Science-related Populism and Social Actors in Martin Geddes’ Early Representations of COVID-19. A Case Study


Abstract


This article focuses on five blogs written by British conspiracy theorist Martin Geddes, available on his personal website. The blogs were written from March to December 2020 and represent an early testimony of COVID-19 scepticism. The article aims to analyse Geddes’ conspirational counter-narrative of the coronavirus syndemic by focusing on four elements: the generic characteristics of the corpus, Geddes’ construal of ethos, his texts’ connection to the theoretical framework of science-related populism and, lastly, the representation of select social actors in the corpus and how such representation sustains Geddes’ conspirational arguments. These elements provide insight into the idiom of conspiracy theorists and their construction of counter-information and counter- knowledge.


DOI Code: 10.1285/i22390359v47p69

Keywords: COVID-19; science-related populism; ethos; social actor theory; critical discourse analysis

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