,” recently published in Social Media & Society. The research, which is fascinating, focuses on the context of Nigeria and South Africa, and how the theories are disseminated and spread through social media platforms and traditional media sources.
After working on this episode and the subsequent GDF Think Tank discussion with Kyle Findlay, a Data Scientist who runs Superlinear and PhD Researcher, Craig Ryder - keep an eye out for it on the 14th of October! I learnt how easily conspiracy theories mutate and interact with each other. In the same way as it is said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme, popular conspiracy theories appear to rehash slightly different soil - but with similar tools. For example, the idea that genetically modified crops (GMO’s) are to blame for the Covid-19 pandemic draws on years of anti-GMO lobbying and conspiracy theories.
Conspiracies can seem to draw on the impulse to separate the world into black and white, right and wrong. They can be said to closely relate to the moral panic phenomenon, which indicates a widespread, often irrational fear that something is a threat to the values or health of a society or community. Historical examples have included the Satanic Panic in the US, which has recently found a resurgence in the controversy surrounding Lil Nas X’s music video for ‘Montero (Call Me By Your Name)’ released earlier this year. More contemporary examples include the moral panic surrounding LGBT+ rights in Ghana. Interestingly, moral panics often come from sources of authority, whereas conspiracy theories, particularly since the advent of social media technologies, seem to come from more grassroots sources, spread by chain messages on platforms such as Whatsapp. This creates interesting differences in terms of user agency, but both are similar in the desire to believe in something so stringently.
Many of these theories and phenomena seem to lead to something interesting: the idea that there is someone behind them, a Sith Lord mastermind behind it all, pulling the strings, and that people as mere puppets of an inherently insidious system are being kept in the dark about the world’s inner workings. For example, ‘The Great Reset’ conspiracy theory seems to be one that encompasses many elements of other theories, condensing them into a grand narrative.
Maybe this has religious origins; maybe it has always been a part of human nature to blame something big, a god or devil controlling everything. Maybe it’s often too difficult to believe in the somewhat chaotic nature of world events without one scapegoat to pin it on. But whatever is going on, there is enough global social and economic instability to make conspiracies seem collectively attractive as something to believe in. Let us know what you think when you’ve listened to the episode!
Deirbhile Ní Bhranáin is an Irish author and journalist based in London. She is currently completing an MA in International Journalisms at SOAS. She is interested in the impact of the future on the present and on the utopian possibilities of narrative.