Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: Welcome everyone. I see everyone starting to join us. We are a little bit before the top of the hour, but I just wanted to welcome everyone into the room.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: I'm Julie Edwards with Niche Academy. We'll get started shortly here.
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Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: I would love to say, Hello! Hi, New York. hey! California! Hey? Virginia Nashville! Wow! Everybody's rolling. Now Florida, Washington, Texas, hey, Indiana, hey? Wisconsin.
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Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: bigger States with smaller populations.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: Let me
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: Hi, Wisconsin, hey? Utah! Hey, Massachusetts! I'll be out your way next week.
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Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: Virginia. So nice to see everybody from Smokey, Eastern Pennsylvania. Yeah, all of you on the East Coast are getting what we often get here in the West. Later in the summer I saw a map today of
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: the smoke out there, and it's wicked.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: hey? Kansas, Tennessee, hey, Seattle.
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Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: Hi! From the Cherokee nation. Nice to see you. Thanks for joining us
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: so nice to see everybody. We're going to get started here just shortly. Hey, Colorado?
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: Yeah. I was talking to somebody yesterday, and they were saying that the smoke is so bad in Massachusetts that they're just
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: in house, not out enjoying anything.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: Well, welcome. It's we still have a lot of people joining us. I'm so happy to see so many of you here today we are going to go ahead and get started.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: Let me just
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: you think by now I would know my script from start to finish, but I don't. So Here we are. I am Julie Edwards. I'm a librarian and instructional designer with niche Academy. I'm so happy to see so many of you joining us today from all over the country. Welcome to this webinar on unpacking conspiracy theories.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: Let me start by briefly introducing Niche Academy. We are an easy to use on one learning platform to help libraries create and deliver effective training and measure learner success. So our platform is the perfect tool. If you're looking to increase your E resource usage move programming, including your story times online and deliver and track training for staff development.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: If you're interested in finding out more about our platform or chatting with a member of our team, or hearing what your colleagues have to say, I will drop a link to our website in the chat where you can learn more about us and reach out if you would like to get in touch.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: So a few things about this webinar. We are recording this, and I will make the recordings, the slides, the Chat Transcript and the audio transcript available to everyone. After the presentation you will get an email directly from me, probably on Friday, with all of that in one place you are very welcome to share it with your colleagues who can't be here today. But you can just sit back and listen and enjoy, because you'll get all of the information in a few days.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: If you would like you can turn on closed caption at the bottom of your zoom screen. Chat is on, and you are more than welcome to talk with each other in the chat. There are
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: almost 500 of us in here so far. and growing, and so. please, if you have questions for the presenter, put those in the question and answer box in zoom. Questions that end up in the chat sometimes get lost. I just can't keep up with how fast they move sometimes, but if you have a question for Donald, you can put it in the Q. A. And I will do my best to moderate the questions at the end of the webinar.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: So this webinar series is part of our commitment to solving bigger problems together and providing continuing education in the library space. I am so happy that you have joined us today, and I would like to welcome you to any of our other upcoming webinars and register for those they are all free. They are on our blog, and I will drop a link to those in the chat, so that you have easy access to those as well.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: So before we start, I want to say one more thing that I don't usually say We're talking today about conspiracy theories. And this is an incredibly complicated and contentious topic, involving information and belonging and cognitive science, and so much more.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: I have personally taught classes on conspiracy thinking so, I know that discussions can get heated sometimes. So because of that, I would like to set a container for this space.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: This goes without saying, but we are all information professionals. We're all here to learn, so please keep all questions, comments, and exchanges with each other, respectful and relevant. I'm not a good bouncer, but I really don't want to have to shut down any conversations, so please bring your best selves to this webinar, as everyone always does.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: So without further ado, I would like to welcome our presenter today, Donald Berkeley.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: Donald began working as an academic librarian in 1,990, holding positions at New Mexico State University, the University of Houston, the Texas Medical Center, and the University of California at Merced, where he held several leadership positions in the library until his retirement in June of last year.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: He's authored numerous articles and books, including fake news, propaganda, and plain old lies how to find trustworthy information in the digital age and his latest disinformation, the nature of facts, and lies in the post truth era. He is currently working on a history of us academic libraries and digital age while serving a term as president of the friends of the Merced County Library. I am very happy to have Donald with us today, and I will turn the webinar over to him.
Donald Barclay: Thank you, Julian. Thanks everyone for for coming in today.
Donald Barclay: I I live in Merced, California. If you've ever seen California and movies or TV, it's not that California. It's a different California. it's very agricultural and role.
Donald Barclay: and wherever you are. Good morning. Good afternoon.
Donald Barclay: so just one really quick thing kind of reiterate. What Julie is saying is, I'm going to use some examples of spirit theories, and some of these conspiracy theories contain pretty, hateful ideas. I'm not endorsing these. I'm just using an example. So please understand that I'm I'm trying to be very respectful of everyone's opinions, but sometimes, you know, conspiracy, theories, deal and stuff that is not very pleasant. So with that said, I'm going to move right along.
Donald Barclay: This is a quotation that's been out on the I've seen on the Web a lot lately.
Donald Barclay: and it's a nice quotation, because it speaks to really the fundamental Niger of of believing in a conspiracy theory that you have to do 2 things for most conspiracy theories. You have to believe, something that isn't true.
Donald Barclay: and you have to believe something or just believe something that is true.
Donald Barclay: Now, one of the things I always really be careful. Try to be careful about in in talking about information and information literacy.
Donald Barclay: We, as information professionals always have to make sure that we have our facts straight. We don't want to be saying things that aren't true or that are incredible.
Donald Barclay: And so one of my first questions, when, after I'd seen this all over the Internet, as we all know quotation show up on the Internet, and they turned out to be not correct.
Donald Barclay: Did Kirk a guard really say this? Well.
Donald Barclay: pretty close? It's it's close enough for for most purposes. This is from a translation that was made in the fifties by Howard Hong and Edna Hong from the Danish. I don't read Danish, so I can't testify to the accuracy, but I understand it's a pretty good translation. So
Donald Barclay: the the quotation we've seen out there is pretty accurate and it reminds me of something else. This is a great quotation that you see all over the Internet attributed to Winston Churchill.
Donald Barclay: and I wanted to use it in one of my books, and I searched and search and search and search, and I could not find any evidence that Churchill actually said this
Donald Barclay: maybe you did. Proving a negative is hard.
Donald Barclay: but it's really important for us again, a lesson that unless you really know something is highly credible, you don't want to be sharing it.
Donald Barclay: If you're trying to talk to people about the credibility of information.
Donald Barclay: and that gets to something, I think, that still
Donald Barclay: really important in in our age is
Donald Barclay: the things that we librarians, information, professionals know as kind of that. This is kind of the mechanics of verifying information, of determining whether a piece of information is credible or not credible.
