1/ The audience of conspiracy theories are rational actors who chose to align themselves with the content of the narrative & its senders message as a result of some perceived benefit (personal, political, economic, social, or even pleasurable gain) in doing so’

2/ It is important to remember that the audience has agency: humans are self-organizing, proactive, self-reflecting, and self-regulating. Humans are not just reactive organisms shaped and shepherded by environmental events and/or inner forces.

3/ Self-development, our capacity to adapt, & change are embedded in our social systems. Thus our personal agency operates within a broad network of socio-political influences. In these transactions, human beings are producers/consumers as well as products of their social system.

4/ Human agency & socio-political structures are codeterminants not a disembodied duality. This does not mean that audiences cannot or are not manipulated by propagandists, rather they are not passive consumers waiting to be shaped by external agents or narratives.

5/ Human beings are rational actors who possess opinions, abilities, ideologies & the capacity to create and disseminate disinformation & propaganda. The average internet users can and does participate in shaping their and our digital ecosystem.

6/ An active audience is an amplifier and conspiracy theory influencers as well as propagandists seek an actively engaged audience with the capacity to communicate.

7/ An active audience will create online communities with membership that aggregates around a particular ideologies that match their preexisting perspectives. They thus consume little oppositional content which makes them more receptive and likely to amplify.

8/ The increased spread and amplification, of disinformation and conspiracy theories play an important role in shaping our digital ecosystems by demonstrating massive support for the amplified narratives. This is then translated into offline behaviors.

9/ there are some core functionalities to what our societies have been experiencing during the pandemic, though it is instinct to jump to massive maligned forces behind some of what we have experienced we need to keep in mind at its core it is a human problem rooted in our nature

10/ any solution to conspiracy theories and disinformation need to cosider and deal with the human dimension of the issue. If that is not part of the solution we will simply be putting a bandaid on an open wound.

11/ this also will involve both translational and hyperlocal communities of individuals working in symbiosis. This symbiotic nature is part and parcel of how our digital ecosystems now influence our offline realities.

12/ H/T to @lageneralista and Michael Berk for their research on the participatory nature of propaganda. I have written about this but was nice to find some more academic work on this (especially since it was Canadian).