Conspiracy Ideologies in Films and Series

Corona as a staged instrument of oppression, covered up vaccination deaths or child-blood-drinking politicians: at the latest since the outbreak of the Covid 19 pandemic, conspiracy ideologies have been booming. These so-called ‘conspiracy theories’ promote the spread of disinformation and generate distrust of legitimate political institutions. In this way, they contribute to the rise of social polarization, populist movements and extremist ideologies.

Conspiracy ideologies have always been a topic in movies and TV series, as they have always dealt with the relationship between reality and illusion, truth and fiction, reality and dream, sense and madness. Through their complex narratives, constellations of characters and aesthetics, TV shows and films offer compelling explanations for the emergence and spread of conspiracy narratives. At the same time, they make suggestions – some of them astonishingly concrete – for dealing with such collective delusions. How can insights from the fictional worlds of TV and films help us to understand and handle the challenges produced by the real contemporary phenomenon of conspiracy ideologies?

The editors
Denis Newiak (Dr. phil.) is a research associate at the Chair of Applied Media Sciences at the Brandenburg University of Technology, Germany. His research focuses in the following areas: macro- and microsocial functions of serial television, disruptive events in science fiction movies and TV shows, aesthetics of social isolation in film and television.

Anastasia Schnitzer (M. Sc.) is a graduate assistant at the Department of Communication Studies and Media Research DCM at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). She is pursuing her PhD on the influence of character portrayals and the quality of mediated intergroup interaction in entertainment media on expectation, stereotyping and stigma towards perceived outgroups. Her broader research interests include intervention research and empathy in health communication.

The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content.