Donald Barclay: And these kind of mechanistic things that we teach people to do are still really important. And they're important when talking about conspiracy theories, because part of being able to
Donald Barclay: think clearly about conspiracy theories. It really is the basic fact checking. Who's that? When did they say it? Are they kidding, you know? Where are my biases at work here? All these things? And this is a poster that a lot of you probably seen it came out of ifflow several years ago.
Donald Barclay: Still, really good stuff. Another good practice is
teaching people about logical fallacy something, I'm sure a lot of you have done
Donald Barclay: in your teaching. because a lot of conspiracy theories use logical fallacies
Donald Barclay: and learners students.
anybody who's looking at information if they can.
Donald Barclay: no logical policies are, how they work, be able to recognize them. It can help them avoid being led, misled by a logical fallacy. So those kind of
Donald Barclay: meat and potatoes of lot of information. Legacy are still really important. They count they matter important stuff.
So this is the outline of what I'm going to talk today. 4 sections, really.
Donald Barclay: And the first 2 sections are really aimed at you as librarians and information professionals.
If we're going to talk about conspiracy theories. It's important to understand
Donald Barclay: our definitions, our terms and how they work
Donald Barclay: doesn't mean you couldn't share this with learners, because some learners may be really receptive. If they understand these things as well, it might help them think clearly about conspiracy theories.
and then the other 2 parts are more aimed at.
Donald Barclay: How we might reach out to people who are struggling with conspiracy theories, trying to figure them out.
Donald Barclay: so with that, that's my outline. And so the first part. Conspiracy versus conspiracy theory.
Donald Barclay: So what is the conspiracy? Well, there's I mean, what? Excuse me, what is the conspiracy? There's pretty clear definitions of what a conspiracy is. We know they're real. They're all kinds of examples of them through history. Over here on the right is Guy Fox, who was involved in a failed conspiracy that was going to block Parliament and kill the the Protestant king and release him with the Catholic ruler.
Donald Barclay: one of many, many conspiracies. We can point to
Donald Barclay: and say, Yeah, conspiracy is a real. They happen.
Donald Barclay: Now this leads to a question I'm sure you may have heard.
Donald Barclay: If conspiracy theories, or if conspiracies are real, then some conspiracy theories must be right. Right? Well.
not really, if, and I may be splitting hairs and getting the semantics here.
Donald Barclay: But the
Donald Barclay: conspiracy theories are old. We can look back at medieval Europe and their conspiracy theories about Jews from medieval Europe, for example.
So they're very old.
Donald Barclay: But
Donald Barclay: the word, the phrase conspiracy theory didn't enter the English language until 1 9. That was the first written record of it.
Donald Barclay: and it didn't become widespread until Karl Popper wrote about it after the Second World War.
Donald Barclay: and Popper first introduced this idea to Academia, and it spread to the wider population.
Donald Barclay: and what Popper talked about was what he called conspiracy theory of society.
and in Popper's definition
Donald Barclay: conspiracy theories are always
Donald Barclay: incredible. They
Donald Barclay: are not based on factual analysis of looking at a conspiracy and taking it apart. They're based on these ideas about feelings of something being controlled by outside forces. So in a popular definition, a conspiracy theory always is fault.
Now.
Donald Barclay: conspiracies something about them. They're hard to keep secret. This is the Watergate conspiracy, which I'm sure you know, a lot of people are too young to remember. Of course
Donald Barclay: it's kind of come back in the news, because there's a Netflix series out about the Watergate. But if you know much about it, you know. The conspiracy
Donald Barclay: was discovered almost as soon as it got started, and there were 2 conspiracies. There was a conspiracy to break in and bug the Democratic National Headquarters, and then there was a conspiracy to cover it up.
Donald Barclay: and the conspiracy involved a lot of people.
Donald Barclay: and this is just a few of the more famous figures involved.
Donald Barclay: So one of the interesting things about conspiracies are
Donald Barclay: the idea that. And this is a mathematical proof that was published in a peer-reviewed journal.
where the author basically demonstrates that
Donald Barclay: the the more people are involved in the curiosity, the harder it is to keep it secret. It's almost impossible to keep a large conspiracy secret.
These are the numbers he uses, and
Donald Barclay: for example, he says, to keep a conspiracy secret for 5 years. The maximum number of people involved is 2,531, and then, as time goes on, it gets harder and harder to keep a conspiracy secret, as you involve more people, and it kind of makes sense. Somebody's going to talk. Somebody's going to leak some information, and if you think about the you know the moon landing or conspiracy will think about how long it's been since the last Moon landing.
how many people had to have been involved to keep that as secret
Donald Barclay: mathematically. It doesn't add up that it could, that it has not been exposed as as a conspiracy, if it really was one which, of course I don't. It is
Donald Barclay: An interesting thing about this article that I mentioned is it's published in Plos one
Donald Barclay: a peer-reviewed journal, and it has a correction attached to it.
Donald Barclay: The author made a small mathematical error, discovered it, went back and fixed it. It didn't really change his findings.
Donald Barclay: But sometimes people of conspiratorial mindsets will go well. Look, you can't trust scientists because they change their minds about things, and scholars change their minds, and my response to that is.
Donald Barclay: I have more trust in people who admit they're wrong and fix it than I do in people who never admit they're wrong and don't fix it
Donald Barclay: So conspiracy.
Donald Barclay: Another thing Karl Popper said about conspiracies. Conspirators rarely consummate their conspiracy. They're regular, they're rarely successful, and the person on the right. Here is your Hoover. He was the head of the FBI in the United States for several decades.
Donald Barclay: and he was responsible for an overarching conspiracy called quintel pro and pointer pro went on for a long time. It was an FBI conspiracy.
It was actually
Donald Barclay: like the overarching idea behind a lot of smaller conspiracies. Actually, there are many, many conspiracies
Donald Barclay: carried out by the FBI, and they were mostly aimed at the left of the 19 sixties, late fifties and early and through the sixties.
Donald Barclay: like anti-war movement, civil rights, environmentalism and a lot of it was targeted, nonviolent, perfectly legal groups.
Donald Barclay: The FBI was conspiring to keep them down. Now that counsel pro also looked at some violent groups, and it also involved things like the Kkk. But it was mostly aimed at the left.
Donald Barclay: and this is an example of some stuff they had about the black panthers, and they were trying to
damage the Black Panther party
Donald Barclay: to this conspiracy.
so
Donald Barclay: conspirators rarely consummate their conspiracy.
Donald Barclay: One of the things we think about in the sixties, of course, because this conspiracy was going on. We never associate things like civil rights, anti war, movement, or environmentalism of the sixtys, because conical pro totally wiped them out. Of course it didn't. We know it didn't. These things happened? Going to pro did damage the movements. It caused some harm.
Donald Barclay: but the conspiracy did not achieve its overarching goal was which was to wipe. These
Donald Barclay: mostly left leaning movements off the face of the earth.
And not only that.
Donald Barclay: the conspiracy wasn't very secret
Donald Barclay: people, the time knew that the FBI was conspiring against, and they knew they were spying on them. They knew they were infiltrating their organizations, and it was all over the place, and this was not conspiracy theory. These were people with actual evidence about the FBI is spying on us. And this is how we know. And this is our proof.
