Teorías de la conspiración y crisis globales: retos para la teoría sociológica

Autores/as

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22325/fes/res.2024.222

Palabras clave:

crisis, conspiraciones, incertidumbre, teoría sociológica

Resumen

La situación global de pandemia de COVID-19 ha traído consigo un creciente auge de las llamadas Teorías de la Conspiración (TdC) en todo el mundo. La etapa de excepcionalidad política que ha generado dicha crisis ha servido como acicate para que múltiples movimientos sociales informales y novedosos, con una base casi exclusivamente centrada en la actividad comunicativa online, dieran el paso a realizar verdaderas acciones colectivas de relativa afluencia en la mayor parte de los países desarrollados.

Este trabajo pretende reunir algunas herramientas sociológicas para la comprensión del fenómeno social de las teorías de la conspiración y entender su particularidad. Nuestra propuesta consiste en dejar de lado los enfoques psicológicos —por el momento preponderantes—, así como huir de valoraciones moralistas y abordar las teorías de la conspiración desde las coordenadas que la teoría sociológica provee. Por ello, se hace un rastreo y recopilación de las explicaciones sociológicas desarrolladas hasta la fecha que nos permitan dar cuenta de estos fenómenos de actualidad.

Biografía del autor/a

Albert García Arnau, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Instituto TRANSOC y Departamento de Sociología: Metodología y Teoría, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

Igor Sádaba Rodríguez, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Instituto TRANSOC y Departamento de Sociología: Metodología y Teoría, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

Citas

Adorno, T. W. (2011[1957]). Escritos sociológicos II (Vol. 2). Akal.

Alonso, L. E., y Fernández, C. J. (2013). Los discursos del presente: Un análisis de los imaginarios sociales contemporáneos. Siglo XXI.

Asprem, E., y Dyrendal, A. (2015). Conspirituality reconsidered: How surprising and how new is the confluence of spirituality and conspiracy theory? Journal of Contemporary Religion, 30(3), 367-382. https://doi.org/10.1080/13537903.2015.1081339

Astapova, A., Colăcel, O., Pintilescu, C., y Scheibner, T. (2020). Conspiracy Theories in Eastern Europe. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429326073

Barthes, R. (1980). Mitologías. Siglo XXI.

Becker, H. (2013). Outsiders: hacia una sociología de la desviación. Siglo XXI.

Bezalel, G. Y. (2021). Conspiracy theories and religion: reframing conspiracy theories as bliks. Episteme, 18(4), 674-692. https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2019.46

Bilewicz M., Winiewski M., Kofta M., y Wójcik A. (2013). Harmful ideas, the structure and consequences of anti-Semitic beliefs in Poland. Political Psychology, 34(6), 821-839. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1111/pops.12024

Boltanski, L. (2016). Enigmas y complots: una investigación sobre las investigaciones. Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Bourdieu, P. (1994). Raisons pratiques: Sur la théorie de l’action. Éditions du Seuil.

Bourdieu, P. (2006). La distinción. Criterios y bases sociales del gusto. Santillana.

Bourdieu, P. (2011). Los tres estados del capital cultural. En Las estrategias de la reproducción social (pp. 213-220). Siglo XXI.

Bronner, G. (2016). Belief and Misbelief. Asymmetry on the Internet. Wiley-iSTE.

Castells, M. (2005). La Era de la Información. La Sociedad Red (Vol. 1). Alianza Editorial.

Cichocka A, Marchlewska M., Golec de Zavala A., y Olechowski M. (2016). “They will not control us”: ingroup positivity and belief in intergroup conspiracies. British Journal of Psychology, 107(3), 556-576. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12158

Cinelli, M., Etta, G., Avalle, M., Quattrociocchi, A., Di Marco, N., Valensise, C., Galeazzi, A., y Quattrociocchi, W. (2022). Conspiracy theories and social media platforms. Current Opinion in Psychology, 47, 101407. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101407

Cohen, S. (2011). Folk devils and moral panics. Routledge.

