I am thrilled to announce that my colleagues Zelly Martin, Inga Trauthig, Samuel Woolley and I edited a special issue of the Journal of Information Technology and Politics on “The Future of Conspiracy Theory Scholarship.” Conspiracy scholarship has exploded in the last decade, and we were all running into conspiracies in our work on far-right politics and disinformation. Here we’ve collected a series of articles that go beyond conventional work on conspiracies– exploring very different theories, platforms, locales, and topics. Here are all the articles listed in alphabetical order by first author. (I’ve added PDFs of my own work)
Introduction
Trauthig, I., Martin, Z., Marwick, A., & Woolley, S. (2025). The future of conspiracy theory scholarship. Journal of Information Technology & Politics. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2025.2491687 [PDF]
The rapid proliferation of conspiracy theories has become a global concern, fueled by digital platforms and emerging technologies like generative artificial intelligence. These theories often attribute societal and environmental phenomena to secret, malevolent groups, offering simplistic explanations for complex crises like climate change, global pandemics, or political instability. Their spread is amplified by influential figures, social media affordances, and state propaganda, leading to harmful consequences: they endanger lives, target marginalized communities, and erode trust in institutions. This special issue, The Future of Conspiracy Theory Scholarship, explores the sociotechnical dynamics behind conspiracy theory production and dissemination across diverse global contexts. By examining motivations, transnational trends, and the role of technology, the contributors reveal how conspiracy theories exploit systemic mistrust while reinforcing polarization and oppression. Moving beyond Western-centric frameworks, this issue emphasizes the need for interdisciplinary, localized approaches to address the societal harms of conspiracy theories and develop pathways toward mitigating their impact. We build upon current understandings and conceptualizations of conspiracy theories to argue that while conspiracy theories may indeed further systemic oppression of marginalized communities, the act of conspiracy theorizing may also offer community and power to people who feel – or are – marginalized in society, particularly in the digital realm.
Research Articles
Akbarzadeh, S., Mamouri, A., Bashirov, G., & Yilmaz, I. (2025). Social media, conspiracy theories, and authoritarianism: between bread and geopolitics in Egypt. Journal of Information Technology & Politics. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2025.2474000
This article examines the relationship between social media, conspiracy theories, and authoritarian politics in Egypt by studying three conspiracy theories that have become popular in the country in recent years: an alleged Western attempt to starve Egypt after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, an alleged economic war against Egypt, and alleged Western attempts to destabilize the country since the 2013 coup. We discuss the origins, development, and key elements of these conspiracy theories, the common themes being the negative portrayal of Western countries and institutions that are seen to target Egypt through economic warfare and social upheaval. This paper contextualizes conspiracy theories within the larger political and historical context, and examines the affordances of social media, particularly YouTube and Facebook, for the state-led dissemination of conspiracy theories in Egypt.
Andrejevic, M., O’Neill, C., & Mahoney, I. (2025). “The scandal that shocked the world”: conspirituality and online scam ads. Journal of Information Technology & Politics. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2025.2453920
Drawing on a collection of online ads for scam bitcoin exchanges, this article situates their appeal and aesthetic within the longer history of populist political marketing. This history connects with current forms of commercial “conspirituality” that thrive on social media platforms, inviting users to suspend their disbelief in miracle cures and get-rich-quick schemes. The scam ads we examined mobilize critiques of existing social and economic inequality to enhance the appeal of the false solutions they offer. Following recent work on conspirituality, the article draws upon Jacques Ranciere’s notion of “dissensus” to analyze the ways in which the style and content of scam ads invite a form of “conspiracy believing” that challenges common sense understandings. It then turns to Alenka Zupančič’s critical psychoanalytic theory to argue that these beliefs, far from critiquing contemporary capitalism, work to disavow its pathologies.
Čejková, L., & Macková, A. (2025). The role of the media in conspiracy thinking: trust in journalists is key for the politically distrustful. Journal of Information Technology & Politics. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2025.2465317
This study explores the associations between the media, media-related political variables, and conspiracy thinking, utilizing representative data from 2,340 Czech adults. Trust in journalists is a pivotal media factor related to thinking less conspiratively. Higher trust in politicians is associated with lower conspiracy thinking. Additionally, the interaction between journalistic and political trusts shows that politically distrustful people who trust journalists have lower conspiracy thinking. These findings underscore the importance of comprehensively addressing media and political factors, emphasizing their interconnected impact on the understanding and mitigation of conspiracy thinking.