Donald Barclay: And you see this, if you look through the the open literature of the Sixtys and into the early seventies before the overarching coincidenceal pro was exposed, you'll see that
Donald Barclay: it wasn't
Donald Barclay: the the. The. The conspiracy was not kept secret, and it's really hard to keep a conspiracy secret.
Donald Barclay: So getting out of the hood here. How do conspiracy theories work?
Donald Barclay: This is another idea from popper
Donald Barclay: and Popper talked about the idea of falsifiability, he said, for a statement to be empirical.
Donald Barclay: it has to be falsifiable. It doesn't mean that it is fault.
Donald Barclay: but you have to be able to prove that it is fault. It has the potential to be proven false if it's going to be empirical. So if I say it will rain this afternoon, that's an empirical statement, it's either going to be true, or it's not
Donald Barclay: conspiracy. Theories don't use falsifiable statements.
Donald Barclay: They use circular reasoning.
Donald Barclay: It's based on the idea that the truth of the conspiracy is assumed our priority. It's part, it's factually assumed.
Donald Barclay: And so any evidence that you present that goes against the operary assumption is automatically dismissed.
Donald Barclay: Because again, with circular reasoning. It's false because it doesn't
Donald Barclay: support the idea that we've already decided it's true. And that's why it can be really, really hard to argue with somebody of a conspiratorial mindset.
Donald Barclay: And and why sometimes trying to present facts to people who've already decided that any facts that goes against their belief? It has to be false is a very, very hard way to argue, and probably not a very fruitful way.
Donald Barclay: So that's why conspiracy theories are hard to argue against circular reasoning.
Donald Barclay: Okay? So there's different ways to slice and dice the types of conspiracies. This is one way of of the of looking at them, and there are lots of other ways you can find out there in the literature, but this is pretty convenient and and pretty well accepted. So there's an event that that conspiracy theories. The idea that this one event was caused by a conspiracy, and then in the World Trade Center as an example the Titanic was sunk as a result of a conspiracy there was an event that happened, and a conspiracy was behind it.
Donald Barclay: There's also what are called systemic conspiracy theories. There's an ongoing conspiracy series. So, for example.
Donald Barclay: oh, the the Islamic world is building mosques everywhere in the Western world, because it's part of their ongoing conspiracy to take over the West, and then institute Sharia law and ban Christianity, and you know, on and on and on
Donald Barclay: again, a a hateful, harmful conspiracy theory, and I'm not endorsing it, I'm saying that's an example.
Donald Barclay: And then, of course, there's the over super conspiracy theory where all these little conspiracies that I believe in are actually under the mantle of one big giant conspiracy that's out there controlling everything.
Donald Barclay: Okay? So one of the things about conspiracy theories is that they usually go for really elaborate presentations of evidence.
Donald Barclay: They throw lots and lots and lots of things that look like facts and sound like facts. Try to prove their point.
Donald Barclay: And so you'll see these really elaborate presentations, and along with the elaborate presentation, you tend to see cherry picking of evidence, they only present the evidence that supports their conspiracy theories. So, for example, the moonlight is where conspiracy I'm going to ignore this mountain of documentary evidence that the Moon lands happen that humans flew to the moon and returns to to earth.
Donald Barclay: And I said, I'm going to focus on the shadow of the flag and clear that because of the way the flag shadow lies. It has to be a fake photograph that's very typical of conspiracy theories.
Donald Barclay: conspiracies often will reject contrary evidence doesn't matter, you know, this is an example of vaccines, music, musical facts, measle vaccine developed in 1,963, and we look at the mesa cases. They dropped off the face of the earth, starting in 1,963
Donald Barclay: and
Donald Barclay: People will say, Oh, you know, vaccines don't stop me, so I'm going to reject this evidence, even though it's very, very credible evidence. I'm going to reject it. It doesn't support my theory.
Donald Barclay: Another really popular part of conspiracy theories is the idea. It's a downtrodden us versus a powerful them. We are David there, Goliath, they are powerful. we are weak, and only by rejecting their
Donald Barclay: given assumed knowledge. And believing this contrary knowledge, can we defeat the powerful? Them
that's really typical?
Donald Barclay: so one of the things about conspiracy, the is they often involve an enemy. and they can be different kinds of us. There's the enemy from outside, as depicted in this Nazi Era film called the Eternal Jew, which blame the Jews for everything
Donald Barclay: the out, and can pose them as the outside enemy, even though tens of thousands of
Donald Barclay: Germans and Austrians were Jewish. But you know they were the outsider.
Donald Barclay: There's a conspiracy from above. The idea that you know all the Wall Street elite the one, whoever you want. You know the
Donald Barclay: Liberals, or whoever you want to point the finger out there, the ones who are trying to control everything.
Donald Barclay: You've got the conspiracy from below, which is the mob is getting ready to take over and destroy society. We've got to keep them down, and then you've got the enemy from within who pretends to be one of us, but they're really working for the other side. This is a poster that was a flyer that was being surrounded in Dallas at the time of the Kennedy assassination accusing him of treason.
Donald Barclay: So the Kennedy assassination also is a characteristic of conspiracy theories.
Donald Barclay: Repetition makes something so. The idea that Kennedy was killed as a result of a conspiracy is so widespread that most Americans believe it.
Donald Barclay: Now.
Donald Barclay: was it some all that John F. Kennedy was murdered as a result of a conspiracy. It's possible it hasn't been conclusively proven as, and people argue that it has. But
Donald Barclay: for the most part it is not really the conclusive evidence that there was a conspiracy. Also, there's all these different ideas about who was responsible, and it's pretty clear that all of these people could not have gotten together and done it as a group.
Donald Barclay: If there was a conspiracy theory, it had to be one, or maybe at most, 2 of these groups getting together.
Donald Barclay: It couldn't have been all of them. And to, you know, to ignore, that is, is to ignore a fairly obvious fact. Now
Donald Barclay: we, as librarians and information professionals, know, of course, that Oswald was in the Texas school to book depository.
and so we all know, for a fact that it was a conspiracy on the part of book publishers.
Donald Barclay: Okay, that's a joke. I'm not. I don't really believe that. Not not entirely. I mean, you know. Maybe. No, no, I don't believe that. But
Donald Barclay: conspiracy theories can be used to create disinformation, to create a fault story, to try to gain power.
Donald Barclay: even though, or control or wealth, even though the person who promotes the theory knows that the theory is is false. They promote it anyway, because it's a way to win followers and and people on your side.
Donald Barclay: and joke I just made. And I I was a joke. That can also become a form of disinformation, because sometimes jokes have a way of taking on a life of their own, and people pick it up and go. Oh, it really was elsewhere that murdered Kennedy. Well, no, no, no, of course not. I'm just making a joke, but things like that can happen.
Donald Barclay: And of course.
