ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the communication of popular conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 pandemic in Turkey. First, it briefly delineates the scholarship on conspiracy theories in Turkey. Second, the chapter talks about the timeline of the government’s responses to the pandemic. Third, it highlights which popular conspiracy theories were circulated about the Covid-19 pandemic in Turkey. It will pay attention to the content of these conspiracy theories and discuss the profile of a prominent conspiracy theorist. In a short conclusion section, the chapter contextualizes the Covid-19 pandemic against the background of the Turkish conspiracy theory mentality. It proposes that while the already rich ground of mistrust of foreign powers provided a potentially apt social environment for the spread of Covid-19-themed conspiracy theories in Turkey, political and social elites’ active campaigns concerning vaccination and the pandemic seem to have limited their impacts.
