Food Shortages, Truckers, and Disinformation

Joe Paris, a journalist for the British Columbia Institute of Technology, and I spoke yesterday about the growing fears of food shortages across Canada instigated by disinformation and conspiracy. This growing fear is an aspect of the current trucker convoy on its way to protest in Ottawa, and serves as a mobilization tool and as a separator between Canadians across the spectrum on vaccination mandates.

While memes and images are shared on social media, the underlying assumption of these images is as a form of fear mongering that can be a catalyst to acceptance on conspiracy theories.

Conference Presentation: “History Repeating: The John Birch Society, Patriot Churches, and Political Social Movements”

I will be presenting my current research on the influence of the John Birch Society on both the Patriot Church movement and the Black Robe Regiment religo-political movements at the the Association for the Scientific Study of Religion, in Irving, Texas.

The conference will be held March 4-6, 2022. For more information about the conference, please click here.

Conference Presentation: “Victimhood and Persecution, the Role of White Nationalists in Canadian Populism.”

I will presenting my research on the role of Christian Persecution and Victimhood as a tool for white nationalists on Twitter to mobilize and recruit at the American Academy of Religion – South West Regional Conference, in Irving, Texas.

The conference is being held on March 4-6, 2022. For more information and to register please click here.

Conference Presentation: The far-right and the ugly side of social media: Dark Participation on BitChute”

Myself and the research team at the Disinformation Project at SFU, will be presenting our research on dark participation/conspiracy theories on BitChute.

Centre on Hate, Bias, and Extremism: Hating on Social Media Symposium. February 7-10, 2022. For more information or to register click here.

Conference Presentation: Seeping Hate

I will be presenting a video presentation of my recent research into the use of social media, by those who have been deplatformed. While YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook have received positive media for deplatforming individuals for violations of hate speech, conspiracy, and racism policies, the deplatformed individuals are easily available on these platforms via their media brands.

Centre on Hate, Bias, and Extremism: Hating on Social Media Symposium. February 7-10, 2022. For more information or to register click here.

Political Leaders Need to Address Violence, Hate Seen on the Campaign Trail

This is an article in The Hill Times which I was interviewed for:

“The things that are providing some of this momentum is people’s sense of injustice to things. And it articulates their fears,” she said. “In many ways, we pay a lot of attention to the salacious nature of things without actually
looking underneath to see what are the topics and the injustice as a society that we need to address or speak to”

The article is behind a paywall, but you can find it here.

Religious Studies Project Podcast

A few months ago I did an interview with the Religious Studies Project on my research and publications. The interview was just posted, and I am excited to share this podcast!

From their introduction: In this episode, Maxinne Connolly-Panagopoulus discusses the range of Dr. Carmen Celestini’s work on religious conspiracy theories, Christian apocalyptic thought its impacts on the American political system. and tracks some of the parallels between early and modern conspiracy theories. They cover early grassroots movements such as the Anti-Masonic Party and the Know Nothings, who sought to fight against what they perceived as a threat to Christian values from a New World Order. This is paralleled to QAnon and current theories which hold a similar distrust of the government, the media and beliefs of a Satanic New World Order. We then move to discuss The John Birch Society and how their form of improvisational conspiracism linked to contemporary right-wing mobilisation and the Christian Identity Organisation. Threaded throughout our discussion, we ask explore the motivations for joining such a movement and what keeps people there despite moving targets and failed prophecies. Finally, Carmen describes the state of the field of conspiracy movements today, and where she sees it going in the future.

You can listen to the interview here.