Jenny:
What is the most absurd conspiracy theory you’ve come across?
Gwenaëlle:
Well, there are many absurd conspiracy theories going around, so it is quite difficult to pick one, but of course at the moment what comes to my mind is this story about exploding bats because of the wind turbines that have been, like, going around in Finland. And of course what comes to my mind, which is one of the most absurd and also most fascinating, is Pizzagate. I think a lot of people have heard. So it's this conspiracy theory that claimed that several high-ranked Democratic party members were involved in human trafficking and a child sex ring, and it all happened in different places, including in this pizzeria in Washington. So the whole idea is very absurd, but it also had a lot of repercussions because there was also a shooting in that pizza place, for instance - so these are the examples that come to my mind first.
[opening music]
Jenny:
Welcome to the podcast Forskarsamtal, Researcher Dialogues, which is a Studio Soc&kom production. Today’s theme is alternative voices in the mainstream media, and here to discuss this theme are Gwenaëlle Bauvois and Niko Pyrhönen who are both university researchers at the research institute CEREN here at Soc&kom. They have studied conspiracy theories in several projects. And my name is Jenny Stenberg-Sirén, I’m a university lecturer in journalism.
The theme for this episode is alternative voices in the mainstream media, so let’s start there. Let’s start by defining this. What do you mean by “mainstream media”?
Niko:
Well, I think there are many definitions for that, but I think for our purposes the important and interesting part is about being able to generate revenues from advertisements. So being of such quality that they can enter the mainstream, present their case and get people to create some kind of ad content there.
Jenny:
So do you exclude public service media from mainstream media?
Niko:
I think they have the same quality, that there would be ads if they just let people to advertise there. So I think that fulfils that criteria as well.
Jenny:
Okay. What about alternative voices, what are those?
Gwenaëlle:
When we talk about alternative voices, we talk about polarising voices that are coming not from the mainstream media but from partisan information sources, and often that - at the expense of factual accuracy. But Niko and I, we’ve been a little bit wary about the notion of “alternative” because being alternative can also be positive, and I mean, in this context we’re talking about something that is not very positive. So that’s why we’ve been also using the concept of countermedia to qualify so-called alternative news sites. So there are these news site outlets that tend to explicitly oppose the mainstream media as well as the establishment more generally. If you want to add something, Niko -
Niko:
Yeah. I think, like, “alternative” is quite descriptive and it has many good qualities and it’s also quite expansive, so we can incorporate many actors in that category, but usually we are very careful, as Gwen said, because it’s not just that they are alternative. Many of them are only alternative and offer alternative perspectives, but especially the content that we have been focusing on is different also in other ways. And they tend to believe this, like, this idea of a big lie, that there are, like, networks, well-coordinated networks of lies being generated all the time. And this is, like - it is also alternative view, but it is a very specific type of that view, so I think that the material that we mostly talk about, that is the reason why we’re not referring to it as “alternative”, per se.
Jenny:
The main point of our discussion is conspiracy theories. We’re going to talk about that. So what is a conspiracy theory?
Gwenaëlle:
That’s a difficult question, in a way, because there are many definitions of what a conspiracy theory is, and there is an on-going scholarly debate. I think Niko can agree on that, we’ve been studying for many years, and there are so many definitions, it also depends on which discipline you are from. But of course basically we can agree that a conspiracy theory is an alternative explanation of historical or on-going events, and that it claims that some people or groups of people have some kind of sinister intention and are engaging conspirational plotting around these events. So I think that’s a basic definition, but then again there can be several layers, and some researcher might attach a different dimention to what a conspiracy is.
Niko:
Yeah. And I also think that the idea that the epistemic authority is - those who create headlines, research results, those types of tested knowledge are in league with all kinds of sinister forces, and as a result of that finding any truthful content is very hard. So I think that is part and parcel of most of the conspiracy theories that we study. Of course that does not fully overlap with the more colloquial understanding of what a conspiracy theory is.