Donald Barclay: kind of
Donald Barclay: under 9. All of these ideas of the conspiracy theory is the idea that nothing happens by accident. Everything is being controlled by somebody somewhere.
and so
Donald Barclay: going back to the time of the Spanish-american war. The Uss. Main blew up in Havana harbors very famous story
Donald Barclay: and It was quite possibly an accidental explosion.
Donald Barclay: It was also possible they still haven't ruined it conclusively, one way or the other, that it could have been an act of sabotage by the Spanish.
Donald Barclay: So
Donald Barclay: the case hasn't been made one way or the other, for sure, but it didn't matter, because people who saw an opportunity to say it was a conspiracy. The Spanish are, are guilty of it.
Donald Barclay: They found a way to create disinformation through a conspiracy theory and get what they wanted. This is a cartoon showing what's your unhurst
Donald Barclay: promoting the idea of a war with Spain. They did it to sell newspapers up. People got on board because there were political and financial interest in the United States that saw an advantage to themselves from promoting a war with Spain. And so a conspiracy theory led to a war.
Donald Barclay: A lot of people got on board that conspiracy.
Donald Barclay: and whether the people who who were saying it was the Spanish were right or wrong didn't matter, because they didn't really know.
Donald Barclay: It didn't matter to them whether the Spanish were guilty or not. It was just a way they promote conspiracy, which is very typical of of this kind of disinformation.
Donald Barclay: and also the thing about this little cartoon is, it was created at the time
Donald Barclay: of all this was going on, so not everybody was blind to the fact that that a conspiracy theory was being promoted and that they were being fed a line of really incredible information.
Donald Barclay: So that's how conspiracy theories work? How do you change people's thinking?
Donald Barclay: How do you get people to let go of your theories when they can be very cult like?
And
Donald Barclay: when you.
Donald Barclay: leaving a call to is hard and leaving behind a conspiracy theory is hard, because when you've put a lot of mental and emotional capital and invested it in an idea.
Donald Barclay: It's really hard to say. Oh, well, I'm just gonna walk away from it. I guess I wasted my time and my effort on that.
Donald Barclay: And you maybe even stake your reputation because you've gone online and said again and again and again, the moonlight for fate chem trails are real. You know what, whatever your conspiracy theory might be.
Donald Barclay: there's a British economist named Tim Harper, who writes a lot about statistics and and and thinking clearly about the world.
Donald Barclay: and he has a really good podcast called Cautionary Tales. I recommend it. He also writes a lot for the financial times.
Donald Barclay: a really interesting guy, and he said something very similar to
Donald Barclay: Kirk. Your guard idea
Donald Barclay: in that. He says you, you know, conspiracy conspirators, conspiracy. Theorists have strange ideas.
but they also have to
Donald Barclay: base their ideas on a foundation of disbelief.
And this is an idea that
Donald Barclay: that Harvard promotes. I'm kind of paraphrasing him here.
and his idea is that
Donald Barclay: instead of
Donald Barclay: treating it like a court case in which you are the prosecutor who has to disprove the conspiracy theory.
Donald Barclay: you make the conspiracy conspiracy, theorists, the prosecutor.
Donald Barclay: burden and proof is on them. Prove to me why your conspiracy theory is real. Show me the facts. Tell me why you really believe this.
Donald Barclay: and this is not going to work with everybody, but it does make it somewhat harder. It's harder to prove your case than it is to
Donald Barclay: to disprove it. And that's kind of how sometimes we get ourselves caught up with conspiracy because we're trying to prove the conspiracy is wrong when really the burden of proof is on them. They are the prosecutor in this example.
Donald Barclay: I'm going to promote a couple of Tim Harper's works. I don't have any financial interest in Tim Harford. I just admire his writing and thinking. The first book is Data Detective, which is a really good book for grown ups about thinking about statistics and data and and how we view the world. I recommend it highly.
Donald Barclay: The other book is a book for kids. So if you're in the school library or public library world, this might be a book you want to check out aimed at helping kids think more clearly about the world.
Donald Barclay: I'm going to promote another thing here. This is a group.
Donald Barclay: it's a. It's a video game that's created by a group of young people who are graduates of
Donald Barclay: University of Southern California.
Donald Barclay: and it's called Agents of Influence. I did some pro bono consulting with them at the I don't have any financial interest in this. I'm just throwing it out. There is something you might want to check out again, especially if you're in the school library world in public library world. It's really aimed at middle school is maybe high schoolers. they've been working on it for a couple of years now, and in developing it. So something you might want to check out And and there's still, I think there's still prototyping, still looking for people to take it for test ride. So you may want to check that out.
Donald Barclay: this is a technique that I talked about in in my most recent book.
Donald Barclay: and I call it cold case conspiracies.
Donald Barclay: So one way
Donald Barclay: to approach talking to people about conspiracy theories is to look at an older conspiracy theory. The people are not so invested in. If you try talking about Q. An. On, or Chem trails, or Apollo landings or the flat earth.
Donald Barclay: you might get people who are really invested in those theories, and they're going to push back.
Donald Barclay: But if you can pick a conspiracy theory that's kind of older, not really so prominent in people's minds. You may have a little more room to talk. Explain how conspiracy theories can be unpacked.
Donald Barclay: The conspiracy theory here is about flight. T. W. A. Flight. 1 800 really tragic story took off from Jfk. 12 min out. It blew up over Long Island Sound, killed everybody on board. It was one of the first conspiracy theories widely promoted on the Internet. So 1,996, the World Wide Web is still pretty new to people.
Donald Barclay: And this conspiracy theory was being promoted. Once conspiracy theory was that the Navy was doing a missile practice, and they accidentally shot it down.
Donald Barclay: The that the terrorist missile shot the flight down, or that there was a terrorist bomb on board again. Couldn't be all 3.
Donald Barclay: It had to be one of them right. There was a in-depth
Donald Barclay: Investigation took several years. They were able to recover almost all of the plane.
Donald Barclay: and The conclusion was, it was a short circuit and a fuel tank.
Donald Barclay: Now, that's not a very compelling story, is it? A simple mechanical error? There's nobody to blame. There's no conspiracy. There's no group of strange outsiders. There's no government, you know, mess up involved. It's a simple mechanical error that unfortunately happened and killed 230 people.
Donald Barclay: But that's the facts of it. And you can find the report online. you know, it's a big old 200 page report, and it goes into great detail.
Donald Barclay: so that's an example of looking at a conspiracy theory, unpacking and going. You know what it really wasn't a conspiracy, folks. It was fax, or there
Donald Barclay: you can also do compare to real conspiracy, to real conspiracies and how they are solved.
Donald Barclay: It's a terrible story, went on, for 1,973. There, at least 28 victims, there might have been more.
Donald Barclay: There were only 3 conspirators, which is why they were able to go on for so long.
