QAnon Research: September 19th, 2022
Some light reading and a book opportunity
This is a short month for the newsletter but a long month for any journalist suddenly being asked, “Is that finger thing a QAnon symbol?” I wish you all the best of luck. To keep it brief, here are the main questions posed by the included research:
Does the satisfaction from voting (and winning elections) reduce the need for conspiracy beliefs?
What makes political conspiracy theories appealing?
How are collective narcissism and conspiracy belief linked?
Was QAnon an organic, grassroots movement?
There are some hot button questions (and potentially controversial answers) in this month’s newsletter, so, as always, we welcome and encourage discussion.
Much of the information posted here would be difficult to find without the contributions of our submitters, so we please ask that you submit to our Google form to keep everyone in the loop. We also encourage people to comment on posts on the website and to always feel free to reach out to us. To grow the community, please invite anyone who might be interested by sending out a link to this newsletter:
We look forward to your submissions. Take care!
Book Opportunity: Routledge Studies in Fascism and the Far Right [Link]
Edited by Nigel Copsey (University of Teesside) and Graham Macklin (Centre for Research on Extremism, University of Oslo)
From the website: This book series focuses upon national, transnational and global manifestations of fascist, far right and right-wing politics primarily within a historical context but also drawing on insights and approaches from other disciplinary perspectives. Its scope also includes anti-fascism, radical-right populism, extreme-right violence and terrorism, cultural manifestations of the far right, and points of convergence and exchange with the mainstream and traditional right.
Routledge Studies in Fascism and the Far Right is a successful series which has over forty titles in press or published. Books in the series have included both monographs and edited collections and have been reviewed in The Guardian, New Statesman, The Critic, Standpoint and The Spectator among other places. The series has covered a geographically, methodologically and historically broad range of subjects.
Publications
“Do Voting and Election Outcomes Predict Changes in Conspiracy Beliefs? Evidence from two high-profile U.S. elections” in Journal of Experimental Social Psychology [Link]
Sangmin Kim, Olga Stavrova, and Kathleen D. Vohs
Abstract: Despite widespread recognition that conspiracy theories carry the potential for serious harm, relatively little research has investigated possible antidotes to conspiracy beliefs. Previous theorizing posits that belief in conspiracy theories is driven in part by existential motives related to a sense of control and social motives aimed at maintaining a positive image of oneself and one's ingroup. Using electoral contests as the context, we investigated whether the act of voting (i.e., addressing existential motives) and seeing one's preferred candidate win (i.e., addressing social motives) were associated with a reduction in conspiracy beliefs. In two two-wave studies of high-profile U.S. elections, we measured endorsement of conspiracy beliefs before the election and after the results were known, thereby tracking change in conspiracy belief endorsement over time. Both Study 1 (2020 U.S. Presidential election) and Study 2 (2021 Georgia Senate runoff election) showed a significant decrease in conspiracy beliefs among people who supported the winning candidate, consistent with the importance of social motives. The findings highlight the merits of one's political ideology receiving support and recognition for potentially abating conspiracy beliefs.
“‘I’m Not a Conspiracy Theorist, But…’: Knowledge and Conservative Politics in Unsettled Times” in Social Forces [Link]
Jennifer Carlson and Elliot Ramo
Abstract: How does conspiracist thinking become appealing to its adherents, and with what political consequences? Drawing on fifty in-depth interviews with gun sellers from April 2020 to August 2020, this paper examines conspiracist thinking among US conservatives. We present a sociological account that follows historian Richard Hofstadter’s early account in theorizing conspiracist thinking as a “style” of politics on the Right. Turning to the sociology of culture and political sociology, we examine conspiracist thinking as a tool of political sense-making that becomes particularly appealing during “unsettled” insecurity. We focus on conservative adherents to conspiracist thinking, examining how conspiracist thinking is mobilized to assert feelings of control and certainty in ways that reinforce allegiance to conservative values and repudiation of partisan opponents. Specifically, we theorize conspiracist thinking as an everyday practice of meaning-making (an epistemological practice) which responds to conditions of unsettled insecurity that reflects existing conservative “modes of thought” (e.g., anti-elitist skepticism) and also reinforces conservative sentiments through two mechanisms: epistemological individualism and epistemological othering. Extending existing accounts of conspiracism, our analysis illuminates how conspiracist thinking—as an active, and self-reinforcing, struggle for epistemological control amid contexts of information scarcity and uncertainty—has come to shape American politics from the bottom up.
