Conspiracy theories as engines of connection for enriched public debates on emerging technologies
Abstract Conspiracy theories on COVID-19 mRNA vaccines and solar geoengineering (chemtrails) tend to reinforce one another, thereby posing significant challenges to public policy and scientific norms and generating confusion by conflating disparate issues. This paper is based on ongoing ethnographic...
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Nature Portfolio
2025-08-01
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| Series: | Communications Earth & Environment |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02581-x |
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| author | Gabriel Dorthe |
| author_facet | Gabriel Dorthe |
| author_sort | Gabriel Dorthe |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract Conspiracy theories on COVID-19 mRNA vaccines and solar geoengineering (chemtrails) tend to reinforce one another, thereby posing significant challenges to public policy and scientific norms and generating confusion by conflating disparate issues. This paper is based on ongoing ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the United States, Germany, Switzerland, and France since 2015 in these two areas of active conspiracy attention, involving observation of social media pages and blogs, active participation in gatherings, and semi-structured interviews. Here, I adopt a diplomatic perspective, highlighting the reciprocal suspicion between science policy and conspiratorial thinking in a competition between two sets of connections of scientific facts, values, politics, fears, and hopes. The present study suggests that the contamination of the scientific discourse by seemingly unrelated claims in conspiracy theories offers fruitful insights to science communication into how publics make sense of science and technology in the fierce debates surrounding immunization and climate policy. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-47749d8c236e4e0ea7edb84c560ba4ee |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2662-4435 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-08-01 |
| publisher | Nature Portfolio |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Communications Earth & Environment |
| spelling | doaj-art-47749d8c236e4e0ea7edb84c560ba4ee2025-08-20T03:46:29ZengNature PortfolioCommunications Earth & Environment2662-44352025-08-01611710.1038/s43247-025-02581-xConspiracy theories as engines of connection for enriched public debates on emerging technologiesGabriel Dorthe0D-GESS (Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences), ETH ZürichAbstract Conspiracy theories on COVID-19 mRNA vaccines and solar geoengineering (chemtrails) tend to reinforce one another, thereby posing significant challenges to public policy and scientific norms and generating confusion by conflating disparate issues. This paper is based on ongoing ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the United States, Germany, Switzerland, and France since 2015 in these two areas of active conspiracy attention, involving observation of social media pages and blogs, active participation in gatherings, and semi-structured interviews. Here, I adopt a diplomatic perspective, highlighting the reciprocal suspicion between science policy and conspiratorial thinking in a competition between two sets of connections of scientific facts, values, politics, fears, and hopes. The present study suggests that the contamination of the scientific discourse by seemingly unrelated claims in conspiracy theories offers fruitful insights to science communication into how publics make sense of science and technology in the fierce debates surrounding immunization and climate policy.https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02581-x |
| spellingShingle | Gabriel Dorthe Conspiracy theories as engines of connection for enriched public debates on emerging technologies Communications Earth & Environment |
| title | Conspiracy theories as engines of connection for enriched public debates on emerging technologies |
| title_full | Conspiracy theories as engines of connection for enriched public debates on emerging technologies |
| title_fullStr | Conspiracy theories as engines of connection for enriched public debates on emerging technologies |
| title_full_unstemmed | Conspiracy theories as engines of connection for enriched public debates on emerging technologies |
| title_short | Conspiracy theories as engines of connection for enriched public debates on emerging technologies |
| title_sort | conspiracy theories as engines of connection for enriched public debates on emerging technologies |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02581-x |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT gabrieldorthe conspiracytheoriesasenginesofconnectionforenrichedpublicdebatesonemergingtechnologies |