The Truth Is Out There: The Belief in and Spread of the 5G-COVID-19 Conspiracy Theory on Reddit as an Expression of Opposing Agency Inside a Heterotopia

Abstract

This thesis centers around the circulation of the conspiracy theory on Reddit that suggests a connection between COVID-19 and 5G radiation. Research on this phenomenon in the past, has often had a focus on either the technological factors or the social factors that influence the spread, but the two types of arguments have rarely been combined. Additionally, this thesis advocates for the use of Foucault’s heterotopia over the use of Baudrillard’s hyperreality when analyzing social media platforms, for it allows the researcher to take an individual’s agency into account. Using the concept of heterotopia as a lens, with a combination of an affordance analysis and critical discourse analysis, this thesis concludes that the circulation of the 5G-COVID-19 conspiracy theory can be identified as an expression of agency through the spread of oppositional discourse in the form of the 5G-COVID-19 theory, by those inside the heterotopia of r/Conspiracy. Moreover, the method put forward in this thesis could prove helpful in analyzing other conspiracy theories on other social media platforms.