Conspiracy theories have become one of the most debated topics in recent years. When people stormed Congress in Washington DC, many of them did so motivated by the belief that the 2020 election had been “stolen” and that the official results were illegitimate. Around that time, the campaigns to get people vaccinated against COVID-19 were met with resistance from a loud and confrontative crowd who saw the vaccine not as the much-welcomed ending to a pandemic but as the tool whereby a sinister global cabal subdued the population.

The dangers with believing in conspiracy theories:

“What people believe drives their behavior; and if people believe conspiracy theories for which there is little evidence, the behavior that follows may be irrational and harmful” (van Proojinen 2019: 432).  

A textbook definition of conspiracy theory is a weakly supported belief that historical events result from a malevolent plan executed by a group of people with bad intent. According to the conspiracy theory, nothing happens by chance, things are not what they seem, and everything is connected. Early research into conspiracy theories interpreted it in pathological terms. Conspiracist beliefs were associated with a paranoid personality. This perspective has since been problematized by scholars who point to the increased popularity of conspiracy theories in fiction and popular culture. 

Counteracting conspiracy thinking

It has become a major concern for educators to find tools to effectively counter conspiracist thinking. Various approaches have been suggested, including debunking exercises or fact-checking services.

There are some serious limitations to these approaches: debunking exercises have sometimes shown what is called a boomerang effect: contrary to the ambition, students may not remember what was correct or false about a certain narrative, only that “there was something about a government cover-up." Furthermore, conspiracist narratives tend to weaponize facts, making the task of setting the facts straight into an unproductive whirlpool of conflicting data points.

A recent study by O’Mahony, Brassil, Murphy, & Linehan (2023) showed that the best way to counter conspiracist beliefs is preventive interventions that focus on fostering critical thinking skills and an analytical mindset, whereas counterarguments are not effective.

To this, I would add that in our attempts to mitigate the harm caused by conspiracist beliefs, we should pay more attention to the narrative structure of conspiracy myths and to better try to understand the truth claims inherent in a narrative construction of reality.

For the most part, we subscribe to what philosophers call the correspondence definition of truth: a statement is true if it corresponds to an observable, empirical reality. However, not all statements are easily matched with reality. A simple example would be the question is the glass half-full or half-empty? (Answer: It depends on how thirsty you are).  

When the correspondence can be objectively established, we have a fact. Facts are important for how we navigate through the everyday world: If the train departs at 07.12, I must be at the platform by then. Otherwise, I will miss it. But the world we live in cannot be reduced to mere facts: we have personal preferences, values, feelings, and emotions that influence our perception. And, on an existential level, we tend to search for meaning. For instance: when asked what they appreciate in a medical doctor, most respondents do not list the ability to make the correct diagnosis and provide treatment as the most important things. Naturally, these features are at the top, but most important is someone who listens to them and understands them. Pure facts are not helpful when we feel vulnerable. 

It could be argued that a similar mechanism is at play when conspiracist explanations seduce us. The explanations they provide may contradict empirical evidence, but they make sense. Philosophers refer to this as a hermeneutic definition of truth. Hermeneutic means that it includes an element of interpretation, and even though it may sound abstract, we always apply this hermeneutic truth: in sarcasm and irony, we say one thing but mean the opposite. Similarly, if we were to take metaphors at face value, everyday life would lead to chaos of misunderstandings. 

Conspiracy theories and narrative persuasion

In 1991, American psychologist Jerome Bruner published an essay called “The Narrative Construction of Reality,” where he described ten features of narratives and how they shape our understanding of and orientation in the world. Some of these features are really helpful for understanding how narratives can be convincing and sometimes appear truer than facts.

Narratives, argues Bruner, have a biased time structure, where temporality is not bound by clocks (i.e., instruments for objectively measuring time) but by the humanly relevant actions that take place within the framework of the story.  The slogan “Make America great again” implies such a biased time structure, referring to an idealized past that may not correspond with historical reality. This also includes the meaning attributed to "turning points" (historical as well as biographical). In a story, a single event can change the trajectory of the narrative, whereas, in real life, things are usually much more complex.  

Related to this, in narratives, the problem is at the center, and stories revolve around violations of norms.  A typical structure is an equilibrium-disequilibrium-equilibrium structure, where a villain disrupts an initial state of harmony, and then the hero appears to set everything back to order. Furthermore, narratives deal with particular happenings, but these happenings need to be adapted to a recognizable generic form to achieve their meaning. The hero-villain narrative is an example of one generic structure; another is the righteous underdog who stands up to unjust power. Moreover, narratives are entailed to intentional states of actors: "Actions have their reasons," and when we adhere to a narrative reality, we look for reasons, not causes.  Finally, as I have already mentioned, narrative "truth" need not correspond to any measurable empirical facts.

A narrative, then, is a way to structure information coherently and meaningfully. In short: it helps things “make sense.” My point is not to suggest that narratives are bad and facts are good but to highlight how they coexist and that we rely on both in our daily life. But it is important to understand and recognize how narrative structures appeal to our perception of the world. It is clear that conspiracist beliefs build on narrative persuasion.

The narrative construction of reality is fundamental to our culture. Some evolutionary psychologists even argue that our species are born with an impulse to connect the past, present, and future that is unique to humanity (Handler Miller, 2014: 5). Evolutionary this has been an advantage for our species, a way to preserve knowledge and experience. Still, in the information age it is an instrument that has proven to be dangerous.

References

Bruner, J. (1991). The Narrative Construction of Reality. Critical Inquiry, 18(1), 1–21. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343711 

Handler Miller, C. (2014) Digital Storytelling: A Creator’s Guide to Interactive Entertainment 3^rd ed. Focal Press.

O’Mahony, C., Brassil, M., Murphy, G., & Linehan, C. (2023). The efficacy of interventions in reducing belief in conspiracy theories: A systematic review. Plos one, 18(4), e0280902.

Van Proojinen, JW (2019) Empowerment as a Tool to  Reduce Belief in Conspiracy Theories. In Uscinski, JE (ed.) Conspiracy Theories & the People Who Believe Them. Oxford University Press.

About the author

Linus Andersson is associate professor in media and communication studies at Halmstad University, Sweden, and part of the EPALE pool of experts. Andersson has published works on alternative media and media activism, as well as media literacy and critical thinking. He is currently working in a cross-disciplinary project to design and evaluate the effects of a media literacy intervention that is targeted at high school students in order to improve critical and analytical thinking to mitigate the negative effects of disinformation and conspiracy theories online.