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One key aspect of threat in terrorists’ language is incitement to violence. Contributing to a fuller understanding of how terrorists use language to encourage people to join their cause, this article examines the role of evaluative language in incitement strategies used by a far-rightist to align with and alienate particular social groups. The Affiliation framework (Knight 2010a; Zappavigna 2011; Etaywe & Zappavigna 2021; Etaywe 2022a), as grounded in systemic functional linguistics, is used to understand how values and social bonds are leveraged in the process of incitement, as explored in a manifesto published online by Brenton Tarrant, preceding his 2019 terrorist attack on two mosques in New Zealand. The findings reveal two main affiliation strategies used for incitement: communion (forging solidarity and alignments) and alienation. These strategies function to construct opposing social groups in discourse, with the condemned groups positioned as a threat, hostility legitimated as morally reasonable, and violence as warranted. (Far-right extremism, incitement, hate crimes, affiliation, morality of terrorism, forensic linguistics, conspiracy theory discourse)

Reflecting conspiracy theories in contemporary fiction actualises conspiratorial thinking as a specific sociocultural phenomenon and narrative. Four symptomatic novels – George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Ahmed Khaled Towfik’s Utopia, and Stephen King’s The Institute – have been analysed from a conspiratorial perspective to illuminate the most efficient ways of shaping the human perception of reality. For this purpose, the following conspiracy elements have been delineated to be the basis of the novels’ poetics: otherness, propaganda, and mistrust. They affect the authors’ strategies of storytelling in the books written in the era of the end of truth. Following an interdisciplinary approach that primarily includes the method of narrative construction and semiotic analysis, the article focuses on the conspiracy elements for plotting the selected novels and explicates conspiracy narratives for manifesting the paradoxical ethics of truth as fiction. Conceptualising this idea in the sociocultural context confers to such a kind of literature a new ethical dimension.

Much research effort is focused on developing an effective vaccine for combatting coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Vaccine development itself, however, will not be enough given that a sufficient amount of people will need to be vaccinated for widespread immunity. Vaccine hesitancy is on the rise, varies across countries, and is associated with conspiratorial worldview. Given the rise in COVID-19-related conspiracy theories, we aimed to examine the levels of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and its association with beliefs on the origin of the novel coronavirus in a cross-cultural study. We conducted an online survey in the UK ( = 1088) and Turkey ( = 3936), and gathered information on participants' willingness to vaccinate for a potential COVID-19 vaccine, beliefs on the origin of the novel coronavirus, and several behavioural and demographic predictors (such as anxiety, risk perception, government satisfaction levels) that influence vaccination and origin beliefs. In all, 31% of the participants in Turkey and 14% in the UK were unsure about getting themselves vaccinated for a COVID-19 vaccine. In both countries, 3% of the participants rejected to be vaccinated. Also, 54% of the participants in Turkey and 63% in the UK believed in the natural origin of the novel coronavirus. Believing in the natural origin significantly increased the odds of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance. Our results point at a concerning level of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, especially in Turkey, and suggest that wider communication of the scientific consensus on the origin of the novel coronavirus with the public may help future campaigns targeting COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.

