Thread by @docrussjackson

#THREAD

Conspiracy Theories & the Manufacture of Dissent.

In a democratic society, the quality of information that citizens consume matters, since the ability to develop informed opinions is central to pressuring Govt to formulate policies that serve a common good." - DiMaggio.

A summary #THREAD of Anthony R. DiMaggio's 2022 paywalled article:

'Conspiracy Theories & the Manufacture of Dissent: #QAnon, the ‘#BigLie’, #Covid19, & the Rise of Rightwing #Propaganda'.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…

DiMaggio's journal article examines the impact of partisanship, rightwing media, and social media on attitudes about contemporary conspiracy theories. Mainstream scholarly views that ‘both sides’ of the political aisle indulge routinely in such theories are challenged.

Issues examined include the QAnon movement, ‘big lie’ voter fraud conspiracism, & Covid19 conspiracy theories. Republican partisanship, rightwing media consumption, & social media consumption are all significant statistical predictors of acceptance of modern conspiracy theories.

DiMaggio starts with a strong claim that's difficult to argue with: "if the information that people consume is systematically distorted & characterized by manipulation & propaganda, there is little reason to think that public policy outcomes will be well-informed or rational."

"And with the rise of ‘new’ forms of media such as cable news, online media publications, and social media, there are serious concerns about rising disinformation, misinformation, and polarization in political discourse."

DiBaggio draws on on Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony to analyze how mass political discourse in the USA is increasingly subject to manipulation & false consciousness in a time marked by the mainstreaming of conspiracies.

I see a similar pattern in the UK too.

"While conspiracies are embraced by individuals on both the left & right of the political spectrum, (in the USA) they have become dominant to the messaging of the Republican Party & its leaders in the last decade."

DiBaggio gives the examples of Sarah Palin’s mainstreaming of the ‘death panels’ propaganda accompanying the 2010 Affordable Care Act, Donald Trump’s popularization of the ‘birther’ conspiracy, & the rise of Covid-19 conspiracies, QAnon, & ‘Big Lie’ election claims.

"The routine invocation of these conspiracies represents a substantive shift for the Republican Party, which resorts to the manufacture of faux dissent in stoking opposition to the Democratic Party, during both periods when Republicans are in and out of national power."

In the UK, the @Conservatives have increasingly adopted this strategy since Boris Johnson, Michael Gove & Jacob Rees-Mogg spoke with Trump's strategy adviser, Steve Bannon, in 2018. Following this, MPs regularly mobilised the antisemitic conspiracy theory of 'cultural Marxism'.

DiBaggio claims "This tactic amounts to an authoritarian strategy, in that it seeks to delegitimize the very idea of a two-party system by portraying Democrats as a fundamental, existential threat to the nation & its people, while implicitly idealizing a one-party state."

'In an era of ‘post-truth’ politics, conspiratorial propaganda is a hegemonic weapon wield against Democrats & their own party base in stoking mass paranoia & rage, with ‘new media’ cable, talk radio, rightwing websites, & social media serving as primary points of transmission.'

This manipulation serves hegemonic interests by encouraging mass alienation & distrust of the political process, reinforcing a sense that government cannot serve as a means of solving collective problems, despite the clear dominance of the political process by affluent interests.

"Republican (& in the UK, Tory) partisans actively support party officials who embrace conspiracy theories & the party base’s attention is diverted from recognizing existing government policies that benefit elites in an era of rising worker insecurity & record inequality."

DiBaggio suggests that "the US has entered a fundamentally new era with the rise of partisan cable media, rightwing talk radio, rightwing ‘news’ websites, & social media."

I would argue the exact same process is happening in the UK too - often funded by the same elites.

These developments on both sides of the Atlantic have undermined the professional journalistic standards that formerly safeguarded against proliferation of conspiracy nonsense, & the spread of disinformation & misinformation.

In the previous era, audiences relied more heavily on a relatively much smaller pool of traditional venues/platforms such as (well regulated & professional) national ‘agenda setting’ newspapers, national broadcast tv & radio, & news magazines.

In our brave new world, audiences "are ‘empowered’ to consume partisan & conspiratorial media such as Fox News & InfoWars, & to curate their own informational content on social media, filtering out messages that run contrary to their prior partisan & ideological beliefs."

These developments empower partisan political elites & other actors to disseminate disinformation & propaganda — with propaganda defined by DiBaggio in his article simply as 'factually unsubstantiated conspiratorial messages'.

