Cover not available

Article published In: Real Fictions: Fictionality, factuality and narrative strategies in contemporary storytelling
Edited by Sam Browse, Alison Gibbons and Mari Hatavara
[Narrative Inquiry 29:2] 2019
► pp. 293–312

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Making fiction out of fact

Attention and belief in the discourse of conspiracy

 | Sheffield Hallam University
Published online: 16 October 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.19023.mas
Abstract
This article explores fictionality within the context of the discourse of conspiracy. In particular it examines the phenomenon of ‘false flag’ narratives: alternative versions of an event constructed by individuals who have become convinced that a news story has in fact been staged for malfeasant purposes. The article uses figure-ground analysis, which facilitates examination of how attention is distributed within a text. Specifically, it enables an examination of the prominence and salience that is afforded to particular elements within a text, and how this can be used to construct a fiction out of facts. The article problematises the notion of using a pragmatic assessment of authorial intention to establish the fictive or nonfictive status of a text. Finally, it proposes that more work needs to be undertaken in considering instances where authors either do not know or are conflicted about what they believe.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Fictionality and belief
  • Conspiracy theories and false flags
  • The videos: Data and methods
  • Context: Sandy Hook and Charlottesville
  • Figure-ground analysis
  • ‘Keep that in mind for later’
  • Physical resemblance
  • ‘Distance resemblance’
  • Conclusion
  • References
References (47)
References
Abalakina-Paap, M., Stephan, W. G., Craig, T., & Gregory, L. (1999), Beliefs in conspiracies, Political Psychology 201: 637–647. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barton, S. B., & Sanford, A. J. (1993). A case study of anomaly detection: Shallow semantic processing and cohesion establishment. Memory & cognition, 21(4), 477–487. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bjerg, O. & Presskorn-Thygesen, T. (2017). Conspiracy theory: Truth claim or language game?. Theory, Culture and Society, 34(1), 137–59. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brotherton, R., & French, C. C. (2014). Belief in conspiracy theories and susceptibility to the conjunction fallacy. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 281, 238–248. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bruder, M., Haffke, P., Neave, N., Nouripanah, N., & Imhoff, R. (2013). ‘Measuring individual differences in generic beliefs in conspiracy theories across cultures: Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire’, Frontiers in Psychology 41: 1–15. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coady, D. (2003). Conspiracy theories and official stories. International Journal of Applied Philosophy, 17(2), 197–209. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2006). Conspiracy theories: The philosophical debate. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2007). Are conspiracy theories irrational?. Episteme, 4(2), 193–204. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cohn, D. (1990). Signposts of fictionality. Poetics Today, 11(4), 755–804. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1999). The distinction of fiction. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Douglas, K. M., Sutton, R. M. & Cichocka, A. (2017). The psychology of conspiracy theories. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26(6), 538–42. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Douglas, K. M., & Sutton, R. M. (2008). The hidden impact of conspiracy theories: Perceived and actual impact of theories surrounding the death of Princess Diana. Journal of Social Psychology, 1481, 210–221. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Emmott, C. & Alexander, M. (2014). Foregrounding, burying and plot construction. In P. Stockwell & S. Whiteley (Eds.) The Cambridge Handbook of Stylistics (pp.329–343). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gerrig, R. J. (1993). Experiencing Narrative Worlds: On the Psychological Activities of Reading. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbons, A. (2012). Multimodality, cognition and experimental literature. London/New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Giovanelli, M. & Mason, J. (2018). The language of literature: An introduction to stylistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goertzel, T. (1994). Belief in conspiracy theories. Political Psychology, 151, 731–742. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grzesiak-Feldman, M. (2013). The effect of high-anxiety situations on conspiracy thinking. Current Psychology, 321, 100–118. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hamburger, K. (1993). The logic of literature (2nd ed.; M. J. Rose, Trans.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hatavara, M. & Mildorf, J. (2017). Hybrid fictionality and vicarious narrative experience. Narrative, 25(1), 65–82. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heaps, C. & Nash, M. (2001). Comparing recollective experiences in true and false autobiographical memories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 271, 920–930.