Spotting Conspiracy Talk: A Linguistic Guide For The Digital Age – Analysis
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Learning to spot the language of conspiracy theories is a key skill for navigating digital media.
While we may be most familiar with modern-day conspiracy theories about government intelligence, unidentified flying objects, anti-vaccination, COVID-19, and more, conspiracy theories have existed for centuries.
In July of AD 64, the great fire of Rome destroyed two-thirds of the city-state—which had a population of around 2 million—resulting in widespread death and homelessness. Despite several contributing factors such as intense summer heat, dry winds, and the prevalence of wooden houses, various conspiracy theories emerged, ranging from Emperor Nero “deliberately” starting the fire to “blaming” the Christian community for it.
When the fire began, Nero was in a different city altogether, leading to claims that he had conspired to bring about the catastrophe to rebuild Rome. Coincidentally, the Domus Aurea, an extravagant palatial project, was constructed on a portion of the ruins, which fueled conspiracy theories about his alleged involvement, despite evidence that he also supported relief efforts. In turn, Nero placed the blame on Christians, resulting in the crucifixion and burning alive of many from the religious community. There is also evidence that some Christians believed in prophecies about a forthcoming catastrophic fire in Rome at the time.
While the actual cause of this infernal disaster remains unproven, it illustrates how conspiracy narratives can arise from social crises. Psychologically, fear and uncertainty can be strong motivators, and conspiracy theories empower people by filling a knowledge gap. Socially, tribalism and in-group/out-group tendencies may also contribute to the birth of such theories; a united front can foster a sense of control. These psychosocial explanations reveal that we want to feel in control, and information is power.
Conspiracy in the Digital Age
Unlike in Ancient Rome, our everyday interactions with cyberspace make it easy to access and spread information. Now, more than two decades into the rise of Web 2.0, it might be assumed that social media has led to an increase in conspiracy theories and in the number of people who believe in them, but this may not necessarily be the case. Although evidence is mixed on whether social media has caused a population-wide increase in conspiracy beliefs over time, multiple studies show that people who rely heavily on social media for news are more likely to endorse conspiracy theories than those who do not. A 2022 multi-study report in the journal PLOS One still cautions “not to dismiss the availability of conspiracy theories online, the large numbers of people who believe in some conspiracy theories, or the potential consequences of those beliefs.”
Researcher Keith Raymond Harris echoes this concern in a 2022 article in the Conversation, arguing that even with “very small numbers of true believers [in conspiracy theories], the high visibility of these false ideas can still make them dangerous.” Step Together, an Australian support service committed to ending violent extremism, cautions that the dangers of conspiracy theories include provoking social conflict, increasing prejudices, spreading fear, and eroding trust.
Given the accessibility and visibility of information that the internet affords us, we need to develop digital media literacy that empowers us with critical thinking tools to evaluate the credibility of information.
What Exactly is a Conspiracy Theory?
Before learning how to identify a conspiracy theory, it is important to understand what it is and is not. While the term “conspiracy theory” may sometimes be used in a generic sense to describe a false narrative that promotes misinformation or disinformation, such as fake news, this is an overgeneralized and inaccurate description.
For one, conspiracies can be real or unreal. The Watergate scandal is an oft-cited example of a government conspiracy that did take place.
Michael Shermer, science historian and educator, in distinguishing between conspiracy and conspiracy theory, defines a conspiracy as “two or more people plotting or acting in secret to gain an advantage or to harm others immorally or illegally” and a conspiracy theory as “a structured belief about a conspiracy, whether it’s real or not.”
A 2022 meta-analysis of conspiracy theories in online spaces characterizes these beliefs as “unique epistemological accounts that refute official accounts and instead propose alternative explanations of events or practices by referring to individuals or groups acting in secret.”
