Hayagreeva Rao and Henrich R Greve, "Ctrl+Alt+Doubt: Decoding the Language of Online Conspiracy Talk" (Oxford UP, 2026)

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast · Jul 5, 2026 · 1h 10m

Ctrl+Alt+Doubt: Decoding the Language of Online Conspiracy Talk (Oxford UP, 2026) offers a new way to understand why conspiracy theories grow and persist. Rather than treating them as cognitive errors, psychological pathologies, or products of echo chambers, Rao and Greve analyze conspiracy theories as linguistic constructions, that is as stories built from recognizable semantic patterns. Drawing on cases from COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter protests, Rao and Greve show that conspiracy theorizing is a form of bricolage. People tinker with cultural fragments to craft explanations that…