Recurrent fury: Conspiratorial discourse in the blogosphere triggered by research on the role of conspiracist ideation in climate denial
Open accessAbstract
A growing body of evidence has implicated conspiracist ideation in the rejection of scientific propositions. Internet blogs in particular have become the staging ground for conspiracy theories that challenge the link between HIV and AIDS, the benefits of vaccinations, or the reality of climate change. A recent study involving visitors to climate blogs found that conspiracist ideation was associated with the rejection of climate science and other scientific propositions such as the link between lung cancer and smoking, and between HIV and AIDS. That article stimulated considerable discursive activity in the climate blogosphere—i.e., the numerous blogs dedicated to climate “skepticism”—that was critical of the study. The blogosphere discourse was ideally suited for analysis because its focus was clearly circumscribed, it had a well-defined onset, and it largely discontinued after several months. We identify and classify the hypotheses that questioned the validity of the paper’s conclusions using well-established criteria for conspiracist ideation. In two behavioral studies involving naive participants we show that those criteria and classifications were reconstructed in a blind test. Our findings extend a growing body of literature that has examined the important, but not always constructive, role of the blogosphere in public and scientific discourse.
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Conspiracy theories are resistant to falsification in that they postulate that conspirators use stealth and disinformation to cover up their actions.
“and resistant to falsification in that they postulate that conspirators use stealth and disinformation to cover up their actions—implying that people who try to debunk conspiracy theories may, themselves, be part of the conspiracy (Lewandowsky et al., 2015).”
From The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories (2017) · cites this paper as Lewandowsky et al., 2015
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- Authors
- Lewandowsky, S., Cook, J., Oberauer, K., Brophy, S., Lloyd, E. A., & Marriott, M.
- Affiliations
- The University of Western Australia (AU)
- The University of Queensland (AU)
- Hobart and William Smith Colleges (US)
- Indiana University Bloomington (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Social and Political Psychology
- Published
- 2015-07-08
- Volume
- 3
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 142-178
- ISSN
- 2195-3325 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1507062624
- Cited by
- 111
- References
- 68
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 20 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 30.96
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Journal of Social and Political Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- UWA Profiles and Research Repository (UWA) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- PsychOpen Gold (Leibniz Institute for Psychology) (publishedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (acceptedVersion, other-oa)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Europe’s Journal of Psychology (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Explore Bristol Research (submittedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich)
- Funders
- Royal Society
- University of Bristol
- Australian Research Council
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Climate Change Communication and Perception
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Science and Science Education
- Keywords
- conspiracist ideation, climate change denial, blogosphere, conspiracy theories, climate change skepticism, HIV/AIDS, vaccination, online discourse
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