https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/07439156221103852

Summary

Context

Preoccupied with disinformation, social polarization, and echo chambers, the paper examines the flat-earthers community on YouTube and studies their rhetorical strategies.

The researchers find the flat Earth echo chamber a suitable context because of its resistance to fact-checking, and its public profile offers an opportunity to understand narratives that promote the adoption of extremist, radicalizing beliefs.

Methodology

Takes flat earth YT channels with at least 1000 subscribers, takes 2 videos from each (total 178) categorizes them, then take representative subset (35) to analyze rhetorically

Results

Three main lines of arguments (for Christians, conspiracy-minded, and anti-expert/naive empiricists). For each group:

1. Start with preexisting identity-driven controversy

• Example: Earth's shape is presented as an attack on Christian tradition by secularists

1. Use specific epistemology

• Example: Knowledge emerges from the close reading of the Bible because it is divine revelation

1. Do identity work - flatter audience and present yourself as one of them

• Example: Flat-earthers tell their personal stories as journeys of devotion and faith. Their accounts portray an almost monastic duty to strictly follow the scripture with an ethos of monastic warriors or inquisitors cleansing Christianity of apostates and heretics.

Excerpts