UFS "Education for the Future": Beyond Crazy: Tackling the epistemic challenge of conspiracy narratives

The UFS "Education for the Future" is excited to have Prof. Dr. Roland Imhoff from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz as a guest speaker to present his research in the field of social media and mental health.

Abstract:
Recent years have witnessed an upsurge in public and scholarly interest in conspiracy theories and their adherents, often against the backdrop of concerns that such beliefs are false and contribute to problematic behaviors ranging from climate change denial and harmful health practices to extremist violence. In this talk, I provide an overview of psychological research on conspiracy beliefs and provocatively question whether this predominantly one-sided perspective—treating them as inherently unwarranted and necessarily costly—adequately captures the phenomenon. I further discuss the contested role of social media and the effects of conspiracy narratives on epistemic trust, in order to reflect on challenges for media literacy.

Register at: umfragenup.uni-potsdam.de/educationforthefuture_webinar/

The Zoom link will be sent to all registered participants the day before the event.

There will be more webinar sessions of the UFS "Education for the Future" with interesting guest speakers in the upcoming months.