Event – SPIN Panel Session – Prof Clare Birchall: Online Conspiracism and Dr Theo Kindynis: Conspiracy Theories

March 19th 2025 – 15:00-16:00 (GMT+1), 10:00 (EST)

Professor Clare Birchall (King’s College)

Dr Theo Kindynis (City University)

Chair: Dr Elspeth Van Veeren

About the Event

SPIN is delighted to welcome two speakers this month. On March 19th we will be joined by SPIN-sters Professor Clare Birchall (King’s College) and Dr Theo Kindynis (City University).

The event will be held online, through Zoom. Please email secrecyresearch@gmail.com for an invite link.

Professor Clare Birchall – Online Conspiracism 

This talk will outline two funded research projects that Prof. Birchall is currently working on. The first, Everything is Connected: Conspiracy Theories in the Age of the Internet (AHRC) periodises the internet to consider how each phase has shaped conspiracy thinking. This is as much an ideological as technological story and draws on interviews with conspiracy producers, big data analysis, close reading and historical contextualisation. The second, Researching Europe, Digitalisation and Conspiracy Theories (EU-CHANSE / ESRC), is a comparative account of online conspiracism across different regions of Europe and a range of platforms, arguing that one size does not fit all when it comes to frameworks for analysing conspiracy theories.

 

Dr Theo Kindynis – Conspiracy Theories and Theorising Conspiracies

This paper challenges scholars to adopt a more critical orientation to conspiracy theories. A moral panic over conspiracy theories has given rise to a conspiracy theory research agenda in the social sciences that has pathologised and criminalised conspiracy theories. The term ‘conspiracy theory’ is not a neutral description for hypotheses about elite wrongdoing, but rather a label that functions to stigmatise and exclude certain narratives from the boundaries of acceptable public discourse. The paper argues that scholars should take conspiracy theories seriously and seek to investigate conspiracies. If popular conspiracy theories about elite wrongdoing are invalid – based on incorrect information or unsound reasoning – then we should develop better explanations of how and why conspiracies take place, as well as who conspires and to what ends.