Conspiracy Theory Discourses ISBN:9789027212702

Description

Conspiracy Theory Discourses addresses a crucial phenomenon in the current political and communicative context: conspiracy theories. The social impact of conspiracy theories is wide-ranging and their influence on the political life of many nations is increasing. Conspiracy Theory Discourses bridges an important gap by bringing discourse-based insights to existing knowledge about conspiracy theories, which has so far developed in research areas other than Linguistics and Discourse Studies. The chapters in this volume call attention to conspiracist discourses as deeply ingrained ways to interpret reality and construct social identities. They are based on multiple, partly overlapping analytical frameworks, including Critical Discourse Analysis, rhetoric, metaphor studies, multimodality, and corpus-based, quali-quantitative approaches. These approaches are an entry point to further explore the environments which enable the proliferation of conspiracy theories, and the paramount role of discourse in furthering conspiracist interpretations of reality.

Contents:

Chapter 1. Conspiracy theory discourses: Critical inquiries into the language of anti-science, post-trutherism, mis/disinformation and alternative media
Massimiliano Demata, Virginia Zorzi and Angela Zottola | pp. 1–22
Part I. Conspiracy theories: epistemological questions
Chapter 2. A corpus-driven exploration of conspiracy theorising as a discourse type: Lexical indicators of argumentative patterning
Paola Catenaccio | pp. 25–48
Chapter 3. Is my mobile phone listening to me? Conspiratorial thinking, digital literacies, and everyday encounters with surveillance
Rodney H. Jones | pp. 49–70
Chapter 4. “Go ahead and ‘debunk’ truth by calling it a conspiracy theory”: The discursive construction of conspiracy theoryness in online affinity spaces
Pilar Garces-Conejos Blitvich and Nuria Lorenzo-Dus | pp. 71–98
Chapter 5. “You want me to be wrong”: Expert ethos, (de-)legitimation, and ethotic straw men as discursive resources for conspiracy theories
Thierry Herman and Steve Oswald | pp. 99–120
Chapter 6. Fake conspiracy: Trump’s anti-Chinese ‘COVID-19-as-war’ scenario
Andreas Musolff | pp. 121–140
Part II. Conspiracy theory-related communicative phenomena
Chapter 7. Exploring the echo chamber concept: A linguistic perspective
Marina Bondi and Leonardo Sanna | pp. 143–168
Chapter 8. “If you can’t see the pattern here, there’s something wrong”: A cognitive account of conspiracy narratives, schemas, and the construction of the ‘expert’
Jessica Mason | pp. 169–192
Chapter 9. Complementary concepts of disinformation: Conspiracy theories and ‘fake news’
Philip Seargeant | pp. 193–214
Chapter 10. COVID-19 conspiracy theories as affective discourse
Carmen Lee | pp. 215–238
Part III. Social media and conspiracy theories
Chapter 11. The ID2020 conspiracy theory in YouTube video comments during COVID-19: Bonding around religious, political, and technological discourses
Olivia Inwood and Michele Zappavigna | pp. 241–266
Chapter 12. #conspiracymemes: A framework-based analysis of conspiracy memes as digital multimodal units and ensuing user reactions on Instagram
Derya Gur-Seker, Ute K. Boonen and Michael Wentker | pp. 267–294
Chapter 13. The New World Order on Twitter: Evaluative language in English and Spanish tweets
Natalia Mora Lopez | pp. 295–316
Part IV. Stancetaking and (de-)legitimation within conspiracy and anti-conspiracy discourses
Chapter 14. Expressing stance towards COVID-19 conspiracy theories in Macedonian online forum discussions
Liljana Mitkovska and Fevzudina Saracevic | pp. 319–342
Chapter 15. Ideologies and the representation of identities in anti-vaccination conspiracy theories: A critical discourse analysis of the MMR vaccine-autism debate
Carlotta Fiammenghi | pp. 343–364
Chapter 16. Collective identities in the online self-representation of conspiracy theorists: The cases of climate change denial, ‘Deep State’ and ‘Big Pharma’
Virginia Zorzi | pp. 365–392
Part V. Political and international dimensions of conspiracy theories
Chapter 17. Anti-Sorosism: Reviving the “Jewish world conspiracy”
John E. Richardson and Ruth Wodak | pp. 395–420
Chapter 18. “These cameras won’t show the crowds”: Intradiscursive intertextuality in Trumpian discourse’s crowd size conspiracy theory
Kelsey Campolong | pp. 421–442
Chapter 19. From strategic depiction of conspiracies to conspiracy theories: RT’s and Sputnik’s representations of coronavirus infodemic
Mari-Liis Madisson and Andreas Ventsel | pp. 443–464
Chapter 20. “Gender ideology” and the discursive infrastructure of a transnational conspiracy theory
Angela Zottola and Rodrigo Borba | pp. 465–488
Epilogue. Beyond discourse theory in the conspiratorial mode? The critical issue of truth in the age of post-truth
Johannes Angermuller | pp. 489–494
Notes on contributors | pp. 495–504