More broadly, conspiracy theories are a social phenomenon that uses narrative to explain events, often amid a societal crisis. As humans, we have a proclivity for narrative; we use stories to teach, inform, and explore—not just to entertain. Essentially, they are a device we use to understand ourselves, our experiences, and our surroundings. A 2018 studypublished in the journal Topics in Cognitive Science explains that “the specific adaptive value of storytelling lies in making sense of non‐routine, uncertain, or novel situations.” The team of researchers further posits that storytelling is not merely an adaptive activity but also a collective activity, “promoting social cohesion by strengthening intra‐group identity and clarifying intergroup relations.”
Expanding on this component of intergroup relations, Jan-Willem van Prooijen, a behavioral scientist, argues in an article for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) that societal crises do not solely drive the spread of conspiracy theories. He reasons that it is easier to find an explanation in the midst of a crisis by identifying a scapegoat, such as an “antagonistic outgroup.”
Accordingly, conspiracy theories can be understood as a narrative genre that supports people’s attempts to make sense of an event, especially one shrouded in uncertainty, and often operates in parallel to strengthen social bonds.
Linguistic Features of Conspiracy Theories
Many academic disciplines, including political science, psychology, and sociology, study conspiracy theories to better understand why they are created, how they spread, and how they affect society. Concomitantly, linguistic research offers insight into the language characteristics of this phenomenon, examining a broad spectrum of features, from smaller units of language, such as words, to larger units, such as narrative and discursive patterns.
One tool that linguists use to study language is a corpus. This is a database of text, spoken or written, that is representative but not all-inclusive of naturally occurring language. An example in the context of conspiracy theories is the Language of Conspiracy (LOCO) corpus, an 88-million-word corpus developed by a group of scholars to aid researchers in studying features of conspiratorial language on the internet.
As LOCO’s creators explain in a 2022 article in the journal Behavior Research Methods, while the corpus is a collection of documents from conspiracy websites, “we do not yet know what the language of conspiracy is, i.e., to what extent conspiracy language differs from non-conspiracy language.” It’s important to keep in mind that we can’t make definitive claims that a theory is conspiratorial based on the presence of certain linguistic features. Still, we can use that information, which is heavily context-dependent, to say if it’s typically characteristic of conspiratorial language.
Recognizing Loaded Language
Perhaps one of the easiest linguistic features to spot in conspiracy theories is the presence of strong emotional or persuasive language, which researchers Emily Klein and James Hendler aptly call “loaded language.”
Studies of social media have found that conspiratorial language centers around negative emotions. Words that signal anger (e.g., “hate,” “kill,” and “annoyed”) and anxiety (e.g., “worried” and “fearful”) were shown to be significantly more prevalent in a 2024 study that analyzed a 4-million-word dataset of conspiracy discussions collected from Reddit and X, formerly known as Twitter. Similar results were found in Amos Fong et al.’s 2021 study, which analyzed data from influencers (conspiracists and scientists) and their followers on the X platform. Words representing anger (e.g., “damn” and “hell”) were used more often by conspiracy influencers and their followers. Words representing anxiety (e.g., “threat” and “horror”) were used more by conspiracy influencers, though this pattern did not extend to their followers.
Dysphemisms also reflect the intensity of loaded language. On a spectrum of offensiveness, euphemisms are considered more polite, while dysphemisms are ruder. Klein and Hendler exemplify this with the word “die.” Placing this neutral word in the middle of a spectrum, “pass away” is a common euphemism, and “drop dead” is an example of a dysphemism. Their 2022 study found that dysphemisms about death were used significantly more in anti-vaccination discussions compared to vaccination-neutral posts in online parenting platforms.
Klein and Hendler’s study distinguishes “thought-terminating clichés,” a type of reply that acts to stop any further discussion, as another prominent characteristic of conspiracy-focused language. These types of replies imply that the speaker wants to change the current topic of conversation or end it altogether. Some examples of thought-terminating clichés from their research are “anyway,” “agree to disagree,” “it is what it is,” and “everything happens for a reason.” In emotionally charged conspiracy theory contexts, these are used as a persuasive strategy to convince the listener that further analysis or discussion of the matter is unnecessary.
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