"With the rise of the ‘post-truth’ era, where ‘facts’ & ‘alternative facts’ are accorded equal weight, with the active discounting of medical, scientific, journalistic, & academic experts, & in a country with a history of trafficking in anti-intellectualism, the conditions are...

...increasingly ripe for the ascendance of conspiracy theories. The rise of conspiracy paranoia is most acute on the right, with the Republican Party leading the charge."

In the next section of the paper, DiBaggio outlines his understanding of Gramscian hegemony.

For Gramsci, ‘hegemony’ referred to the process through which political, business, & cultural elites guide the masses via indoctrination, & in favor of narratives commonly accepted through mass ‘consent’ as common sensical.

Elite actors operating in various settings—which in modern times include the media & political parties—seek to mold mass opinion in favour of market-oriented agendas that reinforce capitalist/elite interests.

Individuals & groups sometimes rebel against a hegemonic status quo, prompting the need for co-optation of these protests, so long as concessions granted do not undermine the fundamental capitalist structure.

Within this system of mass manipulation & co-optation of dissent, Party & media ideology reinforces hegemonic power.

Engel's 'false consciousness' refers to the susceptibility of the masses to subordinate their own material interests to those of the ruling capitalist class.

Gramsci suggests the masses adopt ‘a conception which is not its own but is borrowed’ from the capitalist class — the consequence being that, for the mass public, ‘conduct is not independent & autonomous, but submissive & subordinate’ to elite capitalist interests.

DiBaggio suggests that in modern times, "it makes sense to consider how false consciousness is mobilized via promoting baseless conspiracy theories by political parties such as the Republican Party, & corporate media outlets."

"These media profit directly from this content by attracting users who ‘tune in’ to consume it, while the Republican Party uses conspiracies to divert attention from its pro-business agenda, which has resulted in growing inequality & rising mass insecurity in recent decades."

DiBaggio argues that mass manipulation by elites is a function of many factors. Psychologically, citizens in modern democracies like the US & UK, are inundated with misinformation & disinformation, particularly through talk radio, online rightwing media sources, & social media.

"Furthermore, the rise of anti-intellectualism & distrust of evidence-based reasoning, in addition to declining basic literacy skills, have intensified the process of mass manipulation by corporate social media & other online rightwing media venues."

For Republicans & rightwing Americans in particular, the problem of rising conspiratorialism & misinformation is intensified due to engrained emotional & ideological connections to, & trust in the Republican Party, engrained in its supporters via parental & peer socialization.

The dangers of misinformation intensified with the rise of a cultish emotional attachment of Republicans to Trump, who promotes baseless conspiracy theories, & the rise of echo chambers, where partisans insulate themselves from contrary views & are exposed to false information.

DiBaggio claims that "with the rise of mass discontent, particularly in the last decade, it seems increasingly necessary to consider the ways that officials not only manufacture consent of the party faithful, but manufacture dissent against party leaders on ‘the other side’."

Uscinski defines conspiracy theories as ‘a small group of powerful individuals working in secret for their own benefit & against the common good’.

It is important to accept not all conspiracies are theory, since political leaders have conspired in the past to deceive the public.

Eg Nixon & Watergate, lies in defense of the Vietnam War exposed by the Pentagon Papers, the Iran-Contra scandal, government deception about illegal NSA spying during the ‘War on Terror’, & the Bush & Blair administrations' deceptions in making the case for the war against Iraq.

Acceptance of conspiracy theories is increasingly common. While some are relatively low stakes today eg the moon landing, others are high stakes & involve potential life & death issues eg about health care, disease outbreaks, vaccination against deadly diseases, & climate change.

In seeking to account for beliefs about conspiracies in the US, some research identifies a demographic profile for those who are more likely to support these theories, finding that they receive greater support among African Americans, Muslim Americans, & other minority groups.

It seems likely that support for conspiracy theories by these minority groups may be driven by their experiences with prejudice & discrimination & their heightened grievances, which are based in feelings of political powerlessness & 'system blame’.

"Ironically, however, many conspiracy theorists also fall into conspiracies because they believe that as part of a historically dominant social group, they are being discriminated against by a minority group."

Scholarship also reinforces the conclusion that conspiracy theories are fueled by individuals who see the world in terms of in-group & powerful out-group threats.

