Narrative conspiracy theorizing, fluidity of truth, and social media storytelling in the post-truth age
Narrative conspiracy theorizing, fluidity of truth, and social media storytelling in the post-truth age

Summary/Abstract: The present theoretical paper explores the narrative storytelling dimension ofconspiracy theorizing. After a careful review of recent scholarly literature onconspiracy theories (section 1), it is argued that two mutually reinforcing aspectsof the notion might have remained to some extent undertheorized: (1) whether“conspiracy theory,” following conspiracy proper, also retains the collaborativequality of the latter (the Latin etymology of “to breathe together”); (2)consequently, whether such “theorizing” can be claimed as being the ‘secondorder’explicitly narrative manifestation of the plotting in conspiracy proper (toplot as in plotting a story). Toward these aims, and in consulting conspiracytheory research and narrative studies, tentative terminology is proposed andsome empirical observations are undertaken based on the Estonian-Englishconspiracy forum Para-Web (section 2).

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