Whispers in the Echo Chamber

Jesse A. Fivecoate, a folklorist and sociocultural anthropologist with a PhD from Indiana University, studies the use of communal belief narratives that circulate within a group as a way of remembering and discussing episodes of conflict and crisis. He is a coeditor of Advancing Folkloristics.Andrea Kitta is a folklorist and a professor of multicultural and transnational literature in the Department of English at East Carolina University. She is the author of Vaccinations and Public Concern in History: Legend, Rumor, and Risk Perception and The Kiss of Death: Contamination, Contagion, and Folklore as well as a coeditor of Diagnosing Folklore: Perspectives on Health, Trauma, and Disability.

“A substantial contribution that makes the important point that conspiracy theories are traditional and performative—a form of folk narrative. Showing these linkages gives this volume a particular power.” - Gary Alan Fine, author of Tiny Publics: A Theory of Group Culture and Action“This book is a welcome addition, enlarging and deepening our understanding of conspiracy theories: accusatory, vernacular products, shaped by our new media, that worryingly provide the wrong answers even to the right questions.” - Véronique Campîon-Vincent, author of Organ Theft Legends

• AcknowledgmentsConspiracy Theory: A Folkloristic IntroductionPart I. Folkloric Approaches1 What History Tells Us about QAnonBill Ellis2 Interrogating “Conspiracism” and the Relationship between Historical and Contemporary ConspiracyDavid GuignionTheories3 The SLAP Test and Conspiracy Theories about COVID-19, Bill Gates, and the Denver AirportJeannie Banks Thomas4 QAnon in Four Pieces: Toward a Folkloric Understanding of a SuperconspiracyJohn BodnerPart II. (De)Constructing Conspiracy Theories5 Worse Than the Disease: The Mask Cartoons of Ben GarrisonIan Brodie6 Conspiracy Theories as a Form of LiteratureLisa M. Ruch7 Computational Methods for the Study of Conspiracy TheoriesTimothy R. Tangherlini, Shadi Shahsavari, Pavan Holur, and Vwani RoychowdhuryPart III. Circulation and Political Contexts8 Conspiracy Thinking as Political Boundary Work: COVID-19 Conspiracy Narratives in IranAfsane Rezaei9 I Tell My People the Truth: COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories and the Performance of Vernacular Authority in Religious Social Networks in MalawiAnika Wilson10 When a Demonology Meets Live-Action Role-Play: QAnon and the Creation of a Social Media Witch ScareSandra Grady11 Can Narratives Counteract Conspiratorial Thinking?Darin DeWitt and Matthew D. AtkinsonContributorsIndex