Hannah, M. N. (2025). Pill epistemology. Journal of Information Technology & Politics. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2025.2459808
The rise of social media and the internet as predominant modes by which most Americans access and communicate information has transformed how we understand knowledge. Coterminous with such technologies is a widespread turn toward conspiracy theories and extremist politics as explanatory mechanisms for current events. This article theorizes a newly emerging mode of knowledge characterized by the speed and scope of information technology and predicated on dramatic shifts in behavior and ideology. I argue that this mode of knowing is a form of epistemology, a theory of knowledge which seeks to understand how humans experience and process information. Framing this emerging mode of knowledge as epistemology, this article develops a theory of the rise and predominance of what I call “pill epistemology,” a powerful and dangerous model for seeking and sharing knowledge online. Using discussions of “redpilling” in online conspiracy theories, I map four stages of pill epistemology: awakening, becoming, behaving, and communicating. I argue that pill epistemology masquerades as a process of reason and knowledge but contains logical jumps into paranoid delusion, which are difficult to identify but which lead into the realm of conspiracy theory and which will continue to impact the health of our information ecosystems.
Heřmanová, M. (2025). “All the sisters of the world”: pan-Slavic conspiracies and the weaponization of womanhood. Journal of Information Technology & Politics. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2025.2473988
The article looks at the development of the idea of pan-Slavism, historically dating back to the 19th century, and its reincarnation across Czech and Slovak online conspiracy spaces, particularly Telegram channels, focusing on how the notion of “sisterhood” is discussed and developed in them. The analysis highlights two dimensions of Pan-Slavic sisterhood: (a) an imagined community built on symbolic references to a shared history and (b) a unit of political organization that emphasizes the role of women in restructuring society according to a “tradition” based in this imagined history. It argues that sisterhood is, similar to the tradwife movement in the US, rooted in a deeper ideological critique of neoliberal society and, ultimately, employed as a tool of female empowerment. Methodologically, the analysis relies on ethnographic methods (participant and non-participant observation and ethnographic content analysis).
Hu, Z. (2025). Mapping discursive regimes of transnational dynamics of conspiracy theories as an emergent process: revisiting network approaches and new research avenues. Journal of Information Technology & Politics. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2025.2453911
This paper provides a lens for studying the transnational flow of conspiracy theories by investigating new epistemologies, reviewing methodological challenges, and proposing new avenues for future studies. I argue that it is important to study the emergent and dynamic process whereby conspiracy theories disseminate across different contexts and even lead to their (global) audiences, including state and non-state actors, being rallied to the cause and co-creating them, thus forming ideological coalitions that connect the seemingly distant and irrelevant contexts. The intertwined cases, delineated in Section 3, show how conspiracy theories flow transnationally back and forth between mainstream and fringe, underregulated media spaces, and the interactant mechanisms of responses from different yet networked audience(s), who are potential co-creators of the conspiracy theories. The complexity and dynamics of such a phenomenon raise challenges for researchers in terms of research operationalization, and depth of elucidation and ethics. Therefore, I propose to map discursive regimes and emergent processes of co-curating, crowdsourcing and amplifying conspiracy theories and call for (1) revising the network methods with collaborative contributions to database and reliable queries and (2) supplementing with more in-depth elucidations, which also invite researchers to reflexive engagement in the field.
Grusauskaite, K. (2025). Broadcasting together: The biographical trajectories of YouTube conspiracy theory micro-celebrities. Journal of Information Technology & Politics. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2025.2453915
Social media platforms like YouTube are often seen as gateways for the spread of conspiracy theories. While much of the research has focused on why people consume conspiracy theory content, little attention has been given to how individuals become creators of such content. This paper addresses this gap by examining how conspiratorial online practices emerge from social and cultural contexts mediated by social media platforms and communities of practice. Drawing on 22 in-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldwork, this study explores the biographies of conspiracy YouTubers, revealing three key moments in their trajectories: the reinterpretation of pre-existing worldviews, integration into a community of practice, and the pursuit of self-promotion and branding. The findings not only contribute to understanding the life experiences that draw people to the conspiracy milieu but also underscore how online environments cultivate and sustain such conspiracy micro-celebrities.
