| dc.description.abstract | This paper aims to provide clear guidelines for researchers
studying conspiracy theory belief. It examines the meta-lin guistic question about how we should conceptualize 'conspi racy theory' and its relationship to the evaluative question of
how we should evaluate beliefs in conspiracy theories, addres sing normative issues surrounding the meaning, use, and
conceptualization of ‘conspiracy theory’, as well as how these
issues might impact how researchers study conspiracy the ories or beliefs in them It argues that four norms, the Empirical
Accuracy Norm, the Linguistic Norm, the Social Norm, and the
Academic Fecundity Norm, underlie debates about how we
should conceptualize or define ‘conspiracy theory’. We zoom
in on the linguistic norm, as it has been treated as more
fundamental than the other norms. We then scrutinize the
argument that normative conceptualizations prematurely set tle the question of how conspiracy theories and belief in them
should be evaluated, and argue that it fails. Subsequently, we
turn to the risks normative conceptualizations pose when it
comes to certain assumptions and biases in the study of
conspiracy theory belief. Finally, we explore where this leaves
us regarding the meta-linguistic and evaluative questions, and
formulate seven guidelines for studying conspiracy theory
belief, whether it be theoretical, historical, or empirical | vi |