As an aside, Tajfel & Turner's 'Social Identity theory' posits that intergroup bias means positively evaluating one's ingroup relative to the outgroup (ie ingroup favoritism) & negatively evaluation of the (motives/characteristics etc) outgroup.

sciencedirect.com/topics/social-…

Some research emphasizes how "acceptance of conspiracies is tied to narcissistic claims of superiority & inferiority that are directed against alleged conspirators, with conspiracies characterized by significant racial or moral dimensions."

Scholarly research also identifies cognitive & psychological factors associated with increased susceptibility to conspiracy theories. Some work identifies conspiracy theorists as less educated & cognitively deficient (Stahl and Van Prooijen, 2018; Van Prooijen, 2017).

Based on conventional notions of intelligence drawing on proficiency in scientific empiricism & evidence-based reasoning, conspiracy theorists fail to present minimum thresholds of acceptable evidence for confirmation or falsifiability in order to ‘make their case’.

They interpret the absence of evidence as evidence of nefarious deeds or intent on the part of shadowy & secretive actors. Popper situates conspiratorial thinking within a framework that sees individuals as looking for order within chaos & for intentionality where none may exist.

Conspiracy theorists seek to ‘make sense out of a confusing, inhospitable reality’ & ‘assuage feelings of powerlessness’ by embracing conspiracies portraying them as part of a select group who are enlightened about how the world really works, contrary to the 'manipulated masses'.

Individuals who project an image of themselves as ‘special & unique’ are also more likely to subscribe to conspiracy theories. Psychological studies identify acceptance of conspiracy theorizing as associated with pathological, fantastical, & distrustful personalities & thinking.

Some research identifies specific traits as affiliated with a conspiratorial mindset, including resentment of elites, psychoticism, lack of critical thinking, paranoia, anxiety, anger, & delusion (Carey et al; Dagnall et al; Darwin et al; Dyer & Hall; Klein et al; Stahl; Swami).

Conspiracy theorists are more likely to be dualistic in their thinking of the world as divided between good & evil. Some scholars claim the likelihood of a person accepting a conspiracy theory is simply predicted by the predisposition toward accepting other conspiracy theories.

"Outside of psychological or demographic factors, there is the question of how partisanship relates to conspiracy theories. Some scholars present evidence focusing on how partisans of the out-of-power party rely on conspiratorial rhetoric to try & marginalize the other party."

Scholars show how conspiracies became increasingly common on the Republican right under Trump, having ‘infected’ US ‘national discourse’. But much scholarly work risks falling into false equivalency, portraying conspiracy theorizing as a problem of both ‘the left’ & ‘the right’.

DiBaggio interrogates the claims that Democratic & Republican partisans, & ‘left’ & ‘rightwing radicals’ simply see the other side as ‘conspiring’ against them, & the claims that conspiracy theories are ‘not increasing’ in frequency & are ‘not exclusive’ to the American right.

For example, DiBaggio counters Uscinski's claim that ‘numerous polls show that partisans are equally willing to believe in conspiracy theories; it is just that they believe in different ones for different reasons’.

Uscinski cites as evidence the examples of Trump & his stolen election conspiracy, Democrats’ at times conspiratorial claims about Trump’s active collusion with Russia in manipulating the 2016 election, & Bernie Sanders’s rhetoric about ‘oligarchy’ & a ‘rigged’ economy.

However, for DiBaggio, these claims are a false equivalency. For one, they neglect the reality that conspiracy theories have become routine on the Republican right, as seen over a decade.

DiBaggio cites the rise of many conspiracies on the Right, including claims about Obama death panels, birtherism, the ‘Big Lie’ election fraud, QAnon, climate change as a hoax fabricated by scientists & China, & Covid19 as a biological weapon.

The rising frequency of these high-profile conspiracies speaks to the mainstreaming of extremist politics on the US right: only one president in modern times (Trump) representing one political party (the Republicans) has routinely engaged in the promotion of conspiracy theories.

Furthermore, the cases Uscinski points to on the Democratic-left side are problematic. With Russiagate, one can plausibly argue the Democrats fixated on the controversy to the point where their claims became speculative in nature, unfounded, even propagandistic or conspiratorial.

But it was also demonstrated that Trump’s election team did, in fact, attempt to collude with a Russian government operative against his political rival Hillary Clinton via the infamous Trump tower meeting.