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Iversen, S. & Nielsen, H. S. (2016). The politics of fictionality in documentary form: The act of killing and The ambassador . European Journal of English Studies, 20(3), 249–262. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kearns, E. M., Conlon, B. & Young, J. K. (2014). Lying about terrorism. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 37(5), 422–439. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, W. (1972). Language in the inner city: Studies in the black english vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leman, P. J., & Cinnirella, M. (2013). Beliefs in conspiracy theories and the need for cognitive closure. Frontiers in Psychology, 41, 1–10. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lewandowsky, S., Oberauer, K., & Gignac, G. E. (2013). NASA faked the moon landing – Therefore, (climate) science is a hoax: An anatomy of the motivated rejection of science. Psychological Science, 241, 622–633. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Loftus, E. & Pickerell, J. (1995). The formation of false memories. Psychiatric Annals, 251, 720–725. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nielsen, H. S., Phelan, J. & Walsh, R. (2015). Ten theses about fictionality. Narrative, 23(1), 61–73. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pace, L. A. & Livingston, M. M. (2005). Protecting human subjects in internet research. Electronic Journal of Business Ethics and Organization Studies, 10(1), 35–41.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Perry, B. & Szalavitz, M. (2006). The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist’s Notebook. USA: Basic Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pigden, C. (1995). Popper revisited, or what is wrong with conspiracy theories?. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 25(1), 3–34. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2007). Conspiracy theories and the conventional wisdom. Episteme, 4(2), 219–232. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Phelan, J. (2016). Local fictionality within global non-fiction: Roz Chast’s Why can’t we talk about something more pleasant? Enthymema, 161, 19–31.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Porter, S., Yuille, J. C. & Lehman, D. R. (1999). The nature of real, implanted, and fabricated memories for emotional childhood events: implications for the recovered memory debate. Law and Human Behavior, 23(5), 517–537. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rosenblatt, L. (1938). Literature as exploration. New York: D. Appleton-Century.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1978). The reader, the text, the poem: The transactional theory of the literary work. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sanford, A. (2002). Context, attention, and depth of processing during interpretation. Mind and Language, 17(1–2), 188–206. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sanford, A. & Emmott, C. (2014). Mind, brain and narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sanford, A. & Sturt, P. (2002). Depth of processing in language comprehension: Not noticing the evidence. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6(9), 382–386. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scott Terry, W. (2009). Learning and memory: basic principles, processes and procedures. (4th ed.). Boston: Pearson Education Inc.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spilioti, T. & Tagg, C. (2017). The ethics of online research methods in applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics Review, 8(2–3), 163–168. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stockwell, P. (2002). Cognitive poetics: An introduction. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2009). Texture: A cognitive aesthetics of reading. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Swami, V., Voracek, M., Stieger, S., Tran, U. S., & Furnham, A. (2014). Analytic thinking reduces belief in conspiracy theories. Cognition, 1331, 572–585. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wood, M. J., Douglas, K. M. & Sutton, R. S. (2012). Dead and alive: Belief in contradictory conspiracy theories. Social Psychology and Personality Science, 3(6), 767–773. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Prooijen, J. W., & Jostmann, N. B. (2013). Belief in conspiracy theories: The influence of uncertainty and perceived morality. European Journal of Social Psychology, 431, 109–115. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
VICE. (2018). The rise of the crisis actor conspiracy movement [video file]. Retrieved from [URL]
Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Mason, Jessica
2022. “If you can’t see the pattern here, there’s something wrong”. In Conspiracy theory discourses [Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 98], ► pp. 169 ff. DOI logo
Biar, Liana de Andrade, Naomi Orton & Liliana Cabral Bastos
2021. Tales from the South. Narrative Inquiry 31:1 ► pp. 126 ff. DOI logo
Bonetto, Eric & Thomas Arciszewski
2021. The Creativity of Conspiracy Theories. The Journal of Creative Behavior 55:4 ► pp. 916 ff. DOI logo
Orton, Naomi
2021. “MYTHS”, “TRUTHS” AND THE ROLE OF APPLIED LINGUISTICS IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY. Trabalhos em Linguística Aplicada 60:2 ► pp. 455 ff. DOI logo
Statham, Simon
2020. The year’s work in stylistics 2019. Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 29:4 ► pp. 454 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue