CCT Seminar Students Publish Book Chapter on Conspiracies
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Owen, Diana, Thom Crockett, Arjun Chawla, Kelton Miller, Kyle Kim, Haydyn Hendricks, Parisa Bruce, and Brenda Zhong. 2025. “Conspiratorial Ideation, Election Denial, and Voter Choice,” in John Allen Hendricks and Dan Schill, eds. Media Messages in the 2022 Midterm Election: Division, Deniers, Dobbs, and the Donald. New York: Routledge, 27-47.
A book chapter – “Conspiratorial Ideation, Election Denial, and Voter Choice” – authored by students in Communication, Culture, and Technology (CCT) Professor Diana Owen’s Media in American Elections seminar during the 2022 midterms explores the connection between voters’ belief in conspiracy theories, their political engagement, and candidate choice.
The study breaks new ground by establishing a link between belief in conspiracy theories and online campaign participation. The authors found that voters who had a strong affinity for conspiratorial thinking were more actively engaged in the midterm campaign than voters who eschewed conspiracies. Voters who believed in conspiracies were more likely to participate in political discussions, comment on political posts, and repost or share political content. They were more inclined to donate to a candidate or political organization, create and post political content, organize a political event, and try to convince others to vote for or against a candidate. While party identification remains the strongest predictor of vote choice, belief in right-wing conspiracies predicted a preference for Republican candidates.
The Media in American Election seminar students designed, fielded, and analyzed an original survey of midterm voters administered online to a representative sample of the American electorate. The survey covered a range of subjects, including voters’ media use, campaign engagement, and political preferences. Respondents were asked about their belief in the “Big Lie” that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential contest and six fringe conspiracies that were prominent during the election. Examples included conspiracies propagated by QAnon that JFK, Jr. is alive and planning a return to politics, 9/11 was an inside job, and Barack Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen. Baseless conspiracy theories that were promoted heavily in alternative media and amplified by the mainstream press resonated with voters. Consistent with extant research, the CCT researchers found that half of all voters endorsed at least one political conspiracy during the midterms.
The chapter was researched and written by Thom Crockett, Arjun Chawla, Kelton Miller, Kyle Kim, Haydyn Hendricks, Parisa Bruce, and Brenda Zhong. The authors shared their research and received feedback at an event hosted by CCT and presented a preliminary version of the chapter at the Midwest Political Science Association’s annual meeting. The chapter was published in Media Messages in the 2022 Midterm Election: Division, Deniers, Dobbs, and the Donald, edited by John Allen Hendricks and Dan Schill. In addition to research on conspiracies, the volume covers issues in the election, media coverage, and case studies of midterm communication in the states.
[Pictured] Thom Crockett, Kyle Kim, Arjun Chawla, and Kelton Miller present research on conspiracy theories and voter engagement at the Midwest Political Science Association annual meeting in Chicago. The CCT seminar project was supported by CERL.