I think the assassination of John F. Kennedy is a very good case in point, and a recent study published I think about a month ago or so from University of Turku people, the FINSCI project, they found out that 38 percent of the people who answered their survey said that they believe that there is something else going on, or there was something else going on with that assassination. And that is, in one sense, a conspiracy theory. But I think that here is also important to consider what kind of relationship has the conspiracy content or conspiracy claims to what is basically the consensual understanding among the experts, and it is notable in this case that they are not saying that there was not any kind of mysterious or unresolved things going on, it’s just that they have not been able to generate evidence for that. So they are not like people who are, support one or other type of JFK assassination theory, they are not, like, necessarily at odds with the scientific community and the epistemic authority, so there is a bit of a grey area there as well.
Jenny:
So conspiracy theories are not necessarily wrong.
Niko:
No, certainly not.
Gwenaëlle:
It’s more about the framework.
Jenny:
Okay. Tell us a little bit about the conspiracy theories you have been working with.
Niko:
Well, they are mostly the kind of content that is made politically relevant in one way or another. So it could be that they are about politics or about political actors. Some of them are very intentionally and purposefully created from top down, the kind of Macron leaks in France, to an extent the voter fraud conspiracy theory, these are of that kind. Some of them acquire this potentially politically relevant character in time, as was the case in, with Pizzagate, that it - first of all, it was aimed to be a very influential, political, election-interrupting kind of theory, which had many, like, tailor-made components, but when no one was really controlling how the message was going on, how it evolved in time, then it became really, like, weird and esoteric, and of course it piqued people’s interest. But at the same time it lost many of its pinpointed political meanings that the people in charge of it very early on had in mind.
Jenny:
Could you remind us again, what is Pizzagate?
Niko:
Yes. So Pizzagate is the theory that there is a Hillary Clinton-driven pedophile circle that is convening in the basement of a specific pizzeria in Washington D.C. that started gaining traction during the election year 2016.
Gwenaëlle:
Mhm. You know, so the Macron leaks that Niko just mentioned, maybe to, just to refresh people's memories - it’s not as famous as Pizzagate. So it happened during the French presidential election in 2017, and it was a large scale attempt to spread conspiracies against Emmanuel Macron, who would become the new president. And it is to date the biggest conspiracy in electoral time in France, something like that never happened before and it hasn’t happened again, and Macron made sure that that wouldn’t happen again. And the conspiracy was revealed in a nine-gigabyte (-) [11:11] document consisting of tens of thousands of e-mails and photos that were hacked in a cyber attack on La République En Marche, the party fronted by Macron. So it was a mix of real e-mails, real documents and fake ones, and it happened just before the presidential election. It was an attempt to somewhat disrupt the election.
And Pizzagate obviously, which is much more famous and Niko just explained what it was, and also we’ve been looking into voter fraud that was also discussed quite a lot and spreading quite a lot during the 2016 U.S. election, even if it’s a much older cospiracy that was, for instance, already spreading during the time Obama was elected, and as we know, is something that has been also used by Trump also now during the midterms. So these the kind of stories and conspiracy theories we have been studying.
Jenny:
Could you open up the scientific process for us? How do you study these theories?
Niko:
Well, there are quite a few different takes that have been tried. I think our approach has, for the most part, been an inductive, even experimental one, so in the article where we compare these three conspiracy theories - Pizzagate, voter fraud and Macron leaks - there we start by tracing back elements and components of that story. Where are they, where have they been in different times. We’ve been using Google Trends to see when did things start trending, what may have happened right before or after. So basically, like, also overlaps with - so what is happening in the political news cycle at the time when the conspiracy theoretical content emerges. So that has been one of our key ways. Oftentimes when there is, when the content is already generated long before, when they are, like, reusing material that has been circulating for decades already, or in some cases, like in some anti-Semitic theories for over a century or so - so then we also do some of the historiography there. So where does it come from, has it has evolved in time, and what are the specificities of this new iteration. Those kinds of things have, like, central in our approach.
