"Through a Glass, Darkly": Assessing the Influence of Digital Conspiracism on American Catholicism

Date of Award

5-5-2024

Degree Name

M.A. in Theology

Department

Department of Religious Studies

Advisor/Chair

William V. Trollinger

Abstract

This thesis examines the influence of conspiratorial content present throughout American Catholic digital spaces. Drawing on several contemporary definitions of contemporary conspiracism, the thesis first identifies rhetorical hallmarks of digital conspiracism in places like social media feeds and blogs, including accusatory claims about power; binary framings; and aesthetic invocations of violence and eschatological judgment. Based on these definitional grounds, the thesis conjectures a disproportionate amount of existent conspiratorial rhetoric in primarily English-speaking Catholic digital spaces compared to estimates of total participants within #CatholicTwitter and adjacent digital spaces. The first chapter affirms the many benefits media and connective technologies bestow on contemporary societies. It largely agrees with works like Katherine G. Schmidt's Virtual Communion which highlight how concepts like mediation and virtuality—both key to internet functionality—lie at the heart of Catholic theological understandings of reality. Given those two points and the initial conjecture, the thesis asks the following question: if digital interactions are real (albeit nuanced) parts of human life, what should scholarly observers and institutional leaders alike make of the conspiratorial fragments floating between cyber and "real-life" conversations? Utilizing an interdisciplinary methodological approach drawing on Catholic intellectual history, recent social science research, and theological reflection, the rest of the project tries to answer that question. In answering it, the project warns institutional American Catholicism might yet fail a twenty-first century "stress test" alongside other contemporary institutions. The second chapter examines historical conditions in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries during which emergent media technologies helped polarize ideas and detach individuals from their immediate communities. It also contrasts institutional Catholicism's measured approach to digital mediation with rapid consumptive patterns by individual users of all backgrounds and identities, including American Catholics. In its third chapter, the thesis connects consumptive participation on X (or Twitter) to contemporary research about four phenomena related to modern conspiracism's rise: pernicious polarization; widespread addictive patterns within social media use; the dissemination of misinformation and disinformation across networks; and militant rhetoric online. In its epilogue, the thesis closes by calling for collaborative qualitative and quantitative research to test the initial conjecture about heightened conspiratorial Catholic content online. In doing so, it argues Catholic and non-Catholic researchers would more accurately be able to explore the diverse qualities and origins of observed conspiratorial rhetoric within Catholic digital streams; trace such conspiratorial content's varied dissemination motives (or lack thereof); and assess how unique rhetorical "pressure points" affect American Catholics and their communities in specific ways. The epilogue also points to contemporary scholars within and outside the Catholic intellectual tradition working on diverse themes such as reconciliation; digital literacy; Eucharistic theology; and conflict de-escalation whose expertise areas are crucial referents at this moment in time. By actualizing their work through pedagogy, community programming, and dialogue efforts, Catholic and civil society leaders might both combat the deleterious effects of contemporary conspiracism and bolster American (and American Catholic) institutional health in a turbulent, fractured age.

Keywords

conspiracism, American Catholicism, digital, glass, darkly, Twitter, polarization

Rights Statement

Copyright 2024, author

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