Denovan, A., Dagnall, N., Drinkwater, K., Parker, A., y Neave, N. (2020). Conspiracist beliefs, intuitive thinking, and schizotypal facets: A further evaluation. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 34(6), 1394-1405. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3716

Dentith, M. R. (2018). Expertise and conspiracy theories. Social Epistemology, 32(3), 196-208. https:// doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2018.1440021

Desta, T. T., y Mulugeta, T. (2020). Living with COVID-19-triggered pseudoscience and conspiracies. International Journal of Public Health, 65, 713-714. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-020-01412-4

Dobbelaere, K. (1994). Secularización, un concepto multi-dimensional. Universidad Iberoamericana.

Douglas, K. M., Sutton, R. M., & Cichocka, A. (2017). The psychology of conspiracy theories. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26(6), 538-542. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721417718261

Douglas, K. M. (2021). COVID-19 conspiracy theories. Group Processes y Intergroup Relations, 24(2), 270-275. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430220982068

Douglas, K. M., van Prooijen, J. W., y Sutton, R. M. (2022). Is the label ‘conspiracy theory’ a cause or a consequence of disbelief in alternative narratives? British Journal of Psychology, 113(3), 575-590. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12548

Douglas, K. M., y Sutton, R. M. (2023). What Are Conspiracy Theories? A Definitional Approach to Their Correlates, Consequences, and Communication. Annual Review of Psychology, 74(1), 271-300. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-032420-031329

Durkheim, É. (1982). Las formas elementales de la vida religiosa. Akal.

Durkheim, É. (2007). La división del trabajo social. Colofón.

Dyrendal, A., Robertson, D. G., y Asprem, E. (Eds.). (2018). Handbook of conspiracy theory and contemporary religion. Brill.

Estep, K., y Greenberg, P. (2020). Opting out: individualism and vaccine refusal in pockets of socioeconomic homogeneity. American Sociological Review, 85(6), 957-991. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122420960691

Evans, S. K., Pearce, K. E., Vitak, J., y Treem, J. W. (2017). Explicating affordances: A conceptual framework for understanding affordances in communication research. Journal of computer-mediated communication, 22(1), 35-52. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1111/jcc4.12180

Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología [FECYT] (2020) Encuesta de Percepción Social de la Ciencia. FECYT. Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación.

Franks, B., Bangerter, A., y Bauer, M. W. (2013). Conspiracy theories as quasi-religious mentality: an integrated account from cognitive science, social representations theory, and frame theory. Frontiers in psychology, 4, 424. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00424

Galais, C., y Guinjoan, M. (2022). The Ideological Slant of COVID-19-Related Conspiracies. A New Niche for the Far-Right?. Representation, 59, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1080/00344893.2022.2034660

Georgiou, N., Delfabbro, P., y Balzan, R. (2021a). Conspiracy theory beliefs, scientific reasoning and the analytical thinking paradox. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 35(6), 1523-1534. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3885

Georgiou, N., Delfabbro, P., y Balzan, R. (2021b). Conspiracy-Beliefs and Receptivity to Disconfirmatory Information: A Study Using the BADE Task. SAGE Open, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440211006131

Giddens, A. (2000). Un mundo desbocado. Taurus.

Goffman, E. (1970). Estigma: la identidad deteriorada. Amorrortu.

Goreis, A., y Voracek, M. (2019). A systematic review and meta-analysis of psychological research on conspiracy beliefs: Field characteristics, measurement instruments, and associations with personality traits. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 205. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00205

Gualda, E., & Rúas, J. (2019). Conspiracy theories, credibility and trust in information. Communication & Society, 32(1). https://doi.org/10.15581/003.32.37823

Harambam, J., y Aupers, S. (2007). Conspiracy Theories. In The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Blackwell.

Harambam, J., y Aupers, S. (2017). ‘I am not a conspiracy theorist’: Relational identifications in the Dutch conspiracy milieu. Cultural Sociology, 11(1), 113-129. https://doi.org/10.1177/1749975516661959

Hornsey, M. J., Lobera, J., y Díaz, C. (2020). Vaccine hesitancy is strongly associated with distrust of conventional medicine, and only weakly associated with trust in alternative medicine. Social Science & Medicine, 255, 113019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113019

Husting, G. y Orr, M. (2007). Dangerous machinery: “Conspiracy theorist” as a transpersonal strategy of exclusion. Symbolic Interaction, 30(2), 127-150. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1525/si.2007.30.2.127

Imhoff, R., Zimmer, F., Klein, O., António, J. H., Babinska, M., Bangerter, A., y Van Prooijen, J. W. (2022). Conspiracy mentality and political orientation across 26 countries. Nature human behaviour, 6(3), 392-403. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01258-7

Jordan, T. (2013). Internet, society and culture: Communicative practices before and after the internet. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.