Donald Barclay: The other reason they're able to go along so long was that the victims were teenage boys from lower class families working class families in a rundown. Then rundown neighborhood of Houston, called the Heights. It's not run down anymore. Most of us probably couldn't afford to live there. It's a nice neighborhood, but at that time it was kind of run down. And so these parents, who didn't have a lot of money and didn't have any political cloud, we go to the police and say, My son is missing
Donald Barclay: and the police to go? Oh, yeah, it's it's all these Hippy calls out, there they're they're luring boys away with sex and drugs and rock and roll. And your kids just ran off to be hippies, because we know that's what's going on, because there are all these can see theories out there saying, That's what's happening.
So the police essentially ignored all these reports.
Donald Barclay: and it wasn't until one of the conspirators confessed.
and
Donald Barclay: when he confessed, the police still did not believe the murders that happened until he led them to the bodies, and then they finally believed, oh, this is to a real thing!
Donald Barclay: That's a real conspiracy, and how real conspiracies are uncovered versus a conspiracy theory, and how they are just proven. So again, you don't have to use these examples specifically. But you know, there's lots of examples out there that you can look at and think about. Yeah, maybe this is a good way. Maybe my audience would understand
Donald Barclay: the difference between a theory and a real conspiracy and how they play out.
Donald Barclay: Okay, there's an idea out there called conspiracy aviation.
Donald Barclay: And this truly speaks to the emotional
Donald Barclay: identity power of conspiracies
Donald Barclay: are, you know, when you're living in a world that seems unfair. Things are really hard to unpack, you know. It's frightening.
Donald Barclay: it's ambiguous. It's random
Donald Barclay: blanching on to a conspiracy theory can help you feel sense of control. It can give you a feeling of agency over a life where you don't feel a lot of control. That's part of the appeal sort of a related way of saying it is something called agency panic
Donald Barclay: and it's a feeling that your actions are being controlled by someone else, that your reality is constructed, and if only you can expose this control, you can gain some control over your own life.
Donald Barclay: Now, I'm sure most of you are familiar with Q. An. On the the conspiracy theory I just showed
you might not know about the Church's fried chicken conspiracy theory.
Donald Barclay: because it's a a smaller conspiracy theory, but it's mostly in the African American community.
Donald Barclay: and the conspiracy goes churches. Fried chicken is owned by the Ku Klux Klan. and they put chemicals in their chicken that renders black man import now. Obviously not every African American believes this. but it's out there.
Donald Barclay: And again, you can see how it would appeal to people who feel
like they don't have power. They don't have control. They don't have agency.
Donald Barclay: And this is a way of explaining why things are happening that we don't like.
Donald Barclay: and we can't control. Now.
Donald Barclay: it's important to remember conspiracy theories can really be part of somebody's identity, and that's why we have to be really careful when we talk to people about them.
So
Donald Barclay: kind of a related idea. I want to talk now about popular culture
Donald Barclay: and how I see popular culture
Donald Barclay: promoting conspiracy. Theories and conspiracy theories have been around a long time.
Donald Barclay: but I think that there the prevalence of
Donald Barclay: the way popular culture promote conspiracies, and the fact that
Donald Barclay: digital technology has turned the dial on popular culture up to 11.
Donald Barclay: How is maybe explain why they are so popular in our digital world. and popular culture has been around for a long time. in a way, Shakespeare's place were popular calls at the time they were originally performed.
so it's old.
Donald Barclay: It's really, really taken off
since the Second World War.
Donald Barclay: Starting with television.
Donald Barclay: gave it a boost. I mean, obviously for them, a television boosted it. The digital world has boosted it.
Donald Barclay: Popular culture is part of our politics. It's part of economics. It's worth billions of dollars every year. It's part of our or an entertainment certain advertising sports. They're all part of popular culture.
Donald Barclay: And so it's a really big force in some ways. I don't mean to be flip here. But in some ways popular cultures kind of the religion of the twenty-first century. It's everywhere it permeates our lives. And in the United States culture is one of our biggest exports.
Donald Barclay: People love American popular culture. Even people who don't love America are are pretty willing to buy our popular culture. So it's a really powerful thing.
Donald Barclay: This is an idea that comes out of popular culture. It comes straight out of the movie, the matrix, which was a a 1,999 movie.
And
Donald Barclay: it
Donald Barclay: the idea is that if you take the blue pill you remain ignorant of the reality of the world. But if you take the red bill, you see things as they really are, and this idea has been picked up, especially in all right culture.
Donald Barclay: where they say, oh, Liberals, lib tards! They are taking the blue pill. They've got all these, you know. We all get along and love each other and get along. Well, idea
Donald Barclay: I, as an all right person, have taken the red pill. I see the world as it is. Life is nasty, British and short. We have to
get them before they get us do under others before they do it on us.
Donald Barclay: And in its extreme version the red bill is fascism. Right? It's fascist thinking.
Donald Barclay: What's funny about this, of course, is that this has been adopted totally out of popular culture. It's out of a fictional movie. Yet. People will go online and say, I'm a red pill guy or girl even.
Donald Barclay: And what's really interesting about it is the people who created this work. Some filmmakers in Andy and Larry Orchowski.
Donald Barclay: who are now known as Lily Atlanta Whichowski. They've come out as trans. Women, and they've said in multiple forms. The red pill and blue pill is not about liberal and conservative.
Donald Barclay: It's about being trans yet. The idea is still been adopted in
Donald Barclay: all right culture.
Donald Barclay: So it's very, you know, very powerful. It's the the Pop culture idea has gone, taken on a life of its own. In the real world
Donald Barclay: I see popular culture as kind of a triangle of forces. money, power and fame. And it's just gotten bigger
Donald Barclay: as I'm just gone on this. And it's gotten really big in the digital world.
Donald Barclay: So, for example, if you' on musk and you have money.
you can use popular culture to gain power and fame right?
Donald Barclay: If you get elected to office. You probably have some money anyway, but if you get elected you get some power, and you can. If you get into popular call. True, you can gain some money
Donald Barclay: contributions, or just straight up money for yourself and say.
Donald Barclay: and so, for example, if you can leverage popular, call to if you're just kind of an obscure con member of Congress.
Donald Barclay: You can leverage popular culture to become Aoc or Mgt. Right and become famous
Donald Barclay: in the, in, the, in the popular culture world.
Donald Barclay: now, if you're not powerful, you don't have money.
Donald Barclay: but you are seeking fame. Obviously you can maybe sit in your room with your cell phone your smartphone and make Instagram videos. And if you're lucky, maybe you'll get famous.
Donald Barclay: And if you can get famous, then you can get our own money. Right? It all goes together. And you know, for example, if you could
Donald Barclay: use conspiracy theories to help boost your online fame.
Donald Barclay: why not? You know I wouldn't you, if you could become well known
Donald Barclay: as the main promoter of that Earth conspiracy theories.
Donald Barclay: Would you be able to quit your day job? I think so
Donald Barclay: because this triangle works that way. So people are seeking these things through popular culture.
