Nieman Foundation at Harvard
HOME
          
LATEST STORY
Young journalists will reimagine a better press
ABOUT                    SUBSCRIBE

Articles tagged conspiracy theories (21)

One variety of “fake news” is taking possession of a far more insidious one.
Partisanship, conspiratorial thinking, and IRL connections make for a potent mix — on both the left and the right.
“It still works even for people who strongly distrust AI.”
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.