Conspiracy Thinking and Digital Media: Disentangling a Complex Relationship
This project examines the relationship between digital media use and conspiratorial thinking. Over the past decade, information about alleged conspiracy theories has become increasingly accessible – both through active searching and incidental exposure, particularly via digital media. At the same time, research shows that a majority of the public believes in at least one conspiracy theory.
Principal Investigator: Jesper Strömbäck (University of Gothenburg)
Participating researchers: Elina Lindgren (Karlstad University), Mathilda Åkerlund (University of Gothenburg)
Funder: Swedish Research Council
Project period: 2025–2028
The project combines panel surveys, experiments, computational methods, and discourse analysis to investigate how different types of digital media use influence conspiratorial thinking over time, which linguistic features characterize conspiratorial content across different media environments, and how exposure to such content can activate conspiratorial thinking.
Contact person: Elina Lindgren elina.lindgren@kau.se