Cover not available
Article published In:
Journal of Argumentation in Context
Vol. 8:2 (2019) ► pp.262–283

A rhetorical perspective on conspiracies

The Stamina case

| National Research Council, Institute of Biomedical Technologies
| National Research Council, Institute of Biomedical Technologies
In this paper, we analyze the persuasive effects of conspiracy theories from a rhetorical and argumentative perspective. In particular, we scrutinize a case-study – the story of the “Stamina cure” in Italy –, interpreting it as a particular instance of conspiracy theory. First, we explain what conspiracy theories are, and why they are relevant within the contemporary health debate. Second, we situate our analysis in relation to other theoretical accounts, explaining why a discursive approach may be required to study conspiracies. Third, we investigate our case-study through the lenses of the three “entechnic” proofs of rhetoric: logos, ethos, and pathos. We conclude that a rhetorical approach can shed significant light on how conspiracies achieve their persuasive effect and it provides a first step toward the elaboration of a more comprehensive model to better address the practical and political implications of conspiracy argumentations.
Keywords: conspiracy theories, health communication, inference, Stamina case, rhetoric
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: The Stamina case and its persuasive effects
  • 2.Conspiracy theories and their contemporary relevance
  • 3.Comparing different approaches to the study of CTs
  • 4.A rhetorical analysis of the Stamina case: Logos
  • 5.A rhetorical analysis of the Stamina case: Ethos
  • 6.A rhetorical analysis of the Stamina case: Pathos
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 25 September 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.18006.zag
References (43)
References
Abbott, Alison. 2016. “Stem-cell scandal gets fresh scrutiny.” Nature 5391, 17 November 2016:340. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Amossy, Ruth and Roselyne Koren. 2009. “Rhétorique et argumentation: approches croisées.” Argumentation et Analyse du Discours 2|2009. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Angenot, Marc. 2008. Le dialogue de sourd. Traité de rhétorique antilogique. Paris: Mille et une Nuits.Google Scholar
Aristotle, Rh.: Ars Rhetorica, ed. by W. D. Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press; 1959.Google Scholar
Brotherton, Rob. 2015. Suspicious Mind. Why We Believe Conspiracy Theory. New York: Bloomsbury Sigma.Google Scholar
Brotherton, Rob and Christopher C. French. 2014. “Belief in Conspiracy Theories and Susceptibility to the Conjunction Fallacy.” Applied Cognitive Psychology 281:238–248. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brotherton, Rob, Christopher C. French and Alan D. Pickering. 2013. “Measuring Belief in Conspiracy Theories: The Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale.” Frontiers in Psychology 41:279. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Buckley, Thea. 2015. “Why Do Some People Believe in Conspiracy Theories?” Scientific American Mind, 1 July 2015. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Byford, Jovan. 2011. Conspiracy Theories. A critical introduction. London: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Capocci, Mauro and Gilberto Corbellini (eds.). 2014. Le cellule della speranza. Il caso Stamina tra inganno e scienza. Torino: Codice Edizioni.Google Scholar
Cattaneo, Elena and Gilberto Corbellini. 2014. “Taking a stand against pseudoscience.” Nature 5101, 19 June 2014:333–335. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Danblon, Emmanuelle. 2005. La fonction persuasive. Anthropologie du discours rhétorique: origines et actualité. Paris: Armand Colin.Google Scholar
Danblon, Emmanuelle and Loïc Nicolas (eds.). 2010. Les Rhétoriques de la conspiration. Paris: CNRS Éditions. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Duesberg, Peter H. 1995. Infectious AIDS: Have We Been Misled? USA: North Atlantic Books.Google Scholar
French, Christopher C. and Anna Stone. 2014. Anomalistic Psychology: Exploring Paranormal Belief and Experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Greenwald, Glenn and Ewen MacAskill. 2013. “Boundless Informant: the NSA’s secret tool to track global surveillance data.” The Guardian, 8 June 2013.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Lawrence C. 2011. “Education, politics and opinions about climate change evidence for interaction effects.” Climatic Change 104(2):231–242. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hofstadter, Richard. 1964. “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”. Harper’s Magazine November 1964:77–86.Google Scholar