The initiation of clinical trials for messenger RNA (mRNA) HIV vaccines in early 2022 revived public discussion on HIV vaccines after 3 decades of unsuccessful research. These trials followed the success of mRNA technology in COVID-19 vaccines but unfolded amid intense vaccine debates during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is crucial to gain insights into public discourse and reactions about potential new vaccines, and social media platforms such as X (formerly known as Twitter) provide important channels. Drawing from infodemiology and infoveillance research, this study investigated the patterns of public discourse and message-level drivers of user reactions on X regarding HIV vaccines by analyzing posts using machine learning algorithms. We examined how users used different post types to contribute to topics and valence and how these topics and valence influenced like and repost counts. In addition, the study identified salient aspects of HIV vaccines related to COVID-19 and prominent anti-HIV vaccine conspiracy theories through manual coding. We collected 36,424 English-language original posts about HIV vaccines on the X platform from January 1, 2022, to December 31, 2022. We used topic modeling and sentiment analysis to uncover latent topics and valence, which were subsequently analyzed across post types in cross-tabulation analyses and integrated into linear regression models to predict user reactions, specifically likes and reposts. Furthermore, we manually coded the 1000 most engaged posts about HIV and COVID-19 to uncover salient aspects of HIV vaccines related to COVID-19 and the 1000 most engaged negative posts to identify prominent anti-HIV vaccine conspiracy theories. Topic modeling revealed 3 topics: HIV and COVID-19, mRNA HIV vaccine trials, and HIV vaccine and immunity. HIV and COVID-19 underscored the connections between HIV vaccines and COVID-19 vaccines, as evidenced by subtopics about their reciprocal impact on development and various comparisons. The overall valence of the posts was marginally positive. Compared to self-composed posts initiating new conversations, there was a higher proportion of HIV and COVID-19-related and negative posts among quote posts and replies, which contribute to existing conversations. The topic of mRNA HIV vaccine trials, most evident in self-composed posts, increased repost counts. Positive valence increased like and repost counts. Prominent anti-HIV vaccine conspiracy theories often falsely linked HIV vaccines to concurrent COVID-19 and other HIV-related events. The results highlight COVID-19 as a significant context for public discourse and reactions regarding HIV vaccines from both positive and negative perspectives. The success of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines shed a positive light on HIV vaccines. However, COVID-19 also situated HIV vaccines in a negative context, as observed in some anti-HIV vaccine conspiracy theories misleadingly connecting HIV vaccines with COVID-19. These findings have implications for public health communication strategies concerning HIV vaccines.

This article carries out a multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) of a Romanian Facebook page where comments are made in response to a shared news-clip showing a Roma wedding which clearly invites ridicule. It has been documented that there are well-established discourses representing the Roma as criminal, uneducated, dirty, immoral, and as resisting assimilation into wider society. This Facebook page offers the opportunity to explore which discourses are used in 1500 posts to represent the Roma. We show that the affordances of Facebook open-up the mixing of humor, venting of frustration, extreme racism and sexual violence as those posting entertain each other, create bonds and overtly call out the Roma and others who are believed to be part of a conspiracy against ordinary Romanians. We argue that these newer patterns of representing the Roma are related to the rise of extreme right-wing populist ideology across Europe and beyond. An ideology where direct, simple and violent solutions are required.

(1) Background: Populist radical right-wing parties and politicians have used conspiracy theories to perpetuate the antagonism between an evil elite conspiring against the good and unknowing people. Yet, less is known about whether and to what extent radical right-wing populism at the individual level is associated with different conspiracy beliefs. This analysis explores how the main components of radical right-wing populism—populist, nativist, and authoritarian attitudes—relate to both a general conspiracy mentality and specific conspiracy theories prevalent in political discourse. (2) Methods: Using data from an original 2023 online survey conducted in Austria, a stronghold of the populist radical right, this study includes new questions on immigration, COVID-19, and climate change, as well as a conspiracy mentality scale. (3) Results: The analyses reveal that all the main components are positively associated with different conspiracy beliefs, albeit to varying degrees. Across models, the strongest predictor is populism, followed by nativism and authoritarianism. Nativism varies the most across different conspiracy beliefs and is particularly associated with the belief in conspiracy theories related to immigration and climate change. (4) Conclusions: The results highlight the prevalence of radical right-wing populist attitudes across various conspiracy beliefs, reflecting how populist radical right-wing actors leverage conspiracy theories in their political discourse.

