The Consequences of COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories ¦ Ep.10

16:23, Mon 31 Jul 2023

In this tenth episode of our podcast series, Professor Tom Sorell speaks to Dr Daniel Jolley, a social psychologist from Nottingham University, who  (with co-authors) has previously published on the effects of and appropriate responses to certain conspiracy theories. (See e.g. “The social consequences of conspiracism: Exposure to conspiracy theories decreases intentions to engage in politics and to reduce one's carbon footprint” British Journal of Psychology 2014 105(2014):35-56.) The discussion focuses on differences between conspiracy theories associated with Covid and early conspiracy theories casting doubts on the safety of the MMR vaccine in the wake of Richard Wakefield’s now discredited claims about the connection between MMR vaccination and both autism and bowel disease. The discussion mentions several conspiracy theories. The QAnon theory is to the effect that a hidden network of high officials and celebrities constitute a “deep state” in America with great malign influence on government policy. QAnon believers used to believe that Donald Trump was uniquely placed to dismantle the Deep State, and that some of its leaders would be arrested in 2021. The Sandy Hook conspiracy theory alleges that a mass shooting in an American primary school in Connecticut in 2012 was faked. Jolley also mentions the mosquito-borne Zika virus, whose origins and spread are addressed by some conspiracy theories (See e.g. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=is_fac). Professor Sorell refers to Marianna Spring’s two BBC podcasts on people under the influence of conspiracy theories in the UK, Death By Conspiracy? and Mariana in Conspiracy Land, both on BBC Sounds.

(MP4 format, 618 MB)

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