“An interpretation of meta-analytical evidence for the link between collective narcissism and conspiracy theories” in Current Opinion in Psychology [Link]
Agnieszka Golec de Zavala, Kinga Bierwiaczonek, and Paweł Ciesielski
Abstract: Meta-analytical evidence indicates the robust association between collective narcissism and conspiracy theories is moderated by the content of conspiracy theories. Belief in conspiracies of specific outgroups fits collective narcissistic posture of intergroup hostility but collective narcissism is also bound to other conspiracy theories because it simultaneously comprises a committed belief (that the ingroup is great) and a threatening belief (that the ingroup is unrecognized). This creates compensatory motivations to believe in conspiracy theories that protect the committed belief and to seize on any conspiracy theory as a meaning-making activity. Collective narcissism and conspiracy theories may also co-occur because they serve to coordinate undemocratic leaders and their constituencies. They produce threatening environments that justify coercion, violence and undemocratic governance.
“QAnon Propaganda on Twitter as Information Warfare: Influencers, Networks, and Narratives” in arXiv [Link]
Laura Dilley (ldilley@msu.edu, Dept. of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, Michigan State University), William Welna, and Faith Foster
The corresponding author was recently interviewed here and is open to additional speaking engagements and feedback.
Abstract: QAnon refers to a set of far-right, conspiratorial ideologies that have risen in popularity in the U.S. since their initial promotion in 2017 on the 4chan internet message board. A central narrative element of QAnon is that a powerful group of elite, liberal members of the Democratic Party engage in morally reprehensible practices, but that former U.S. President Donald J. Trump was prosecuting them. Five studies investigated the influence and network connectivity of accounts promoting QAnon on Twitter from August, 2020 through January, 2021. Selection of Twitter accounts emphasized on-line influencers and "persons of interest" known or suspected of participation in QAnon propaganda promotion activities. Evidence of large-scale coordination among accounts promoting QAnon was observed, demonstrating rigorous, quantitative evidence of "astroturfing" in QAnon propaganda promotion on Twitter, as opposed to strictly "grassroots" activities of citizens acting independently. Further, evidence was obtained supporting that networks of extreme far-right adherents engaged in organized QAnon propaganda promotion, as revealed by network overlap among accounts promoting far-right extremist (e.g., anti-Semitic) content and insurrectionist themes; New Age, occult, and "esoteric" themes; and internet puzzle games like Cicada 3301 and other "alternate reality games." Based on well-grounded theories and findings from the social sciences, it is argued that QAnon propaganda on Twitter in the months circa the 2020 U.S. Presidential election likely reflected joint participation of multiple actors, including nation-states like Russia, in innovative misuse of social media toward undermining democratic processes by promoting "magical" thinking, ostracism of Democrats and liberals, and salience of White extinction narratives common among otherwise ideologically diverse groups on the extreme far-right.
Cite as: Dilley, L., Welna, W. & Foster, F. (2021/2022). QAnon Propaganda on Twitter as Information Warfare: Influencers, Networks, and Narratives. Frontiers in Communication, 6:707595, doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2021.707595 (archived Oct. 23, 2021 at https://web.archive.org/web/20211023213819/https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2021.707595/abstract.) ARXIV. Retrieved on Sept. 18, 2022, from https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.05118.
Report: “RT and Conspiracy Theories: ‘The Kremlin’s Underdog’ against the West” from the Centre for Democratic Integrity [Link]
Ilya Yablokov and Precious Chatterje-Doody
Opening: If you open a web page of the English-language version of RT, perhaps one of the first things you are going to see is a barrage of anti-US/UK/EU posts and news. Some look balanced, but others read like a political activist’s blog that takes sides and vigorously attacks an opponent. If you go further, into the op-ed section, you will find plenty of stories that can fairly be called conspiracy theories. These are RT’s specialty: whatever happens in the world, RT’s staff writers and columnists find the angle that will directly or indirectly connect societal and political problems with corporate crimes, the CIA’s plots around the world and the super-rich who work hand-in hand with the US government. Yet, RT was not always as critical of the West as it is now.