Faculty
Social Science
Supervisor Name
Mathieu Turgeon
Keywords
conspiracy theory, political psychology, political polarization, social media, Freedom Convoy, ideology
Description
Conspiracy theories have been prevalent throughout history, especially during periods of fear and uncertainty as people build a narrative against political elites and blame misdeeds on their malignant nature. A case study of this phenomenon can be examined in the Canadian Freedom Convoy. The Freedom Convoy began in early 2022 as a protest against COVID-19 mandates, attracting significant political attention as an unprecedented event that eventually forced Trudeau to invoke the Emergencies Act. As political tensions and opinions arose on social media, conspiracist groups began to develop conspiracy theories about the Truck Convoy in order to attract attention from potential allies/social groups and encourage commitment, coordination, and unity. We analyzed the frequency of political content from trending hashtags, as well as the frequency of conspiratorial dialogue. By understanding the distribution of such content, we can begin to understand how an ideology forms and fosters a community during times of crisis. Although it’s concluded from our research that conspiracy theories do not make a large portion of all political opinions regarding the Truck Convoy, the political opinions and conspiracy theories all express the same sentiments of being against political elites and wanting a dismantlement of the system. Furthermore, some conspiracy theories were expressed by those with incredibly large followings, thus increasing the spread of such conspiracies. It can be concluded that such conspiracy theories appeal to extreme political opinions that already distrust Trudeau, and both support a similar ideology and can thus develop a community against the current Canadian government.
Acknowledgements
I'd like to thank the Undergraduate Research Summer Internship Program at Western University, and Western Libraries for making this work possible. I would like to thank Professor Mathieu Turgeon for the continued support, as well as Michelle Caplan for the constant assistance and contribution.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Document Type
Poster
Included in
The Development of Conspiracy Theories During the Freedom Convoy
Conspiracy theories have been prevalent throughout history, especially during periods of fear and uncertainty as people build a narrative against political elites and blame misdeeds on their malignant nature. A case study of this phenomenon can be examined in the Canadian Freedom Convoy. The Freedom Convoy began in early 2022 as a protest against COVID-19 mandates, attracting significant political attention as an unprecedented event that eventually forced Trudeau to invoke the Emergencies Act. As political tensions and opinions arose on social media, conspiracist groups began to develop conspiracy theories about the Truck Convoy in order to attract attention from potential allies/social groups and encourage commitment, coordination, and unity. We analyzed the frequency of political content from trending hashtags, as well as the frequency of conspiratorial dialogue. By understanding the distribution of such content, we can begin to understand how an ideology forms and fosters a community during times of crisis. Although it’s concluded from our research that conspiracy theories do not make a large portion of all political opinions regarding the Truck Convoy, the political opinions and conspiracy theories all express the same sentiments of being against political elites and wanting a dismantlement of the system. Furthermore, some conspiracy theories were expressed by those with incredibly large followings, thus increasing the spread of such conspiracies. It can be concluded that such conspiracy theories appeal to extreme political opinions that already distrust Trudeau, and both support a similar ideology and can thus develop a community against the current Canadian government.