Gwenaëlle:
Yeah, and for the study of these three conspiracy theories, during the electoral time in France (--) [14:13] we also look at the articles that were published in the legacy media but also in countermedia outlets to see which stories were trending and when. So also what Niko just explained, we went to Google Trends to see what happened with this story and when to try to somewhat trace how they spread and how they peak and how they became, like, mainstream stories that was visible in the mainstream media.
Niko:
And maybe one other key aspect, which is circulation, that we have also been focusing quite heavily. So not just, like, not just about an individual claim and how it has evolved in time and where it can be traced to, but also, like, transitions, two types of transition, I would say. Like the transitions between the national contexts. So what happens to a specific claim when it travels, let’s say, from United States to France or Finland, what kinds of transformations, what kinds of localisations and domestications take place to make those arguments relevant to a new kind of audience. And also the other kind of transformation between the media spaces. So from the mainstream media to the countermedia and vice versa. So what happens there, how does the story, its framings evolve when that kind of transition takes place.
Jenny:
It sounds a bit like detective work.
Gwenaëlle:
A little bit, yes. [chuckles.] Yes, it -
Niko:
Indeed, that has been our feeling.
Gwenaëlle:
It, it - yeah, it was, like, quite a big work but quite exciting as well.
Jenny:
Yeah. Is this something you think that journalists should do?
Gwenaëlle:
I think on some level they do that, and I think especially in, like, stories like the Pizzagate, I think it’s been covered quite a lot by the journalistic media. And I think a lot of journalists picked up on that, and they tried to understand where this is coming from, why is it peaking at a certain time, how it’s been instrumentalised by some political actors and so on, so I think they understand the importance of covering these stories. Because it undermines their work as well. So I think they understood that, and especially in 2016 I think a lot of people understood that this needs to be covered and understood, and we need to take it seriously.
Niko:
Yeah. At least our work has been greatly influenced by journalistic output also as, like, one source of data, and we studied what is being written about it, when and why. But also it has been quite inspirational and instructive every now and then, especially when it’s kind of investigative journalism, because it often points us to some places that we hadn’t been, considered before. So in that regard I kind of hope that our work could also be useful for journalists in the same way, that maybe we underline a certain kind of development that is interesting, that would be interesting to cover for especially mainstream audiences as well.
Jenny:
Have you always been able to follow the process and get, find the source for the conspiracy?
Niko:
No. I would say that it has been quite rarely the case. Rather we have been able to trace back the digital footprints for quite long, but obviously when we’re talking about the actual origin of a new theory, then I think it’s not oftentimes possible to just say that “yeah, it’s these people who started it”.
Gwenaëlle:
Yeah. The origins are not always clear and it’s a bit of a mystery.
Niko:
And it - yes. And even if you are able to, like, identify the originator of a conspiracy theory, then usually the theory has quite drastically changed when it acquires, attracts a large audience. Not just in the mainstream but even within the online spaces that are more secluded. So if you’re able to find the origin, then probably it’s the origin of a quite different story that what we know now. So that’s also an added reason why it’s really hard to say that these were the people.
Jenny:
You mentioned that some stories may go back a hundred, a century back in time. Have conspiracy theories always existed? Do we have an answer to that?
Gwenaëlle:
I think they are not new. [chuckles.] At least we can say that because, I mean, the idea of a corrupt elite cabal working behind the scenes is nothing new, obviously. Already back in the 17th century in France there was the term of cabinet noir, the black chamber, and it was common at that time to describe Cardinal Richelieu’s office that opened the letters of King Louis XIV’s opponents. So already back in the time they had this idea of some kind of cabal of some kind of elite that was behind the curtain and was likely manipulating the audience and the opinion. So it is not, it’s not something new, that’s for sure. If Niko wants to add something about that, but -
Niko:
Yeah. I would say that the big difference was obviously that it was a very splintered field before the Internet times. That’s why, like, in many circles there was not this kind of understanding that we have this conspiracy theory, it was, like, a common, quite legitimate understanding of how politics works, for example, or, and how the elites behave in some circles. And obviously the details of those changed when the location changed, these people weren’t in touch with each other, and as a result even if probably quite similar numbers or proportions of people believed in some conspiratory malcontent, it did not really resemble that much the phenomenon that we are now studying.