Habel, P. (2025). Conspiracy beliefs old and new, U.S. media old and new. Journal of Information Technology & Politics. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2025.2497383
Scholars and the public alike have raised concerns about conspiratorial views among the citizenry, and considerable work has been devoted to understanding the drivers of conspiratorial thinking, including the role of mass media. Utilizing a unique survey that both asks respondents in the U.S. their beliefs on a range of conspiracies and captures their news media habits, this paper offers new insight on the relationship between media and conspiracy beliefs. The findings provide additional support for the importance of legacy media, particularly national newspapers, whose consumers are less likely to adhere to conspiracy beliefs, while at the same time raising new cautions related to opinion-oriented journalism and to social media consumption.
Koo, G. H., & Chen, B. (2025). Far-right conspiracies and online engagement: how #StopTheSteal leveraged moral appeals, group identity, and #BlackLivesMatter to capture audience attention on Parler. Journal of Information Technology & Politics. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2025.2468948
This study explores the strategic spread of conspiracy theories by far-right groups during the “Stop the Steal” election denial rallies, focusing on their online efforts to undermine the Black Lives Matter movement. Based on the Discursive Opportunity Structure framework, we conducted a computer-assisted content analysis of Parler posts (N = 9,714), supplemented with qualitative textual analysis. We analyzed three key messaging strategies that promoted the “Stop the Steal” messages: leveraging hashtags for visibility, making moral appeals to establish legitimacy, and using group identity markers to enhance resonance. Our findings reveal that the integration of in-group identity cues with appeals to moral virtue (morally right), as well as pairing the #BLM hashtag with moral vice (morally wrong), generates greater attention from social media users. We discuss the implications of these findings as reflections of entrenched racism in the post-truth era.
Pippert, C., Furl, K., & Marwick, A. (2025). True believers, entertainers, and skeptical scholars: claims and frames on conspiracy TikTok. Journal of Information Technology & Politics. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2025.2458025 [PDF]
While conspiracy theories are prominent on social media, they also increase audience engagement. It is thus unclear how many creators “believe” the theories they espouse, especially when they are outrageous or counter to mainstream belief. We investigate how conspiratorial social media creators position themselves in relation to the claims in their videos, the evidence they present, and their audiences. We apply qualitative content analysis to ConspiracyTok videos and comments. Creators position themselves vis-à-vis claims as having personal stakes in their veracity; emphasizing enjoyment; or adjudicating through evidence-backed research. Creators appeal to common experiences, promoting community engagement, construing viewers as extraordinary insiders, and encouraging collective research. These actions allow creators to cultivate generative, welcoming environments where even skeptical commenters often approach conspiratorial TikToks using the same epistemological frameworks as creators, a generous epistemology. Most commenters are not skeptical of creators’ claims, instead extending creators’ claims through “yes and” comments and additional research. We provide insight into the popularity of and difficulty in combating conspiracy theories on “fun” youth-oriented platforms like TikTok.
Wang, Z., Zhu, J., Zuo, W., Jiang, Z., Lei, J., & Wang, Z. (2025). Living with COVID-19 conspiracies on Chinese TikTok (Douyin): unpacking multimodal features, national identity, and user engagement. Journal of Information Technology & Politics. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2025.2473991
Conspiracy theories, recognized as alternative interpretations of historical or ongoing events suggesting the malevolent involvement of individuals or groups in secretive plotting, have drawn substantial attention in political communication and information technology studies. However, prevailing research has primarily concentrated on their manifestations within Western frameworks, thereby leaving unanswered questions about the allure and persuasiveness of conspiracy theories in non-Western and authoritarian contexts. Building on social identity theory and focusing on multimodal social media data, this study identified 182 videos on Chinese TikTok (Douyin) and uncovered their multimodal features and national identity strategies under a multimodal video analysis framework. Our results underscored that Douyin conspiracy videos exhibited significantly longer lengths and unique visual characteristics with lower brightness and entropy but more human faces. Among these videos, shorter length and faster tempo were associated with more likes, while higher loudness was associated with more comments. In contrast to in-group national identity strategies, videos of out-group national identity strategies received significantly more likes, comments, and shares. The broader practical implications of this study on the detection, countering, and governance of conspiracy videos were also discussed.