Abstract
Conspiracy theories are central to “post-truth” discussions. Official knowledge, backed by science, politics, and media, is distrusted by various people resorting to alternative (conspiratorial) explanations. While elite commentators lament the rise of such “untruths,” we know little of people’s everyday opinions on this topic, despite their societal ramifications. We therefore performed a qualitative content analysis of 522 comments under a Dutch newspaper article on conspiracy theories to study how ordinary people discuss post-truth matters. We found four main points of controversy: “habitus of distrust”; “who to involve in public debates”; “which ways of knowing to allow”; and “what is at stake?” The diverging opinions outline the limits of pluralism in a post-truth era, revealing tensions between technocratic and democratic ideals in society. We show that popular opinions on conspiracy theories embody more complexity and nuance than elite conceptions of post-truth allow for: they lay bare the multiple sociological dimensions of poly-truth.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 784-798 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Public Understanding of Science |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| Early online date | 28 Apr 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Aug 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This article is based on research funded by the European Commission, Marie Sklodowksa-Curie Action Individual Fellowship “Media andConspiracy”, No: 799815
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2022.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This article is based on research funded by the European Commission, Marie Sklodowksa-Curie Action Individual Fellowship “Media andConspiracy”, No: 799815
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Horizon 2020 Framework Programme | |
| European Commission | 799815 |
Keywords
- conspiracy theories
- disinformation
- epistemology
- expertise
- experts
- pluralism
- poly-truth
- post-truth
- public debate