Gwenaëlle:
Yeah. And of course we have now platforms that allow all of these conspiracies to travel very fast and reach a larger amount of people. Of course this kind of idea that there is something behind the curtain and so on, this is nothing new, but it could reach only a limited amount of audience, in a way, for a limited amount of time. Now, of course we are, like, living in a different time, when it’s much more, much easier and faster for these stories to circulate.
Jenny:
It feels like there are several conspiracy theories going on all the time, and they’re not going anywhere, but are there certain times or situations where we see new ones? You mentioned elections here several times, but are there other situations where they emerge?
Niko:
Well, one of the ideas that we have is that basically they are quite often, almost always in some kind of relationship with the news cycle, especially the political news cycle. So if there are stories and themes that circulate widely, and especially if they circulate widely for an extended period of time, then you can expect that much of the conspiratorial content will also be edited or curated to address those issues as well. And I think that it’s part of the reason why conspiracy theories are being talked so much about right now, so it’s a relatively old field even in social sciences. So people have been studying that also for decades, but the newfound interest and especially the emergence in the mainstream space and all the journalistic discussions too, I think they are due to the fact that there are divisive and polarising issues that are being discussed all the time, everyday. The pandemic component, different actors in that - so those are dividing audiences, even the mainstream audiences everyday. So it’s a very fertile ground for the conspiracy theorists to operationalise their activities.
Gwenaëlle:
Yeah. I think we can say conspiracies, they often are spread in crisis time, obviously. All types of crises, the war, like we are facing now the one in Ukraine, the health crisis, like we saw with the COVID pandemic, and of course as we know, there’s been a lot of conspiracies, like, spreading at that time. So obviously every time there is some kind of crisis, it’s very fertile ground for that type of conspiracies to spread, and of course as you mentioned, like, and what we have been studying with Niko, all the electoral times. When there is a lot at stake, it’s really a time when there’s a concentration of that type of stories that are being used and being spread. So the context of election is especially good for conspiracies to spread, because it takes the form of this overarching conspiracy among a corrupt cabal of political and media elite, so of course it’s really a time when these kinds of stories will be especially visible and will be used.
Niko:
Maybe one more thing about the crisis and the relationship of conspiracy theorising to crisis and crisis sentiment is that even though it’s also true that there are more conspiracy theories during crisis times, it is also the fact that they amplify the crisis and also generate all kinds of crises within the bigger framework, let’s say, the pandemic times. There is, like, added crisis - that the vaccinations, they work drastically differently and they are part of ploys to bring New World Order and so on. So usually I would say that crisis, as it is generally understood, is not enough to really fuel the conspiracy theories, so they have to be somehow further refined and amplified in order to be really useful for the majority of conspiracy theorists.
Jenny:
This is interesting, useful. What do they - what is the goal?
Niko:
I think at least one of the things that are on the most general level is attention. Creating, expanding platform, finding new audiences. I think that is what most actors everywhere have in common. Then obviously much changes when we look at different contexts and different places in terms of what incentivises the conspiracy theorists. Especially abroad and especially in the United States there are distinct monetary elements. Some people have actually become rich by circulating conspiracy theories, while some have become really poor, like -
Jenny:
[chuckles.]
Niko:
- Alex Jones, fortunately. But those kinds of opportunities to create some kind of money, in some cases even fortune, those are also relevant, but less so, I would say, in Finland and in countries where the conspiracy theorists use language that is, globally speaking, relatively small.
Gwenaëlle:
Yeah. It can be also for political gain, like we were mentioning earlier the Macron leaks, for instance. It was a way to disrupt the election, so really targeting one candidate in particular, so it’s obvious that there was, like, an attempt to disrupt and discredit somebody. So it can of course have a political motivation.
