{"product_id":"ctrlaltdoubt-hayagreeva-rao-9780197772294","title":"Ctrl+alt+doubt: Decoding the Language of Online Conspiracy Talk","description":"Conspiracy theories are as old as society -- but never have they spread so fast or so visibly. In an age of social media, moments of crisis and conflict ignite waves of conspiratorial storytelling that reshape how people interpret events, assign blame, and mobilize action. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cem\u003eCtrl+Alt+Doubt\u003c\/em\u003e offers a new way to understand why conspiracy theories grow and persist. Rather than treating them as cognitive errors, psychological pathologies, or products of echo chambers, Rao and Greve analyze conspiracy theories as linguistic constructions -- stories built from recognizable semantic patterns. Using tools from distributional semantics, they map the semantic space of conspiracy talk and show how meanings are assembled, recombined, and diffused online. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDrawing on cases from COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter protests, Rao and Greve show that conspiracy theorizing is a form of bricolage: people tinker with cultural fragments to craft explanations that reduce uncertainty and threat. New conspiracy beliefs are most likely to take hold when they are linguistically close to beliefs people already hold. The book traces how conspiracy theories spread through superspreaders, fear-laden language, bots, and shared hashtags -- revealing conspiracy theorizing as a form of proto-coordination that generates community, amplifies outrage, and enables collective sensemaking among opponents of social movements. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBy foregrounding language and interaction, \u003cem\u003e Ctrl+Alt+Doubt\u003c\/em\u003e bridges cultural sociology, computational linguistics, and diffusion theory -- offering a powerful framework for understanding how conspiracy theories spread and how interventions might be designed to blunt their social harm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Hayagreeva Rao,Henrich R. Greve\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0197772293\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780197772294\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Oxford University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/29\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 176\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.59lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.21h x 6.25w x 0.41d","brand":"Hayagreeva Rao","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48997663473919,"sku":"9780197772294","price":29.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/ctrlaltdoubt-hayagreeva-rao-9780197772294","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}