Donald Barclay: And I want to talk now about a website that I like a lot, and it ties in the conspiracy theories
Donald Barclay: it's called tribe troops.com. And what they do on TV troops is they talk about ideas that are promoted through popular culture, mostly movies and TV, but also on in in the digital world.
comic books. theater, other forms of entertainment, advertising
Donald Barclay: sports even. And they talk about these ideas at
Donald Barclay: what's interesting. When you look at them and you go into TV trump, and you examine some of these ideas, you realize that some of these ideas
Donald Barclay: that we tend to think of as
Donald Barclay: part of our identity as authentic to us. We start to see. Oh, you know, these are really things that are promoted to me
Donald Barclay: by popular culture, that things that I think of fundamentally as part of my identity may not really be so fundamental to me. Now.
Donald Barclay: this is the example. The hero of this is really old. If you know Joseph Campbell, you know it goes back thousands of years. So the hero is not a new idea, but popular culture really promotes it
Donald Barclay: in a very strong way to the point where we stop
Donald Barclay: questioning this idea. And we all want to. Maybe we all want to be heroes, or we admire the heroic. Nothing wrong with that. But it's really important to think about where our real ideas are. Authentic ideas about heroes are come from, and where our manufactured ideas are, and there's lots of other ideas out there that relate to conspiracy theories.
Donald Barclay: the the opposing sports team. It's not just another team. The opposing sports team are evil. They cheat. They're bad right dodgers versus giants. Yankees versus red Sox.
Donald Barclay: Boston, or New England patriots versus everybody. Right.
Donald Barclay: The opposing team is bad, and it gets translated in our popular culture into Republicans and Democrats, Liberals and Conservatives, Christians and Islam. On and on on the other team are the bad guys. And this idea really gets promoted, and conspiracy theories right?
Donald Barclay: Even the conspiracy theorists is promoted in our popular culture and a lot of ways, and most of the time in most popular culture. If there's a conspiracy theorist.
Donald Barclay: Are they wrong? Is there a conspiracy proven to be false? No.
Donald Barclay: it's proven right, because that's a better story.
The conspiracy theorist is almost always right.
Donald Barclay: Also, of course.
Donald Barclay: advertising whether it's direct advertising or product placement and films is really important. Advertising promotes a lot of ideas in our head about how we see the world.
Donald Barclay: and especially in, I think, in American culture
Donald Barclay: it promotes the idea of individuals, and that's one of our great national myth. Now, of course, individuals in exist outside of the United States. We're not the only country
Donald Barclay: in the United States. The idea of being an individual is really important. It's strongly promoted in popular culture.
Donald Barclay: And
Donald Barclay: it's also promoting an idea of products. We are told. If you own this product
Donald Barclay: somehow, you're going to be an individual, it it's part of your identity
Donald Barclay: owning a pickup truck owning an electric car.
Donald Barclay: anything you can name that you can buy it often promoting an idea of your unique, your you, you know. If you drink Dr. Pepper, you're one, you know you're going to be unique. Well, millions of people drink Dr. Pepper, how does that add up? Well, it doesn't, really. But it's out there in our culture.
Donald Barclay: So in our, in popular culture. And I think this gets into conspiracy, theories
Donald Barclay: being different. Being unique
Donald Barclay: is really important. There's hardly anything more important than that.
Donald Barclay: And so people are seeking an identity. They're seeking a way to be unique. And one way to do that is to embrace that idea. Maybe a conspiracy theory that a lot of other people think is nonsense. That makes you different right? It doesn't matter that it millions of other people embrace the same. Id.
Donald Barclay: What's important is you're not one of these. You don't want to be a sheep. You don't want to be a sheeple.
Donald Barclay: So expressing your unique identity by embracing a conspiracy theory becomes
Donald Barclay: really important. And this is an idea. And I'm going back to TV tropes here it gets promote all the time and leaks over into real world conspiracy theories, the ignored expert. How many times have you seen this played out in movies, films, TV
Donald Barclay: comic books? There's 99 scientists who say it's blue.
Donald Barclay: But there's one scientist who says it's green.
Donald Barclay: It's always a scientist who says it's green. That's right. It's always the expert who says
Donald Barclay: this way. Not that way. It was always right. The loan expert is always correct. It's burned into our brains
Donald Barclay: to the extent that we don't even realize where we got this idea and how prevalently it is promoted to us
Donald Barclay: to our popular culture and by extension conspiracy theories as a tool of popular culture, promote this idea as well.
Donald Barclay: again, it's one of my little Jo. I like on a tattoo that's properly. People want to be different. We want to be different. But we also want to be part of a community, and it's kind of a strange mix there in the conspiracy theory world.
Donald Barclay: If I accept this consensus here, if I say the earth's earth is flat, I'm being different right? I'm rejecting
Donald Barclay: accepted knowledge.
Donald Barclay: But at the same time I'm part of this great community of people who who believe along with me
Donald Barclay: contradictory, but it it also gives you a feeling of identity and agency.
Donald Barclay: Now, one of the ways this works, I think, and pop in conspiracy theories is the idea of the 3 act structure,
Donald Barclay: which is prominent in movies, television comic books. Okay, so we know how this works. you know, if you've seen Star Wars movie act one. Luke is a
Donald Barclay: boy living on a planet, and he gets the eventually the inciting incident. The storm troopers come up and kill his aunt and uncle, who are immediately forgotten. But that doesn't matter. The midpoint he becomes a jedi. Actually he goes up to Death Star. Right? We see this again and again and again.
Donald Barclay: It's it's a classic structure of our entertainment.
What's interesting about conspiracy theories is there's never an act tree.
Donald Barclay: There's an inciting incident. The bad guys have done something. Aha! We've uncovered this, and we're ready to overthrow this bad thing, but it never quite happens.
Donald Barclay: It's all going, and it makes it up on ongoing and participatory
kind of entertainment.
Donald Barclay: That's very much like the way so properties used to be. And I read at one time there were 19. So network soap operas in the United States. They're now only for the soap opera, and one of them is streaming. So so barbers have kind of been forgotten about, but just like people used to get involved in so purpose to the point where they almost couldn't distinguish between real life and the soap opera world. They were caught up in conspiracy. Theories can become that for people they can become a way of identity.
Donald Barclay: a way of agency, and a way of wish fulfillment. The world isn't the way I want it to be. I feel kind of powerless.
Donald Barclay: This conspiracy. If I can believe in this conspiracy theory. It gives me this feeling of power, and that's why we have to be really careful when we are talking to people who believe or may believe and remember, of course, everybody's belief is on a continuing right. I mean, you can believe Q&A a little, or you can believe it a lot right.
Donald Barclay: so
Donald Barclay: one of the things I think we have to be careful about is that when we see people who believe in a certain conspiracy theories, we have ideas about them. Q. And on they're probably white. They're probably from
Donald Barclay: maybe the middle class, but probably lower class, right? purchase fried chicken. Well, they're probably African, American, and they're probably not from the upper
Donald Barclay: economic ranks of African American community. They're probably maybe they're not well educated. And so on. The Q. And on people probably not well educated. We have these ideas about them.