Kahan, Dan M., Ellen Peters, Maggie Wittlin, Paul Slovic, Lisa Larrimore Ouellette, Donald Braman and Gregory Mandel. 2012. “The polarizing impact of science literacy and numeracy on perceived climate change risks”. Nature Climate Change 21:732–735. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Klonoff, Elizabeth A. and Hope Landrine. 1999. “Do blacks believe that HIV/AIDS is a government conspiracy against them?” Preventive Medicine 281:451–457. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Labinaz, Paolo and Marina Sbisà. 2014. “Certainty and uncertainty in assertive speech acts.” In Communicating Certainty and Uncertainty in Medical, Supportive and Scientific Contexts, ed. by Andrzej Zuczkowski et al., 31–58. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Leman, Patrick J. and Marco Cinnirella. 2013. “Beliefs in conspiracy theories and the need for cognitive closure.” Frontiers in Psychology 41:378. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lewandowsky, Stephan, Gilles E. Gignac and Klaus Oberauer. 2013. “The Role of Conspiracist Ideation and Worldviews in Predicting Rejection of Science”. PLoS ONE 10(8):e0134773. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lewandowsky, Stephan, Klaus Oberauer and Gilles E. Gignac. 2013. “NASA Faked the Moon Landing – Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax. An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science”. Psychological Science 24(5):622–633. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Miller, Joanne M., Kyle L. Saunders and Christina E. Farhart. 2016. “Conspiracy Endorsement as Motivated Reasoning: The Moderating Roles of Political Knowledge and Trust.” American Journal of Political Science 601:824–844. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nicolas, Loïc. 2014. “L’évidence du complot: un défi à l’argumentation. Douter de tout pour ne plus douter du tout”. Argumentation et Analyse du Discours 13|2014. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Oliver, J. Eric and Thomas J. Wood. 2014. “Conspiracy Theories and the Paranoid Style(s) of Mass Opinion.” American Journal of Political Science 58(4):952–966. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Oswald, Steve. 2016. “Conspiracy and bias: argumentative features and persuasiveness of conspiracy theories.” OSSA Conference Archive 1681. [URL]
Oswald, Steve and Thierry Herman. 2016. “Argumentation, Conspiracy and the Moon: a Rhetorical-Pragmatic Analysis.” Case Studies in Discourse Analysis ed. by M. Danesi and S. Greco, 295–330. Munich: Lincom Europa.Google Scholar
Peirce, Charles Sanders. 1931–1958. Collected Papers ed. by C. Hartshorne, P. Weiss (voll. 1–61) and A. Burks (voll. 7–81). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Popper, Karl R. [1945] 2002. The Open Society and Its Enemies. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Quattrociocchi, Walter and Antonella Vicini. 2016. Misinformation. Guida alla società dell’informazione e della credulità. Milano: Franco Angeli.Google Scholar
Ross, Michael W., E. James Essien and Isabel Torres. 2006. “Conspiracy Beliefs about the Origin of HIV/AIDS in Four Racial/Ethnic Groups.” J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr 41(3): 342–344. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Serra, Mauro. 2017. Retorica, argomentazione, democrazia. Per una filosofia politica del linguaggio. Roma: Aracne editrice.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass. 2014. Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass R. and Adrian Vermeule. 2009. “Symposium on Conspiracy Theories. Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures.” The Journal of Political Philosophy 17(2):202–227. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Swami, Viren, Rebecca Coles, Stefan Stieger, Jakob Pietschnig, Adrian Furnham, Sherry Rehim and Martin Voracek. 2011. “Conspiracist ideation in Britain and Austria: Evidence of a monological belief system and associations between individual psychological differences and real-world and fictitious conspiracy theories.” British Journal of Psychology 102(3):443–463. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Taguieff, Pierre-André. 2013. Court Traité de complotologie. Paris: Mille et une nuits.Google Scholar
Taïeb, Emmanuel. 2010. “Logiques politiques du conspirationnisme.” Sociologie et sociétés 42(2):265–289. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wood, Michael J. and Karen M. Douglas. 2013. “What about building 7? A social psychological study of online discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories.” Frontiers in Psychology 41:409. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yazdannik, Ahmadreza, Alireza Yousefy and Sepideh Mohammadi. 2017. Discourse analysis: A useful methodology for health-care system researches. J Edu Health Promot 61:111. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zagarella, Roberta Martina and Annoni, Marco. 2018. “Conspiracy Ideations in Healthcare: A Rhetorical and Argumentative Analysis”, in S. Oswald and D. Maillat (eds.). Argumentation and Inference: Proceedings of the 2nd European Conference on Argumentation, Fribourg 2017. London: College Publications, Vol. II1: 973–988.Google Scholar
Zarefsky, David. 1984. “Conspiracy Arguments in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates.” Journal of the American Forensic Association 211:63–75.Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Maillat, Didier & Steve Oswald
2024. Chapter 2. Manipulation in exceptional times. In Manufacturing Dissent [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 339], ► pp. 62 ff. DOI logo
Meuer, Marcel, Aileen Oeberst & Roland Imhoff
2023. How do conspiratorial explanations differ from non‐conspiratorial explanations? A content analysis of real‐world online articles. European Journal of Social Psychology 53:2 ► pp. 288 ff. DOI logo
Mohammed, Dima & Maria Grazia Rossi
2022. The Argumentative Potential of Doubt: From Legitimate Concerns to Conspiracy Theories About COVID-19 Vaccines. In The Pandemic of Argumentation [Argumentation Library, 43], ► pp. 125 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 6 august 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.