Questions and answers on conspiracy theory

How influential are groups with conspiracist tendencies on Australian political life?

While there ARE a large number of people who believe in grand conspiracies, they are not united. Even the growing numbers of born-again Christians are not represented by their own “mainstream” religious figureheads. All share a common belief in the “evidence” of the existence of conspiracies (i.e. secret power groups, famous quotes and so on), but vary greatly in what to do about it in terms of political action.

What can be done to prevent conspiracist ideas gaining more influence in a society increasingly immersed in cyberspace communications?

The age of cyberspace communications is seeing the access to, and transmission of, information on a unprecedented scale in recorded history. This is an information haemorrhage that is simultaneously clearing up many older conspiracy theories while breeding new ones.

However two significant factors exist that allow and encourage the growth of conspiracy thinking:

Secrecy: Remove secrecy and you remove conspiracies. Conspiracies can ONLY flourish in an environment of secrecy. If decision makers are fully and transparently accountable to the public, then conspiracies cannot exist. If “national security” or “commercial in confidence” was removed - you would have few, if any conspiracies.

The media: purveyors of Internet-based information are noticing a discrepancy with what can be found on the net, compared with what is reported in the mainstream media. The lack of coverage of a story, or the spin given to a story - give further ammunition to informed readers and viewers that conspiracies exist, and that the media is complicit in a possible conspiracy.

Conspiracy theories either flourish or die with each injection of new information, thus cyberspace becomes a two-edged sword to their very existence. To prevent conspiricist ideas from gaining more influence there needs to be more accountability and transparency in all sectors of society.