ABSTRACT
Against the backdrop of a widespread perception that contemporary conspiracy theory has changed, and that this changing quality coincides with a new level of popular resonance and political impact, most notably in the context of contemporary right-wing populism, this contribution proposes to think about this new wave of popular conspiracism by focusing on matters of “form.” Specifically, it argues that “narrative,” the conventional “form” used to understand the social, cultural, and political efficacy of conspiracy theory, is not—or no longer—the best conceptual tool. Contemporary conspiracism, this contribution argues instead, is marked by how it taps into formal principles other than narrative, such as “database” or “play,” and it gains its cultural and political traction from inviting its audiences to utilize the specific affordances of these three forms, database, play, and narrative, as well as, perhaps, others. In this, contemporary conspiracism corresponds to a larger cultural moment, which has been described as post-truth but is better characterized as post-narrative.
