Who is behind the Plandemic? Analysing the different ideological conspiracy theory endorsements on Turkish Twitter

ABSTRACT

The Plandemic conspiracy theory, which advances that the Covid-19 pandemic was an orchestrated event, was propagated via digital platforms across various countries throughout the pandemic, including Turkey. In this article, I analyze the conspiratorial tweets about the Plandemic on Turkish Twitter through CDA to show dispositions of different ideologies to conspiracy theories in Turkey. Findings show that the users combine the conspiracy theories that originated in the West with those that originated in Turkey to fortify the conspiratorial narrative concerning the Plandemic. I also detect the ideologies of tweets and users by elaborating their lexica and discourses, and I categorize them as conservative/Islamist and oppositional. The analysis shows that the Islamist/conservative community is likelier to employ the general characteristic of conspiracy in their discourse, meaning that they utilize a more mythic discourse based on unquestionable, godly storytelling. Nonetheless, the secular/opposition community also promotes the Plandemic conspiracy to cursorily criticize social injustice.

KEYWORDS:

• conspiracy theories
• political communication
• Turkey
• Twitter
• pandemic

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. 6 September in 1955, the local newspaper called Istanbul Ekspres published a story titled ‘Our national father’s paternal home was bombed by Greeks in Thessalonica.’ As was to reveal later, the bomber was not a Greek but Turkish. Yet the provocative news spread, and approximately 50.000 Turkish (many brought from various cities in Anatolia) attacked Greek properties, including merchant stores, hotels, pharmacies, schools, factories, and churches in the following night. Even though there is no precise information, presumably 13–30 Greek citizens were killed, and between 10–20 Greek women were raped. In the following months of the Pogrom, around 100.000 Greek citizens emigrated to Greece. https://greekreporter.com/2022/09/06/september-6-1955-the-violent-istanbul-pogrom-against-greeks/.

2. Throughout modern Turkish history, discrimination and attacks against Alevis took place in various locations. Between 19–27 December in 1978, 120 Alevi citizens, including children and women, were killed in Maraş. Another incident is the Çorum Massacre, where 57 people were killed. The last one is the Sivas Massacre in which 33 Alevi poets, authors, singers, intellectuals were burned and killed at the Madımak Hotel. https://bianet.org/english/english/103813-remembering-the-maras-massacre-in-1978.

3. Kemalism does not have a rigid ideological doctrine but rather is a collection of ideas of secularism and republicanism, often coupled with nationalism and an emphasis on national sovereignty, which enables various groups to interpret and use the term accordingly with their political agendas.

Additional information

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Cem Çalışkan

Cem Çalışkan works as a Research Assistant in the Television Reporting and Programming Department at Beykent University. He is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Communication Science at Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey. He is currently researching conspiracy theories and conspiracy mindsets in Turkey.