Donald Barclay: and it can cause us to dismiss them and look down on them when really what we have to do, even though we don't embrace
Donald Barclay: the idea of the conspiracy, the, and we certainly don't embrace anything harmful that is, being promoted by the conspiracy theory.
We have to be sensitive to the fact
Donald Barclay: that these are meaningful for people who are looking for agency looking for identities looking for community, and we have to tread fairly lightly as we approach
Donald Barclay: how to deal with them. And that's why I I tend to think maybe a software approach. The idea of.
Donald Barclay: you know. Maybe you're looking at an older conspiracy theory that people aren't invested in as a way of getting people to unpack their feelings. Maybe talking about how popular culture works on us.
Donald Barclay: getting people to examine what? What are your real beliefs, what what it's been, what do you really believe is true and what it's been sold to you
Donald Barclay: by movies, films, advertising, TV
Donald Barclay: comic books, and so on.
Donald Barclay: is that your authentic belief or not. And that's a way to get people to maybe maybe start on pack knees. It's a bad hydra. It's a tough one. I I don't believe I have all the answers, by any means. I'm throwing things out that I hope maybe you can find useful feel free to use them, and in the way you see fit, and to modify them for your needs, or to reject them if if you don't see anything there. There.
Donald Barclay: But I'm hope it's helpful for you. And with that I'm going to wrap it up. These are 2 books that I wrote. I'm going to plug them for you. if you're interested in them. I I talk. The the first book is more. A fake news is more of a how to kind of a book, and this information book is more about how come full, philosophical kind of book. So they're out there. If you're interested, maybe there's a copy in your library, so you don't have to buy it
Donald Barclay: and and you can certainly welcome to do that. I I'm okay with libraries, even though I'm an author. I'm all right with with sharing stuff. So that's that's the end of my presentation. So I I'll turn back over to Julie and
Donald Barclay: going from here.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: Thank you so much, Donald. This was fantastic. really appreciate it. There has been some fantastic comments in in the chat. So I love that. yeah, we have several questions that have have come in. So
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: we'll start here. The which I think applies to all of us working in libraries. This person says.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: one thing I'm having a hard time reckoning with is the assumption, when supporting those who are researching conspiratorial topics, that true information is being suppressed by those in power. So, therefore, anything mainstream or even visible, that contradicts the theory of suspect. Do you have any tactics or techniques for dealing with that aren't completely alienating or reinforcing the view that some information can be trusted.
Donald Barclay: Yeah, that's that's a tough one.
Donald Barclay: I I I'll tell it, really. I'll try to tell the story really quick. Years ago, when I was working in New Mexico State University, one of my colleagues was working. It was a Saturday, and a member of the public came in. and you wanted information about black helicopters from the Government, killing Americans.
Donald Barclay: gunning them down from the air.
Donald Barclay: And so my colleague spent a whole bunch of time looking for information, you know, in in, in databases and stuff.
Donald Barclay: came back and said, Well, I I'm sorry I I can't find any information out there that verifies this. And the the the patron very angly said, well, of course you can't. They're keeping it secret.
Donald Barclay: it's that's a tough one. I I mean you can.
Donald Barclay: you know. Obviously, if somebody is so into a conspiracy through that they're refusing to accept any information. They're in that circuit logic.
Donald Barclay: circular reasoning kind of thing
that you can do them out, except
Donald Barclay: maybe try to challenge them
Donald Barclay: to say, Okay, well, why don't you trust this information? What is your proof that this information is false.
Donald Barclay: and and maybe even saying, Do you believe that? You know if if you believe that everything in the New York Times is a lie.
Donald Barclay: Show me some. Is there anything New York Times you do believe, do you? You know? Do you believe the sports reporting on. Do they have a sports page? I think they do in New York Times. Do you believe?
Donald Barclay: you know anything they report you. You believe when they talk when they say a movie is playing, what? What's your limit for?
Donald Barclay: How much you are willing to believe or not believe? If they, if the New York Times says a movie is playing in New York. Do you believe that's true? Or do you believe they're lying about everything? Where do you draw on the line, and that might help draw them out. And maybe if they have sources they do move
Donald Barclay: well, why do you believe these sources are not to you in your account. What's credible about this? So you be the prosecutor. You make the case for what you believe. Don't make me make the case.
Donald Barclay: I I'm not. I'm I certainly don't guarantee that's going to work. Because when somebody is really, really deeply again, it's identity, it's agency. All these things at work, you may not be able to bust them out, but by maybe putting the burden of proof on them you may be able to help them.
Donald Barclay: See. Okay? Well, maybe maybe the maybe I don't have it all figured out
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: awesome. Thank you.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: Someone's asking. And anybody can actually throw information about this in the chat if you want is What sites do you recommend to fact-checked information
Donald Barclay: to fast-check information? All fact-check information?
Donald Barclay: Well, there! There's some pretty good ones out there.
Donald Barclay: you know. again. Of course the danger is there are fake ones out there to pretend to be fact checkers, and not I I mean, if if they're willing to look at it. And and again, you know
Donald Barclay: again, you remind people you know you have to evaluate, even if a fact. Checker tells you something is true.
Donald Barclay: you know. It's up to you to determine is the fact checker? Right? How right are they? you know snopes is pretty reliable.
Donald Barclay: snopescom politifact is pretty good.
Donald Barclay: so there's there's a few out there. I I mentioned some of them in in my first book, and I I don't have them off the top, all of them up top of my head. There, there's there's a few pretty reliable ones out there. Of course, you know, if you're not going to believe anything anybody from the you know
Donald Barclay: the the mainstream world tells you
Donald Barclay: it's gonna be pretty hard to to get, some to to go to these, but
Donald Barclay: you know even
Donald Barclay: one of the good things about snopes is that they will often fact check, and they will say, Well, it's mostly true, or it's only partly true. They don't say, you know they don't.
Donald Barclay: They don't always say, Oh, it's all true. And you know, maybe something that's something to tell people to. It's like, you know, everything factual is on a continuum, right? And so you have to say things are not. It's not so much completely false or completely true. It's more a continuum of
Donald Barclay: how true is it? You know it's the the example I use is
Donald Barclay: Water boils at 212 degrees. Everybody knows that unless you're up in the mountains
Donald Barclay: right? Then it's not true anymore. So you you do have to remind people that there's not many things in the world that are 100% factually true. You know, we can all think of some examples. But typically you start getting into mathematical equations and stuff like that when you talk about well, it's it's really 100 true.
Donald Barclay: So
Donald Barclay: you know, again, I think that's an important thing. And and remind people, you know, these are really good fact, Checkers. I it's really, you know, it's up to you, though, to really evaluate the evaluator and be sure that
Donald Barclay: that they're not leaving things out. you look at multiple fact checkers. That's a good way to, you know. Look at several of them. One of the other was called Pointercom. I just thought of pointer, so these are different ones you can look at and compare the same story and different fact checkers, and see what they say.