There are also false equivalency problems with Uscinski’s claims about Bernie Sanders & American oligarchy. Uscinski posits that Sanders’s oligarchy thesis is an ‘unsubstantiated conspiracy theory’ & that he engages in a ‘cheap attempt at scapegoating’ against the wealthiest 1%.

Uscinski compares this to ‘how Adolf Hitler attuned his anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to his audiences’. The anti-Semitism association is groundless, considering that Sanders is himself Jewish & has no history of trafficking in anti-Semitic messages.

Further, elite theory-based studies that document how political structures are dominated by the upper-class & business interests do not embrace anti-Semitism. Uscinski's insistence that the ‘oligarchy’ thesis is a conspiracy is also problematic.

Political scientists also use the language of ‘oligarchy’, while offering substantial empirical evidence in respected, peer reviewed academic journals, which argues convincingly that upper-income Americans exercise an ‘elite-economic domination’ in American politics.

Considering the identical language used by Sanders & these scholars, & in light of evidence put forward by the latter for their hypothesis, it is a false equivalency for Uscinski to frame Sanders as an 'anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist' based on Sanders’ use of the word ‘rigged’.

Branching out from a review of the conspiracy theory literature, DiBaggio argues that scholarly research on political polarization "reinforces the notion that conspiracy theorizing should be expected to be a heavily rightwing Republican phenomenon."

As political scientists document, the US political process has become increasingly ideologically polarized in recent decades as related to the policy process; how members of Congress vote; & regarding the attitudes of the public.

But the evidence shows that this polarization is not equal on both sides, as the Republican Party, Republican Americans, & rightwing media have become much more polarized in their politics than have the Democratic Party, Democratic Americans, & allegedly ‘liberal’ media outlets.

"In other words, ideological polarization is highly asymmetrical. This polarization is relevant to public opinion, as numerous scholars identify how rightwing partisan media consumption may have a significant effect on attitudes for those consuming such content."

With rising rightwing media polarization comes added opportunities for these consumers to be exposed to & embrace conspiratorial content.

Concerns with proliferating conspiracies are of course relevant to social media as well.

Scholars & public intellectuals warn about the dangers of misinformation, disinformation & echo chambers within social media.

The concern is that these platforms are more likely to enable feedback loops that reinforce specific partisan & ideological viewpoints of users.

For example, Twitter allows users to engage in highly partisan activities, with left- & right-leaning users retweeting content from individuals who overlap with their own partisan views an overwhelming 87%–89% of the time.

The highly partisan nature of social media & the rise of echo chambers becomes more concerning with the discussion of these platforms as potential hotbeds for disseminating misinformation & disinformation—concerns that have been growing in recent years in research & scholarship.

Previous research identifies Trump supporters & the American right as much more susceptible to manipulation from disinformation & automated bots, including during election periods, so it makes sense to consider social media as a source of potential rightwing misinformation.

DiBaggio predicted false consciousness will be linked to Republican conspiracy propaganda masquerading as truthful dissent against ‘the system’, & that partisanship & consumption of various ‘new media’ & social media generally, will be linked to the manufacture of faux dissent.

DiBaggio also predicts that Republican Americans, & consumers of InfoWars & Fox News, as well as social media users, will be more likely to agree with a wide range of misinformation & contemporary conspiracy theories.

These include concerns about election fraud that overlap with Trump’s own claims about the 2020 'stolen election', support for QAnon, & to be exposed to & agree with various Covid19 conspiracies, including the claim that Covid19 was a hoax &/or caused by 5G cell phone towers.

DiBaggio's first claim is that Republican partisanship is responsible for fueling these conspiracies, which runs directly contrary to the claim of various social scientists that modern conspiracy theories are embraced across the board, & are not primarily a rightwing phenomenon.

DiBaggio's second claim, that these conspiracies are primarily disseminated in various ‘new media,’ speaks to the power of cable, online rightwing websites, & social media in promoting echo chambers & misinformation.

DiBaggio's investigation into his second claim should allow for a clearer assessment of the power of cable, talk radio, online rightwing websites, & social media venues as related to concerns about ‘echo chambers’, media effects, & the misinformation problem.

So how did DiBaggio go about researching his claims?

Well, he drew on national survey data to examine American media consumption patterns, partisanship, & political beliefs about prominent conspiracy theories in the United States.

He also drew on the Pew Research Center’s August–September 2020 poll, which surveyed Americans on QAnon & on alleged mail-in voter fraud, & examined the Ipsos-American Perspectives Survey September 2020 poll & Pew’s April 2020 poll for attitudes about Covid19 conspiracies.