Keeley, B. L. (1999). Of conspiracy theories. The journal of Philosophy, 96(3), 109-126.

Lantian, A., Wood, M., y Gjoneska, B. (2020). Personality traits, cognitive styles and worldviews associated with beliefs in conspiracy theories. En Routledge handbook of conspiracy theories (pp. 155-167). Routledge.

Levy, N. (2007). Radically socialized knowledge and conspiracy theories. Episteme, 4(2), 181-192.

Lobera, J., y Rogero, J. (2021). Scientific appearance and homeopathy. Determinants of trust in complementary and alternative medicine. Health Communication, 36(10), 1278-1285. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2020.1750764

Lowicki, P., Marchlewska, M., Molenda, Z., Karakula, A., y Szczepańska, D. (2022). Does religion predict coronavirus conspiracy beliefs? Centrality of religiosity, religious fundamentalism, and COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs. Personality and individual differences, 187, 111413. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.111413

McKenzie-McHarg, A. (2020). Conceptual history and conspiracy theory. In Routledge handbook of conspiracy theories (pp. 16-27). Routledge.

Mahl, D., Schäfer, M. S., y Zeng, J. (2022). Conspiracy theories in online environments: An interdisciplinary literature review and agenda for future research. New media & society 25(7), 14614448221075759. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221075759

Miller, B., y Record, I. (2013). Justified belief in a digital age: On the epistemic implications of secret Internet technologies. Episteme, 10(2), 117-134. https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2013.11

Molina, M. D., Sundar, S. S., Le, T., & Lee, D. (2021). “Fake news” is not simply false information: A concept explication and taxonomy of online content. American behavioral scientist, 65(2), 180-212. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764219878224

Mosco, V. (2017). Becoming digital: Toward a post-internet society. Emerald Group Publishing.

Muirhead, R., y Rosenblum, N. L. (2022). The Path from Conspiracy to Ungoverning. Social Research: An International Quarterly, 89(3), 501-524. https://doi.org/10.1353/sor.2022.0046

Napolitano, M. G., y Reuter, K. (2021). What is a conspiracy theory?. Erkenntnis, 88(10), 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-021-00441-6

Partridge, C. (2006). The re-Enchantment of the West, Vol 2: Alternative spiritualities, Sacralization, popular culture and occulture (Vol. 2). Nueva York: T & T Clarke International.

Pasquetto, I. V., Olivieri, A. F., Tacchetti, L., Riotta, G., y Spada, A. (2022). Disinformation as Infrastructure: Making and maintaining the QAnon conspiracy on Italian digital media. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 6(CSCW1), 1-31. https://doi.org/10.1145/3512931

Payne, S. (2014). El fascismo. Alianza Editorial.

Pennycook, G., Cheyne, J. A., Barr, N., Koehler, D. J., y Fugelsang, J. A. (2015). On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit. Judgment and Decision making, 10(6), 549-563. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1017/S1930297500006999

Popper, K. R. (1966). The open society and its enemies. Princeton University Press.

Pummerer, L., Böhm, R., Lilleholt, L., Winter, K., Zettler, I., y Sassenberg, K. (2022). Conspiracy theories and their societal effects during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 13(1), 49-59. https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506211000217

Ramos Torre, R., y García Selgas, F. J. (Eds.). (2020). Incertidumbres en las sociedades contemporáneas. CIS.

Ritzer, G. (2005). Enchanting a disenchanted world: Revolutionizing the means of consumption. Pine Forge Press.

