Moving between two paradigms - Sociocultural approach to research of conspiracy theories

Abstract

Social sciences and humanistic disciplines that showed an interest in conspiracy theories are dominantly relying on either a cultural perspective (e.g. history, anthropology, ethnology, sociology, cultural studies, literature, etc.) or a positivistic perspective (psychology and political science). Between these two perspectives lays a gap in the way the nature of the phenomenon is understood, as well as its manifestation, the methodology used and how they interpret results and their implications. In this paper we are aiming to show that this topic is in its core a sociocultural question and that the perspective of sociocultural theory represents a way to bridge the aforementioned gap by using features of both approaches. If the cultural approach sees conspiracy theories as a product of a culture, and the positivistic approach as a question of the individual, then through a sociocultural perspective we are looking at how an individual actively acts in a society which developed the discourse of conspiracy theories through time. By adopting this view, we can study how individuals purposefully participate in contextually situated (co-)construction and transformation of meanings, discourse and conspiratorial narratives, as well as how they utilize conspiracy theories and other artifacts.