DiBaggio utilised 'ordered logistic regression analysis', treating Republican partisanship & media consumption as ‘independent variables’, with conspiratorial attitudes about QAnon, US elections, & Covid-19 serving as ‘dependent variables’.

DiBaggio also included various ‘control variables’ including respondents’ self-declared ideology, gender, age, education, race, & income, & with survey weights applied to adjust for demographic discrepancies between each poll & the general population.

FINDINGS:

Across all three conspiracy theories, the evidence suggests that partisanship, rightwing new media consumption, & social media consumption are significant in predicting public beliefs, while consumption of traditional news media works as a bulwark against conspiracies.

For QAnon, traditional news outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN were roundly dismissive of the conspiracy theory, framing it as emerging from the ‘dark fringes’, as ‘groundless’, and as violently paranoid.

In contrast, QAnon was implicitly stoked by Trump: he RTd from dozens of QAnon accounts prior to his deplatforming by Twitter, & he refused to disavow the group when he was informed about what it stood for by a reporter, claiming that they are ‘very strongly against pedophilia’.

Trump even hosted QAnon activists in the White House - including lawyer Sidney Powell & former general Michael Flynn - to strategize about how to overturn the 2020 election.

These actions suggest that Trump was sympathetic to the movement, if not an outright supporter.

Recent research finds that social media were a hotbed for QAnon content, with Q postings dwarfing those from other movements such as #MeToo & climate activism on Twitter, & with one-in-four Americans saying they were exposed to QAnon content on social media sites in early 2020.

40% of Americans said in October 2020 that ‘the spread of’ QAnon ‘through social media’ was a ‘major problem’, while 48% agreed such ideas should be removed from social media platforms, while 24% of Americans agreeing ‘the claims made by QAnon’ were ‘somewhat’ or ‘very accurate’.

Statistical analysis of the Pew poll included a measure of ‘the most common way’ that Americans ‘get political & elections news’—divided between those relying on traditional news venues, compared with those relying on ‘social media’.

DiBaggio's regression analysis, included a simple independent variable comparing social media users to non-users, & controlling for other demographic factors.

Analysis showed social media use is significantly associated with being more likely to agree that QAnon is a ‘good thing’ for the country, with 26% of those relying primarily on social media for their news expressing sympathy toward the movement, compared with 12% of all others.

A first differences analysis found that those relying on social media are 14% less likely than other respondents to say that QAnon is a very bad thing for the country, after controlling for other demographic factors.

A second regression analysis showed that social media users (26%) are significantly more likely than traditional news consumers (11%) to say ‘QAnon’ is a ‘somewhat good thing’ or ‘very good thing for the country’.

Relying on traditional news media is associated with a 15% increased likelihood of saying QAnon is very bad for the country, compared to social media. Partisanship is an even stronger determining factor, contrary to scholarly claims it was not driven by Republican socialization.

Shifting from Republican to Democratic party identification results in a 32% increased likelihood of agreeing QAnon is very bad for the USA. 38% of Republicans agreed Q was a ‘somewhat’ or ‘very good thing for the country’. By late 2020, half of Republican supported the movement.

Results revealed significant differences between traditional news vs social media consumption in predicting opinions of QAnon. The reactionary effects of social media seem to extend beyond ‘echo chambers’ that work to isolate like-minded liberals into partisan filter bubbles.

Results suggest a more expansive effect of social media consumption in pulling American thought to the right, with reliance on these platforms associated with greater likelihood of supporting QAnon, even after controlling for partisanship & ideology.

In autumn 2020, traditional news outlets devoted attention to Trump’s claims about voter fraud, the NYT referred to his allegations of mass voter fraud as a ‘baseless conspiracy’, while National Public Radio criticized Trump’s ‘false claims, bolstered by online disinformation'.

In contrast to mainstream reporters, Trump routinely used social media to disseminate ‘Big Lie’ propaganda that the election was being stolen from him by the Democrats. The language was deeply conspiratorial.

Trump spent months posting on Twitter, stoking mass paranoia & anger with his ‘Stop the Steal’ disinformation campaign, which his own Attorney General recognized was baseless. This campaign was, initially at least, tolerated by social media venues, to varying degrees.