Romero, A., y Nefes, S. (2022). La racionalidad de las teorías conspirativas: una aproximación a partir de Max Weber y Raymond Boudon. Revista Centra de Ciencias Sociales, 1(2), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.54790/rccs.24

Roozenbeek, J., Schneider, C. R., Dryhurst, S., Kerr, J., Freeman, A. L., Recchia, G., van der Bles, A. M., y Van Der Linden, S. (2020). Susceptibility to misinformation about COVID-19 around the world. Royal Society open science, 7(10), 201199. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.201199

Rosa, H. (2016). Alienación y aceleración: hacia una teoría crítica de la temporalidad en la modernidad tardía. Katz Editores.

Rusdi, F., y Rusdi, Z. (2020). The Role of Online Media Gatekeeper in the Era of Digital Media. En Tarumanagara International Conference on the Applications of Social Sciences and Humanities (pp. 542-544). Paris: Atlantis Press. https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.200515.091

Salvador, B. G., Filippi, S., Suitner, C., Dollani, E., y Maass, A. (2023). Tax the élites! The role of economic inequality and conspiracy beliefs on attitudes towards taxes and redistribution intentions. British Journal of Social Psychology, 62(1), 104-118. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12555

Santiago, J. A. (2002). El proceso de secularización: Apuntes sobre el cambio histórico de la religión a la ciencia. Revista Internacional de Sociología, 60(31), 59-79. https://doi.org/10.3989/ris.2002.i31.705

Schäfer, M. T. (2011). Bastard Culture! How User Participation Transforms Cultural Production. Amsterdam University Press.

Schwaiger, L., Schneider, J., Rauchfleisch, A., y Eisenegger, M. (2022). Mindsets of conspiracy: A typology of affinities towards conspiracy myths in digital environments. Convergence, 28(4), 1007-1029. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565221106427

Tschannen, O. (1992). Théories de la sécularisation (les). Librairie Droz.

Tennent, E., y Grattan, F. (2022). The anatomy of a conspiracy theory in Covid-19 political commentary. Language in Society, 52(4), 691-712. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404522000197

Ullah, I., Khan, K. S., Tahir, M. J., Ahmed, A., y Harapan, H. (2021). Myths and conspiracy theories on vaccines and COVID-19: Potential effect on global vaccine refusals. Vacunas, 22(2), 93-97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vacun.2021.01.001

Uscinski, J., Enders, A., Klofstad, C., Seelig, M., Drochon, H., Premaratne, K., y Murthi, M. (2022). Have beliefs in conspiracy theories increased over time? PLoS One, 17(7), e0270429. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270429

Valaskivi, K. (2022). Circulation of conspiracy theories in the attention factory. Popular Communication, 20(3), 162-177. https://doi.org/10.1080/15405702.2022.2045996

Van Prooijen, J. W. (2018). The psychology of conspiracy theories. Routledge.

Van Prooijen, J. W. y Douglas, K. M. (2017). Conspiracy theories as part of history: The role of societal crisis situations. Memory studies, 10(3), 323-333. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698017701615

Van Prooijen, J. W. y Douglas, K. M. (2018). Belief in conspiracy theories: Basic principles of an emerging research domain. European Journal of Social Psychology, 48(7), 897-908. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2530

Viladrich, A. (2021). Sinophobic Stigma Going Viral: Addressing the Social Impact of COVID-19 in a Globalized World. American Journal of Public Health, 111(5), 876-880. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306201

Volk, S., y Weisskircher, M. (2023). Defending democracy against the ‘Corona dictatorship’? Far-right PEGIDA during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social Movement Studies, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2023.2171385

Weber, M. (2001). La ética protestante y el espíritu del capitalismo. Alianza Editorial.

Willis, P. (1988). Aprendiendo a trabajar. Akal.

Wood, M. J., Douglas, K. M., y Sutton, R. M. (2012). Dead and alive: Beliefs in contradictory conspiracy theories. Social psychological and personality science, 3(6), 767-773. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550611434786

Zeng, J., Schäfer, M. S., y Oliveira, T. M. (2022). Conspiracy theories in digital environments: Moving the research field forward. Convergence, 28(4), 929-939. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565221117474

Publicado

2024-04-08

Cómo citar

García Arnau, A., & Sádaba Rodríguez, I. (2024). Teorías de la conspiración y crisis globales: retos para la teoría sociológica. Revista Española De Sociología, 33(2), a222. https://doi.org/10.22325/fes/res.2024.222