Soc 205 Small groups: Conspiracism

Instructions for making up: Complete the abstract (guidelines here and here, readings here). Respond to the questions, as if you were in a group (meaning—this should take you 45-50 minutes of effort). I will bring some issues of Time to class Friday, you will need that as well. And turn in abstract and question responses—in the same file, preferably printed out—to your discussion leader by next week on your regular small group day.If you want to do this in a Word file, email me and I’ll send it to you.

In your groups, discuss and evaluate the QAnon . The authors in the book chapter discuss it on pp 132-35, and you can, yes, use your phones to investigate it, but you should look at the questions before you begin. For anyone who didn’t bring a phone, the group can divide tasks, work on some of the logic from the book chapter and question 1 below (also question 4), and the writing part of responding to the questions (which is all Emily and Audrey have to go on when evaluating your group’s work, keep in mind : ) . . .

1. Describe it, in some detail 2. Cite the sources you used, and evaluate their credibility (each one) 3. Examine the logic of the QAnon conspiracy, as well as the evidence 4. Examine why some people might be persuaded to believe it 5. How do social media affect its spread?

What does any of this mean for a social problems class?

Okay, first, I’m using this because it is a book devoted entirely to conspiracism, and the most prevalent conspiracy these days is the ‘Deep State’ or QAnon conspiracy. So it’s not about Trump, it’s about the conspiracists who use ‘evidence’ and ‘logic’ to portray Trump as a hero for the ages. Some of his campaign phrases, like ‘Drain the Swamp’ and ‘Lock her (Hillary) up’ make sense reinterpreted as part of this conspiracy. Even in the last couple of weeks Trump has tweeted QAnon references to his twitter followers, so it’s relevant and fresh.

Conspiracies have become a genre of persuasion. Simply referencing ‘Q’ is enough for some people to say ‘oh, I get it.’ This allows for people to re-interpret fact-based reporting as simply a conspiracy, in this case designed to bring down Trump (who has called sites like CNN and NY Times ‘fake news’ and the ‘enemy of the people’). To discredit unflattering news accounts. And QAnon is the conspiracy that will bring down the ‘Deep State’ conspirators. You’ll feel more comfortable with this if you do a little of your own searching on the web, see what you find, not necessarily critical sites, but those that spread QAnon, how they do it, what kinds of evidence and arguments they make, and whether those arguments make sense. As the authors (Muirfield and Rosenblum) note, conspiracy theories aren’t so much theories any more, and they’re often just some agglomeration of ideas ‘researched’ and ‘tested’ on social media sites. People who believe them can go their and have their suspicious about the world affirmed (‘’—we tend to seek out information that confirms our views of the world).

So your generation will only see more of this, and it is likely to only get more and more toxic and politicized, a reflection of politics and the ‘Coke vs Pepsi’ choose-a-side rhetoric. And so it’s less about them really getting to the bottom of anything. I’m more interested in helping them see conspiracism for what it is, and maybe better identify it when politicians insert it into the news cycle—usually to discredit any critics or accusers.

The other part is why people would believe any of this, and the one Times article has some theories as to why the brain seems to be so susceptible. You all have a much better sense of how social media is used, but in this case get them focused more on how things can spread and go viral so lightning-fast. And which corners of social media might be more friendly to conspiracies, or whether they are everywhere, and it just depends on people’s own biases and how they use social media to affirm them.

A couple of propaganda techniques are important for persuasion here: disambiguation (picking a side, getting people to identify, in this case as either for or against Trump—and if students think I’m picking on Trump, well, he is the first president to ever endorse conspiracy theories in the White House, and he did it before with the ‘birther’ conspiracy against Obama, actually blaming Hillary when Obama produced the ‘long form’ certificate from Hawaii. In addition, all news these days is about Trump, it’s a ratings buster, so yes, love him or hate him, his name brings an audience.

The second—and the authors mention it with their term ‘a lot of people are saying’—is social proof. Humans are much more likely to believe something if they think others believe it. In some cases others do believe it, in others it’s enough to create the illusion that it’s widely accepted (as in ‘a lot of people are saying’ or ‘some people are saying’). So when people begin to see ‘Q’ T-shirts at Trump rallies, look for ‘bread crumb’ trails, at a certain point everything begins to look like a bread crumb,

and that’s why the authors talk about reality and who ‘owns it.’ And not only that, the studies show that people who believe one are more likely to believe others—it seems to reinforce itself and the like-minded community, and social proof is a big part of that, of belonging.

I also want them thinking about the credibility of a source they use—what could they learn about it from a third party website, from an ‘about’ page, even Wikipedia, etc. See if anyone says ‘yeah, but that’s just another bogus ‘social proof’ argument—the New York Times has so-called credibility only because a lot of people read it’. Which is a testable idea, you could refer them back to journalistic standards that we discussed in class, but it means they’re tracking and thinking critically, and that’s all good.

So if it’s useful for you, check out a few sites, such as Snopes, and see what they have to offer in terms of some other conspiracies out there. Some include the JFK , 9/11 as an inside job, Area 51, etc. And if you want to meet Tuesday at 10, lemme know.