Niko:
And then when we go to the grassroots level of why do people follow and share and like and discuss conspiracy theories, then the picture obviously looks a bit different. They - I don’t think that much of the grassroots level audience really think that what they do, they themselves do, will change the political outcomes, nor that they could become rich by liking and sharing other people's content. There is the collective aspect, it’s also a hobby. It requires collective curation, that you can start to, like, discuss stuff, what would be good, what sounds plausible, whatnot, there are many arguments also, it’s divisive, but it’s that kind of collective effort where many of the rationales of how people act together, the group sense, they become really pertinent.
Gwenaëlle:
Yeah. I think also for some of the grassroots level there is the fun factor as well. It’s just fun to create all these memes, and to circulate, when you look at Pizzagate, this extremely rich, the iconography, so rich, and there’s so much memes that have been created, and I think some people - yeah, there is a fun aspect in it, I would say.
Niko:
Yes, certainly, a gamified aspect. That, like, let’s resolve this puzzle, what are even the pieces that we can use, so it’s like creating a game and playing the game and the rules constantly evolve. So that I would say is in the core of the fun part.
Jenny:
So it’s a hobby and a game and fun fo-
Gwenaëlle:
For some people.
Jenny:
For some people, yeah.
Gwenaëlle:
Yes.
Jenny:
But there are certainly negative aspects as well.
Gwenaëlle:
Yes.
Jenny:
For the people following these, what could they be, the negative aspects?
Gwenaëlle:
Well, people are exposed to stories that can be quite dark, as we mentioned the Pizzagate, I mean, we are talking about, you know, sex trafficking and so on. And for some people who might (--) [30:07] they are quite heavy content to be exposed to, and of course, and again, if we look at the political dimension, it can really disrupt an election and disrupt all democratic process. So it can have a lot of negative effect again. I guess Niko can agree on that.
Niko:
Certainly, certainly. The expanding distrust -
Gwenaëlle:
That also.
Niko:
Especially the institutional distrust but, like, the general distrust, even the some kind of existential distrust that none of even the basic building blocks of how we perceive the world as working do not really apply. And that may cause many people in their sphere of influence to become rather passive, which is not quite often discussed, that at the same time they would need to do so many things to change drastically how the world works that they basically, their political activities are reduced to liking and sharing and online commenting. That’s, like, a bigger I would say societal level issue.
But then we look on the individual level, like what happens to people who, to use the very common expression by now, who jump into the rabbit hole. It is a very isolating experience. When you have these, when you internalise certain talking points and understandings about how the world works and especially politics, they become of the kind that it is really hard to discuss those ideas with other people. You don’t really, you can’t really easily open a discussion about the 5G microchips in the coffee room of your working place. So it also creates the sense that there are very few people with whom I can talk, if I really seriously believe in these conspiracy theories, and if I would want to talk about politics with other people. So it, like, closes the door for those kinds of discussions where people generate and test and develop their understandings of things, and also it creates the kind of loneliness for many people as a result of that.
Jenny:
But do the followers actually believe the conspiracy theories?
Niko:
I don’t think I’ve given, like, any interview without addressing that particular question at all. Well, the short answer is that we don’t know. We can’t really know. Like, that is a very hard thing to gauge, that - what do people really believe. And scholars of religion have been trying to resolve that kind of issue for a long time, but I don’t think that there is a very clear-cut answer, a very clear-cut approach to know what people really believe. I think that it can be deduced that at least many of the influencers, or the people who have already some kind of platform, that they often don’t believe those, and that could be, like, deduced from the fact that they are sharing and arguing many conflicting or contradictory things at the same time. So they know that all of this at least cannot be true.
