Whispers in the Echo Chamber: Folklore and the Role of Conspiracy Theory in Contemporary Society

Whispers in the Echo Chamber: Folklore and the Role of Conspiracy Theory in Contemporary Society makes the case that conspiracy theories are fundamentally a folklore genre, akin to and often involving other belief narratives like rumor and legend. The editors and contributors show that studying conspiracy theories using the tools of folkloristics is a fruitful and necessary analytical exercise. The volume’s three parts lay out folkloristic approaches to conspiracy theories; ways folkloristics can help us understand how conspiracy theories are constructed; and how the genre of conspiracy theories interacts with particular, contemporary political contexts.

This timely volume complements studies from political science, sociology, psychology, history, and more, while also crucially calling for the field of folklore studies to engage more assertively with conspiracy theories as a genre. Focusing on modern iterations of sometimes quite ancient conspiracy motifs and themes, the editors and contributors forcibly illustrate the crucial relevance of this prevalent and influential form of folklore in today’s interconnected world.

Jesse A. Fivecoate, a folklorist and sociocultural anthropologist with a PhD from Indiana University, studies the use of communal belief narratives that circulate within a group as a way of remembering and discussing episodes of conflict and crisis. He is a coeditor of Advancing Folkloristics.

Andrea Kitta is a folklorist and a professor of multicultural and transnational literature in the Department of English at East Carolina University. She is the author of Vaccinations and Public Concern in History: Legend, Rumor, and Risk Perception and The Kiss of Death: Contamination, Contagion, and Folklore as well as a coeditor of Diagnosing Folklore: Perspectives on Health, Trauma, and Disability.