Donald Barclay: Another way to go.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: Thank you. So there's sort of a follow up question here, and some of the things that are coming up in the chat are
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: are leaning in this direction as well. Someone saying, I recently recommended some of these sources, and the patron said she would never use them, because she doesn't trust them because of who owns them and how they're funded. How would you discuss this with someone? And I would throw in the the additional question, would you discuss this with someone? Are there limits about where we should be putting our energy with us.
Donald Barclay: Yeah, well, I mean. the answer is that
Donald Barclay: you know information wants to be free, but no information is free.
Donald Barclay: Somebody is
Donald Barclay: in one way or another one extend another, sponsoring every piece of information. You see, somebody's paying for it. So
Donald Barclay: you know you can.
Donald Barclay: You know it.
Donald Barclay: You you can certainly look at.
at.
Donald Barclay: examine different pieces of different things like.
Donald Barclay: you know the New York Times
Donald Barclay: for
Donald Barclay: Cbs news or Cnn or whatever, and say, Okay, yeah. The money comes from certain places.
Donald Barclay: and everything has to be paid for. But what you really need to look at is.
Donald Barclay: is there a wall between the people providing the money and the people for any information or not? And sometimes that wall is really strong, and sometimes it's permeable, and you kind of have to decide for yourself.
Donald Barclay: But you know, if if you
Donald Barclay: if you reject any information because somebody put up some money to make it appear.
Donald Barclay: Then you have to reject all information because everything costs something. Somebody has to pay something for that information to be out there.
Donald Barclay: so you you can't really divorce information from some kind of source of money.
The question is, is the money influencing the content?
Donald Barclay: And you know I know that I certainly can't think of this. A British fact checking
site that's financed. By George, Soros.
Donald Barclay: I know a lot of people would go. Oh, oh, George, Soros, I'm not looking at that. That's clearly correct
Donald Barclay: now, from everything I understand he does. He's not involved in
Donald Barclay: in the the the editorial content of that page. But that's going to be a hard sell for anybody who just trusts George Soros just like it's a hard sell for anybody who just trusts.
Donald Barclay: You know the Fox News Empire that that
the the people at the top are not.
Donald Barclay: you know, influencing the news there.
Donald Barclay: so that that's a hard one.
Donald Barclay: I I think you know. But being honest about the fact, yeah, everything has to be paid for, you know, even if somebody has their own personal website. They're they're paying for it right? They somebody has to keep that on so.
Donald Barclay: And it takes a little bit of resources.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: Thank you. Someone mentioned? in the comments rightly so. that people from any background, any race, any economic group, can buy into conspiracy theories. Do you happen to know? Is there research about the demographic traits of people who buy into different conspiracy theories?
Donald Barclay: Yeah, there is. And you know I I can't name enough top. And I know I've run across it in the past, and I I probably cite some of it in in one or more of my books.
Donald Barclay: it, you know it tends to be people who.
except conspiracies in general, tend to be people who feel downtrod.
Donald Barclay: Now somebody can feel down.
Donald Barclay: and other people look at. What what are you complaining about? You know your life is good, you have a lot of power and money and influence, but but if you feel that way. If you feel like you're not.
Donald Barclay: you know you don't have power.
Donald Barclay: You you can buy into conspiracy theories. I I know someone I have a know personally who is a multi-millionaire
Donald Barclay: who totally buys in the conspiracy through. He believes he's totally being trampled on by the government and taxes and everything else, and the guy's got millions of dollars. So you know, he's an example of someone who doesn't really fit the profile of lower class.
Donald Barclay: you know. disempowered kind of person.
Donald Barclay: so yeah, I there is some research out there. But I I I can't. I can't
Donald Barclay: really jump on it.
Donald Barclay: you know, I know that like.
Donald Barclay: there's a website a web publication called the Conversation.
Donald Barclay: which does a lot of writing about
Donald Barclay: very kind issues like conspiracy theories. And it's it's written mostly by scholars, but it's aimed at a popular audience.
Donald Barclay: And I know that they've talked about conspiracy theories and people who who the kind of people who will accept conspiracy theories. So you might want to go to the conversation and do some searching there for conspiracy. There's there's been some pretty good writing
Donald Barclay: on there, and what's useful about it? The articles are aimed at a broad audience, but usually the people who are writing them are you know, faculty members and stuff. And then you can follow up and see what the faculty members published in the research literature
Donald Barclay: and and follow that. So that that's a pretty good source, and for some people, you know.
Donald Barclay: pointing them to the, to the conversation, it might be a way to expose people to
Donald Barclay: different way of thinking. you know.
Donald Barclay: a, and a a different source of information that's written by people who are experts. And of course, if you got a dismissed expert? Well, that you know it's not going to work for you
if you assume every everybody who's you know, everybody who is a faculty member is
Donald Barclay: is the part of the conspiracy, the enemy. It's going to be pretty hard to get them to read and accept some written by somebody from
Donald Barclay: Presenter
Donald Barclay: the of Georgia, or wherever the author is from. But but it's certainly something you can use personally, and and you might want to.
Donald Barclay: There may be some articles in there that you could point people to, especially if you're dealing with more sophisticated kind of
Donald Barclay: of audience. You you might point that there.
Donald Barclay: I but you know but one of the things, you know, if you've worked at a university, hang around the faculty for a while and hear them talk about the the campus administration. They believe all kinds of crazy conspiracy theories, and they're pretty educated and generally well off people, you know, so it can anybody can combine to
Donald Barclay: a conspiracy theory. And and again, that's one of the things that
Donald Barclay: you know, I'm all really really aware of. you know. Am I? Am I accepting a conspiracy theory?
Donald Barclay: And certainly when something speaks to your cognitive bias.
Donald Barclay: it's really easy to accept it as
Donald Barclay: a true story, and if it doesn't
Donald Barclay: it? It's really easy to say it's a conspiracy theory.
Donald Barclay: you know. for example, you know Donald Trump colluded with the Russians. Well, if you don't like Donald Trump. It's really easy to believe that. And if you like, Donald Trump, it's really easy to go. Well, that's just a conspiracy theory. It's made up. There aren't any facts to support it.
Donald Barclay: you know. So
Donald Barclay: your your cognitive bias really plays an an important role in what you're going to believe and not believe.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: Thank you so much, Donald. We are right. At the top of the hour. People are saying, thank you so much. They've learned a terrific webinar. a lot of people are saying that they learn things that they didn't know about. So I really appreciate it.
Donald Barclay: Oh, I appreciate, thank you. I hope everybody can take away something useful from this. Thank you for your time.
Julie Edwards (she/her) - Niche Academy: Thank you all so much. I will send out the recording and the slides and the chat and audio transcripts in a few days, and hopefully we will see you at our next webinar next week on book banning and censorship. So hot topics in the library world kicked off by this one today. Thank you again. All so much. Have a great afternoon. Everyone.