Gwenaëlle:
Yeah. And if we take the example, for instance, again of Pizzagate, which is a really good example. Many people were contributing, creating the content and sharing the content didn’t necessarily believe that there is this kind of pedophile ring. So it’s not so much about believing, like, a hundred percent to this kind of ring in the basement of a pizza place in Washington. It was more about participating in a collective curation of this content, and we are talking about the fun factor that is, it was definitely one aspect. And sometimes this participation is an end in itself, just to being part of that collective effort in a way. And people really believing in Pizzagate are probably a very, very small minority. Of course there was this person who went to the pizza place with the gun, fortunately nobody died, but these kinds of people are a really, really small minority. But what a lot of people believe in is that the political system and the media is corrupted and cannot be trusted. I think that’s probably the biggest commonality, but not believing so much maybe in these stories in themselves.
Niko:
I agree. And I also think in a certain way the question of whether they believe or not is not always that relevant, even. Like if we consider the voter fraud claims. If people act as if they believed those claims, the end result is pretty much the same as if they actually believed. There will be unrest, there will be protests, there will be large scale attempts of delegitimising the election results, and so on and so forth. So especially if we’re talking about political sociology and how people are changing their behaviour as a result of being exposed to conspiratory content, then the question of actual belief is not that interesting.
Gwenaëlle:
Yeah. And I guess that sociology, this is not an answer we can - it’s not a question we can really answer. So even if the question of belief of course is really, really interesting, but I think it’s probably too big a question for us, and maybe we are more interested in the process, how these stories are spreading more than that belief. But of course it’s one important aspect to understand why people feel triggered by these stories, and of course that trigger will of course push them to spread these stories. So these mechanisms are also important to study.
Jenny:
Let’s talk about the spreading of these theories, and the role of “mainstream media”. I am doing quotation marks here with my fingers. The role of mainstream media for these conspiracy theories. What is it and what should it perhaps be?
Niko:
Well, I’m thinking about the Convoy Finland case in -
Jenny:
Could you just -
Niko:
- particular. Yeah. Con-
Jenny:
- briefly explain that?
Niko:
Convoy Finland was an event this spring or rather late winter when people drove their cars in support, basically in support or modelled after the original convoy protest of the truckers in Canada where they, that was actually initially sparked by the very acute and immediate interest by the truckers themselves, their employment-related issues. And they gained already in Canada a large follow-up super fast because they were protesting in the public space during a time when that kind of protest was not really considered possible because of all the restrictions and regulations. And people wanted to voice their dissatisfaction to the restrictions in particular, and supporting the truckers was a perfect opportunity for doing that, and people started congregating around that because not much other things was going on at the same time. And I think that the Convoy Finland was very similar in that particular regard, that once some people took the initiative and promised to organise this rally where they block the streets of Helsinki, they saw that this is an opportunity to voice all kinds of concerns about the restrictions, about the vaccinations, against the government, you name it - so it brought a lot of people together.
And how it relates to the role of mainstream media, I think mainstream media was instrumental at least in the Finnish context to bring knowledge about in the first place that something like this is happening. And, well, it was an event at a time when there were no events. And they were interviewing researchers already beforehand, there was this kind of media spectacle being generated, that okay, now the cars are only one hundred kilometres away from Finland and getting even closer and soon it starts, and those kinds of news titles filled the media space for a while. So kind of everyone wanted to know, okay, so what is this thing going on. I would say in cases like this media plays a significant role in bringing this kind of content to people’s attention, and also that way inspiring many people to join.
Gwenaëlle:
Yeah. I think it’s an inevitable dilemma for the mainstream media. Because of course their duty is to report on these conspiracies, but at the same time when you report on them you give visibility, you bring visibility, and that of course, that’s where the dilemma lies. Because you need to report but at the same time you don’t necessarily want to give them more space than they deserve. And I think it’s the same dilemma than with covering, like, the far right or the radical right. So this is something that the journalists have to negotiate, and that’s not an easy task.
Jenny:
So what would you say is the relationship between conspiracy theories and fake news?