The harmfulness of anti-Semitic beliefs is widely discussed in current political and legal debates (e.g., Cutler v. Dorn). At the same time, empirical studies of the psychological consequences of such beliefs are scarce. The present research is an attempt to explore the structure of contemporary anti-Semitic beliefs in Poland—and to evaluate their predictive role in discriminatory intentions and behavior targeting Jews. Another aim was to determine dispositional, situational, and identity correlates of different forms of anti-Semitic beliefs and behavior. Study 1, performed on a nation-wide representative sample of Polish adults (N = 979), suggests a three-factorial structure of anti-Semitic beliefs, consisting of: (1) belief in Jewish conspiracy, (2) traditional religious anti-Judaic beliefs, and (3) secondary anti-Semitic beliefs, focusing on Holocaust commemoration. Of these three beliefs, belief in Jewish conspiracy was the closest antecedent of anti-Semitic behavioral intentions. Study 2 (N = 600 Internet users in Poland) confirmed the three-factor structure of anti-Semitic beliefs and proved that these beliefs explain actual behavior toward Jews in monetary donations. Both studies show that anti-Semitic beliefs are related to authoritarian personality characteristics, victimhood-based social identity, and relative deprivation.

It has long been recognized that conspiracy narratives may be seen as a special kind of myth. In most cases, however, this is taken as a sign of their irrational and unsubstantiated nature. I argue that mythical modes of reasoning are actually far more pervasive in modern political and cultural discourse than we commonly admit and that the difference between mainstream discourse and conspiracy narratives is not one between “rational” and “mythical” thought but rather one between different types of mythical thinking. The specific nature of conspiracy myths is best understood in relation to two other types of social myths: political myths and fictional myths. Conspiracy myths are a hybrid of these two genres: like fictional myths, they make use of imaginative elements, but like political myths, they are understood as having a relatively straightforward relation to reality and not just a metaphorical one. They are essentially anti-systemic, and their chief ethos is that of distrust. Nevertheless, the degree to which they reject the system varies, and it is thus useful to distinguish between weaker and stronger conspiracy myths. While the latter reject the system altogether and are incompatible with political myths, the former are capable of co-operating with them.

This study investigates conspiracy theories on China’s Weibo regarding the Russo-Ukrainian War, with a specific focus on the roles and impacts of different types of accounts (official verified accounts, individual verified accounts, and ordinary personal accounts) in these discussions. Employing structural topic modeling (STM) and qualitative text analysis, the study comprehensively analyzes Weibo posts from March 1, 2022, to October 21, 2023, aiming to unveil the thematic characteristics, construction motives, and their manifestations in the social media context of conspiracy theories. The findings reveal that the content of conspiracy theories primarily revolves around three aspects: conspiracies directly related to the war itself, nationalist narratives, and geopolitical discourse. These themes not only reflect the public’s primary narratives of conspiracy theories about the Russo-Ukrainian War but also unveil the motives for constructing and disseminating these theories. Notably, different types of social media accounts display distinct understandings and focal points regarding the nature and themes of conspiracy theories. This study offers a new perspective on the dissemination of conspiracy theories in regulated media environments, with particular attention to the Global South. In these contexts, state-led communication strategies and social media governance contribute to the formation of public discourse.

The radical right has become a central political force in most Western democracies. This process has been the result of the normalization and mainstreaming of its political leaders, discourses, and visions of society, notably involving the scapegoating of immigration and the use of the Great Replacement conspiracy theory. However, the normalization and mainstreaming of radical right actors competing for the leadership of their overall political family remain an under-researched topic. The scope of the current article is to explore this phenomenon by considering the case of France, which after the United States, is the largest Western state that could potentially be ruled by a radical right president with extensive executive powers. The analysis shows that actors competing for the leadership of the radical right in a given country can generate diverging strategies of normalization and mainstreaming to secure their political distinction. Immigration and the Great Replacement constitute, respectively, a topic and a conspiracy theory that are emphasized and/or downplayed by opportunistic stakeholders weaving a web of interactions to define their comparative legitimacy and supremacy in the public sphere.