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Med foliehatten på: informationspraktiker hos påstådda konspirationsteoretiker
University of Borås, Faculty of Librarianship, Information, Education and IT.
2022 (Swedish)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesisAlternative title
Wearing the tin-foil hat : information practices of alleged conspiracy theorists (English)
Abstract [en]

Conspiracy theories are often put forth as a potential threat to society and democracy, and are increasingly being capitalised on by politicians wanting to discredit their opposition. But are all conspiracy theories, and all people who believe them, the same, and are all of them dangerous? A lot of studies tend to focus on the theories, and ignore the people who believe (and spread) them. Through semi-structured interviews with people who either self-identify as or are alleged to be conspiracy theorists, this essay attempts to nuance the discussion about conspiracy theorists by letting them discuss the reasons they believe what they believe, who they trust and not, and their views on what reliable sources of information are. The findings are analyzed through an information practice framework, focusing on the informants’ practices of seeking, sharing and using information. The findings show that the interviewed alleged conspiracy theorists show good awareness of how algorithms affect the information they find, and in general show many examples of sound media and information literacy skills. This supports findings of previous studies indicating that simply teaching MIL the way it’s done today is not enough to prevent people from believing in conspiracy theories.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2022.
Keywords [sv]
Konspirationsteorier, semi-strukturerade intervjuer, informationspraktiker, Media- och informationskunnighet
National Category
Information Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hb:diva-29448OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hb-29448DiVA, id: diva2:1736783
Available from: 2023-02-14 Created: 2023-02-14 Last updated: 2023-02-14Bibliographically approved

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194c9f2526acbfa8ba81b73fc8ed09f5386eca23100e7e628e51653fe2916a87be5a0d6ded08a39e60e8e21d54414d5d0e08278ffcfb5d96f9a05b1c446dd754
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

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Citation style
  • harvard-cite-them-right
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf