Conspiracy Theories and Informational Radicalism - Cicchelli, Vincenzo; Octobre, Sylvie (Radical Thought among the Young: A Survey of French Lycée Students - In Olivier Galland et Anne Muxel (eds))
Conspiracy theories have always held a certain appeal for young people. In our survey, a substantial number of students believed that the attacks of 11 September 2001 were sponsored by the cia. Among the explanatory factors of the conspiracy mentality, socio-economic determinants as well as identity-related components play an important role. Moreover, this attraction for conspiracy theories is articulated with a strong mistrust of the media. This mistrust is fueled by two major and interconnected changes linked to the emergence and domination of social media: the establishment of a temporal regime of immediacy and the formation of cognitive oligopolies. 9% of students are attracted to both conspiracy theories and a generalised defiance involving active participation in the dissemination of Daesh videos: they display what we propose to call “informational radicalism”.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004432369_007
Keywords: bookSection