Nieman Foundation at Harvard
HOME
          
LATEST STORY
Browser cookies, as unkillable as cockroaches, won’t be leaving Google Chrome after all
ABOUT                    SUBSCRIBE

Articles tagged conspiracy theories (18)

A study of 498 Australians and New Zealanders finds “no evidence that individual beliefs in conspiracy theories increased on average over time.”
“At the time of this writing, it is difficult to avoid the realization that one side of politics — mainly in the U.S. but also elsewhere — appears more threatened by research into misinformation than by the risks to democracy arising from misinformation itself.”
Back in 2012, the spread of outlandish conspiracy theories from social media into the mainstream was a relatively new phenomenon, and an indication of what was to come.
Our research found that posts that came from influencers, as well as women without enormous numbers of followers, and that cited scientists or other scholars, received more likes, comments, retweets and hashtags.
Conspiracy theories seem to meet psychological needs and can be almost impossible to eradicate. One remedy: Keep them from taking root in the first place.
It comes down to how easily the story falls apart.