Conspiracy talk in the lives of ordinary Americans: everyday experiences of conspiracy culture in contemporary America
Abstract
Abstract This paper examines how ordinary Americans engage in unprompted conspiracy talk when discussing their daily lives. Drawing on a representative sample of 1,612 life course interviews from the “American Voices Project”, we explore how conspiracy theories surface in reflections on topics people consider important—such as relationships, employment, religion, and politics. Using both computational and qualitative analysis, we identify instances of conspiracy talk in the corpus, and categorize these passages into three orientations: supporting, challenging, and referencing conspiracy talk. Notably, 10 percent of the interview transcripts contain some form of conspiracy talk—a striking figure given that no questions about conspiracies or conspiracy theories were asked. While the overall volume of conspiracy talk rose during the pandemic, this increase was largely driven by a fivefold increase in passages that challenge conspiracy theories. Building on the recent theoretical work on conspiracy theories and conspiracy culture, this study highlights the value of empirically grounded analysis focused on ordinary people—not just dedicated conspiracy theorists or participants in, or followers of, the conspiracy theory milieu. In doing so, we offer new insights into how conspiracy theories are discussed, negotiated, and made meaningful in the course of everyday life.
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Record history
| When | Event | Field | Old | New |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-18 19:37:53.011249+00:00 | identifier_assigned | DSEID | DSEID-000-2075945 |