Gadflies, Gossip and Conspiracy

Preface to issue 23-24 of _Lexia_, on the semiotics of conspiracy theories

2023

The mainstreaming of conspiracy theories poses new threats and harms for individuals and society. Conspiracy theories can catalyze radicalization and incite violence through their unique rhetorical structure. For example, conspiracy-oriented newspapers rose to popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, spreading anti-lockdown, anti-vaccine, and anti-government narratives and encouraging participation in offline action (e.g., organized protests). We present the dataset of The Light, a UK 'truthpaper' news outlet, comprising 37 issues from its conception in September 2020 until September 2023. The data contains >1,000 articles of various types (e.g., editorials, interviews, articles), alongside metadata (e.g., whether images were present, number of adverts, word counts, and content type). We additionally collated the postcodes in which The Light is currently distributed. The data presented here poses a unique new dataset for researchers of misinformation and conspiracy narratives and will be useful to both qualitative and quantitative investigations into the evolution and spread of conspiracy narratives in the UK. Background & Summary Gates Top Virologist: Vaccines Threatening Humanity' 'What pandemic?' 'Climate CO2-hoax how bankers hijacked the real environment movement' ''Are we all being brainwashed?' 'Ten Steps to Mass Mind Control' (A selection of article headings from The Light) Conspiracy theories have been studied extensively, across a broad range of disciplines 1. Defined as narratives that offer explanations of significant social and political events and circumstances via secret plots by powerful actors 2 , their increased prominence in recent years poses a new threat for harms to both individuals and society 3 .

The Sociological Review, 2000

1984

2012

In their capacity as founding members of Politix and as members of its editorial board, Jean-Louis Briquet and Frédéric Sawicki present here an “egosociology” of the journal. Since its creation in 1988, Politix has constantly defended a conception of political science that is anchored in the social sciences and has promoted an interdisciplinary approach. The challenge is now to continue the journal’s intellectual and editorial project and to meet the challenges of the new standards applied to academic and publishing activities in the field of social sciences.

Terrorism and Political Violence, 2012

In modern day Irish republicanism, “dissident” is a vague and imprecise term. It is utilised by the media and mainstream politicians to collectively label a broad range of groups and individuals who reject that participation in constitutional politics, in its current form, will achieve their ultimate goal of a United Ireland. This article investigates the discourse from the mainstream media and politicians surrounding dissident groups in order to explore the construction of the “dissident” profile. The piece then considers the composing and transporting of the political messages from two republican groups, Republican Sinn Fein (RSF), and the 32 County Sovereignty Movement (32CSM). This article undertakes a content analysis of the two group's newspapers (Saoirse and Sovereign Nation) over a time period of seven years and will question how “dissidents” attempt to defend and justify their position in relation to this mainstream media narrative, assessing how dissidents attempt a counter-narrative. The aim of such analysis is to discover more about how “dissidents” attempt to portray themselves and justify their position on the republican spectrum.