It was not until after the rioting at the US capitol on January 6 that both Facebook & Twitter deplatformed Trump based on the concern that the president was stoking violence from his supporters. Twitter permanently banned Trump, while Facebook issued a temporary 2-year ban.

Throughout the fall of 2020, rightwing media—including Fox News & talk radio personalities—were sympathetic to Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ propaganda on the election.

The late Rush Limbaugh trafficked in his own conspiracies: the Democratic Party was attempting to infect Trump with Covid19 to ensure his election defeat; ‘radical leftists & the Democratic Party’ were ‘ballot harvesting’ in swing states to artificially pump up Democratic votes;

Venezuela was secretly conspiring with the Dominion & Smartmatic electronic vote-counting companies to distort the election results; the Covid19 lockdown of 2020 was intended ‘to take down the U.S. economy’ & impose ‘globalism and world government’ on the United States;

US official Covid19 death counts were exaggerated by ‘fake causes’ & through the ‘staged overrunning of hospitals’; Covid19 cases were ‘being reported in states that Trump needs to win’—implying that Democrats were coordinating a campaign to undermine Trump’s reelection.

ALL these claims were all without foundation, but they reinforced Trump’s baseless & conspiratorial election propaganda.

On Fox News, primetime content also favored Trump’s election distortions. Sean Hannity conspiratorially warned about the threat of the ‘deep state’.

Playing into the ‘Big Lie’ propaganda, Hannity demanded an unprecedented ‘do-over’ vote in Pennsylvania in the name of undercutting fictitious voter fraud. Other Fox hosts, including Tucker Carlson, Loud Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro, & Maria Bartiromo featured conspiratorial rhetoric.

Fox presenters suggested that dead voters & electronic voting machines were responsible for manipulating the election outcome.

Clearly, the network’s top media personalities were behind the president, reinforcing his efforts to undermine confidence in US electoral integrity.

Large numbers of people were susceptible to Trump’s conspiracy rhetoric. More than one-in-four Republicans and Republican-leaning Americans said in late 2020 that they relied on Trump’s campaign as ‘a major source of election news’.

Republicans and Republican-leaning Americans were 25 percentage points more likely than other Americans to think that ‘voter fraud’ was a serious problem in US elections. Trump’s Twitter followers in particular were heavily susceptible to election misinformation.

DiBaggio's analysis shows consumption of CNN, NPR, & The Washington Post are significantly associated with opinions that fraud is a not serious problem related to mail-in voting, while talk radio consumption is significantly associated with concerns about fraud.

Unsurprisingly, analysis shows Fox News consumption is significantly associated with feelings that fraud is a problem with mail-in voting, although New York Times consumption is unrelated to attitudes about fraud.

Those who rely on newspapers and broadcast television for their political and election news (19%) are significantly less likely than those relying on social media (30%) to think that mail-in voting is associated with fraud, controlling for other factors.

Analysis also reveals that, controlling for other all other variables, relying on traditional news media is associated with an 11% increased likelihood of agreeing that mail-in fraud is ‘not a problem at all’ in presidential elections, compared with relying on social media.

Partisanship is also a significant predictor of beliefs about election fraud. 55% of Republicans, compared to 8% of Democrats, think there are problems historically with mail-in voting: partisanship is a stronger factor than media consumption in predicting voter fraud attitudes.

Type of media consumption & partisanship are significant predictors of opinions about electoral integrity: just 20% of traditional tv news consumers & 5% of Democrats lacked confidence in absentee & mail-in voting, compared with 47% of social media users & 75% of Republicans.

Traditional media use is associated with a 21% increased likelihood of feeling very confident in absentee & mail-in voting compared with reliance on social media.

As national polls demonstrated, & despite an absence of good quality evidence, more than three-quarters of Republicans agreed in February 2021 that there was ‘widespread fraud in the 2020 election’, while two-thirds in July said ‘the election was rigged & stolen from Trump’.

As with QAnon, the election case study demonstrates the power of partisanship & social media in cultivating Republican false consciousness: social media have a tremendous power to pull American political discourse further to the right, contrary to traditional media.

The final case study examined two conspiracy theories related to notion that shadowy actors were behind the introduction of Covid19 as an assault on humanity - that 5G technology was behind the creation of the pandemic, & Covid19 was manufactured as a biological weapon in China.

While there was never any evidence validating the absurdist notion that 5G cell phone technology was behind the emergence of Covid19, the China ‘bioweapon’ conspiracy is more complicated in terms of its development, marketed by powerful Republicans such as Senator Rand Paul.