Niko:
Well, I would say the fake news are quite often articles of conspiratory content. Like in an article form some part of a conspiracy theory being circulated. There are exceptions to that rule, but I would say that the majority of fake news is of that kind.
Jenny:
Okay. But in a way don’t these alternative voices also have a right to be heard?
Gwenaëlle:
Yeah. I think that’s, again, like it’s a very big discussion because we live in a democracy, so yes, all voices should be heard. But it depends if these voices are carrying hate speech and they are carrying conspiracies, “fake news”, that also used a quotation mark - the kind of disinformation or misinformation, then of course then this becomes more problematic, I would say.
Niko:
I think “the right to be head” is a problematic expression because it’s like, it’s a compound right. It’s not a right that you can just give to someone, because even if they have a right to be heard, then that is not enough to be heard, even with the right. I mean, there has to be someone who takes your voice and somehow amplifies it. And then it’s not about the right to have this opinion, but then it’s some kind of a responsibility of another party to amplify and circulate that voice. So I don’t think that the latter, there is the latter kind of right to have other people being responsible of spreading, sharing, circulating, amplifying your voice. So in that sense, I think maybe the question in that format cannot be very directly answered.
Jenny:
But if we talk about mainstream media, could mainstream media neutralise these theories by giving these voices a platform as well?
Niko:
I think certainly they can do that, and -
Gwenaëlle:
And they do.
Niko:
And they do, indeed. I guess the main question here is what voices and what arguments will they take. Is it something that is uncovered by digging into specific forums, online discussion board places where these people congregate, where they discuss among themselves, generate some kind of flashy headlines from that. I think that is not very constructive. But then, like, if we’re talking about the people who already have some kind of platform, maybe they are aspiring politicians, in some cases they are parliamentary politicians, people in one way or another high positions who have already been at least somewhat successful with conspiratory content and how they use it, then that is obviously crucial to be covered.
Jenny:
Have you as researchers received feedback from people believing in certain theories?
Gwenaëlle:
Not personally, no.
Niko:
Not much. I think that it has also to do with how we operate, especially how we operate in social media. So we are not like - we have not adopted this kind of activist position -
Gwenaëlle:
No.
Niko:
Where we would, like, very actively be sharing and arguing about our content and about our research results. And that’s, it’s a double-edged sword. It would be nice to do also that more, but then again it makes, it would make it much harder to do this kind of research because then we couldn’t as easily enter with our own personas in these arenas where these discussions are being had, being conducted. And we have, by the way, always been using our own names. We haven’t been creating any pseudonyms, we haven’t been doing this kind of, like, old school detective work where we personify someone else or something like that. So yeah, I would say that that is a significant factor that shapes our research.
Gwenaëlle:
Yeah. Of course we have received some criticism from some individuals, I think it’s quite inevitable. You know, if some of the research results have been, like, covered by the mainstream media, some people will go and check out the report, and then write something about us on social media, but it has been quite rare cases. And yeah, I think we’ve been just trying to do our work and not mind it too much, these kinds of comments.
Jenny:
Final question, then. What can we learn, what can society, what can media, what can we all learn from your research?
Niko:
That’s a pretty heavy one.
Gwenaëlle:
Yes, it is.
Niko:
I think the trust-related questions about who to trust, how to talk about those things, how to cover the so-called alternative stuff, I think those are the important aspects to be learned. Like who to cover, why not dig in the sides of origin and publish, like, scandalous from there - I think that would be maybe quite concrete advice. Then maybe, like, then the sensationalising frames about how common this has become and how times are now, so different - I think there could be more, like, historical understanding of that, like, necessarily the people who believe, the number of the people who believe in some kinds of conspiracies has not really increased that much. It's about, like, it’s the connections to the political sphere that we regard as most interesting and important to be discussed.
Jenny:
Thank you, Niko and Gwenaëlle.
Gwenaëlle:
Thank you.
Jenny:
Stay tuned for more episodes of Forskarsamtal, Researcher Dialogues, by Studio Soc&kom.
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