- 期刊
The Unreal Q: The Rise of Populism and Conspiracism in America
摘要
Following the Democrats' loss in the presidential election of 2016, QAnon, a relatively new conspiracy theory, thrived with the rise of Trumpism, which in turn, fed off the fallacious theories spinned by QAnon members. The conspiracy theory originates from another conspiracy theory ‐‐ Pizzagate ‐‐ involving Hillary Clinton emails to the chairman of her campaign and a D.C. pizza place owner. From this point on, QAnon continued to disseminate the belief that the liberals run a secret pedophile organization from basements around the country. In 2017, Q, the unknown leader of the conspiracy theory, started to drop encrypted messages from an obscure Internet channel so its followers could piece together the truth about the deep state's next moves. Research shows that QAnon followers typically struggle with uncertainty and feel left out while conspiracists take advantage of such weaknesses to grow their influence. Using an anti-establishment/ anti‐mainstream media/anti‐science message, QAnon parted ways with truth to fabricate its own reality. Since it has repeatedly incited violence among its followers, QAnon has been recently listed by the FBI as a domestic terrorist group. Its influence may negatively impact the country's political stability.