SUSPECTS: Supply, Demand, and Communication of Conspiracy Theories in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Conspiracy theories and people believing in them are increasingly shaping Western political landscape, by affecting democratic norms and contemporary communication environments. This article presents SUSPECTS, a PRIN-funded project involving the Universities of Turin, Bologna, and Milan, which aims at developing an integrated framework to study the demand, supply, and communicative diffusion of conspiratorial narratives. By combining original survey data, elite-level content analysis, and measures of media exposure and interaction, the project links individual predispositions, political actors’ strategic use of conspiratorial cues, and the processes through which such narratives circulate in hybrid media systems. The article outlines the project’s theoretical foundations, methodological architecture, and preliminary findings, and highlights the long-term research infrastructure that SUSPECTS led to: the resulting data, indeed, enable future comparative work, extending the project’s relevance well beyond its original scope.