Fox News routinely ran stories suggesting that the virus was designed as a bioweapon, putting Fox News in league with conspiracy outlets such as Alex Jones’s InfoWars, which claimed that Covid-19 and the vaccines developed to combat it were both created as bioweapons.

Social media also promoted Covid-19 conspiracy theories, & is associated with acceptance of the claim that the virus was created by the Chinese government as a bioweapon, & with evidence that pro-Trump bots on social media were regularly promoting Covid-related disinformation.

This finding overlaps with previous case studies, with conspiracy theories consistently finding a home on social media due to a lack of effective gatekeeping by the owners and moderators of these platforms.

Americans relying ‘always’ or ‘sometimes’ on social media for Covid19 info were 12 percentage points more likely to have heard ‘a lot’ about the 5G conspiracy, compared with those relying on social media ‘hardly ever’/‘never’. 54% of heavier users had heard of the 5G conspiracy.

Again unsurprisingly, reliance on Fox News & InfoWars were both significantly & positively associated with acceptance of the claim that Covid-19 was created as a weapon by China.

54% of those relying on Fox (compared with 15% of those distrusting Fox) & 71% of those relying on InfoWars (compared with 18% of those distrusting InfoWars) accepted the bioweapon conspiracy. Unsurprisingly, partisanship is also associated with attitudes toward the conspiracy.

50% of Republicans agreeing that Covid19 was engineered by China, compared with 13% of Democrats.

Those agreeing Americans need to ‘do their own research’, contrary to the information provided by the 'msm', are significantly more likely to fall into conspiratorial thinking.

Most findings speak to the enduring power of political party in fueling conspiracies, & the ability of rightwing media such as Fox News & InfoWars to cultivate & sustain support for baseless & xenophobic conspiracies.

But the findings also demonstrate there are limits to the manipulation that occurs in social media, with advocates of the Covid-19-as-bioweapon narrative failing to utilize these platforms to grow the conspiracy theory in late 2020.

This finding suggests that social media’s hosting of rightwing disinformation, misinformation, and conspiracy actors is not a foregone conclusion; it can be combated with a coordinated response by those who control these platforms.

Conclusion

Following the intensifying public distrust of the political system in the mid- to late 2000s, the Republican Party worked to co-opt mass anger by adopting the rhetoric of protest & rebellion.

This co-optation, to borrow from Gramsci, is part of a hegemonic process of control, in which mass anger & distrust is utilized by political elites to reinforce the status quo. Rightwing media & social media have become the preferred mediums to deliver such messages.

These demonstrable & well evidenced trends run totally contrary to contemporary rightwing propaganda from Trump & his Republican supporters, which portrays social media as hotbeds of leftwing ‘big tech’ radicalism that are inhospitable to the right & Republicans.

The narrative about social media intolerance of the right was popularized after Trump’s deplatforming from Twitter & Facebook in early 2021, & in the wake of his stoking of insurrectionist violence on January 6.

Significantly, with much of the public falsely believing social media are radical-left political actors, acceptance of this myth translates into reduced pressure on these platforms to address their pervasive platforming of rightwing misinformation actors & their messages.

It also relieves social media venues of responsibility for enabling the rise of rampant conspiratorialism.

With an ascending Republican rightwing insurgency in the United States, the language of dissent is appropriated by political elites.

But it is a manufactured faux dissent, as evidenced by the ascendance of conspiracies, embracing fiction, propaganda, & poisoning mass confidence in government.

By indulging in exotic & fanatical claims about shadowy, cartoonish, & evil elites set on destroying humanity by drinking the blood of children, Republicans further obscure the question of what, if anything, citizens can do to challenge elite dominance of the political process.

There is little room to reflect on & discuss what government can do to improve the lives of the many, when the Republican Party base is being actively convinced that this same government is trying to murder them & their children at every turn.

And with the Republican base’s embrace of conspiracy, the ability of much of the public to engage in rational and coherent political discourse becomes increasingly difficult, perhaps impossible.

The risks of #misinformation have increased significantly since 6 January: most Republicans reject the basic institutions of democratic electoralism in favour of the ‘Big Lie’ election conspiracy & authoritarian contempt for respecting results of elections that their party loses.

Dr. Anthony DiMaggio gives a lecture followed by a Q&A on his work into 'Conspiracy Theories and the Manufacture of Dissent'.