Conspiracy theories are explanations of events or situations that are difficult to understand, built around a false sense of control and agency : people believe in conspiracy theories because "they try to give sense to a world which seems senseless." These theories usually start by spotting objects or actions and transforming them into symbols or evidence of Big Lies. Conspiracy theories are built by a community of people as shared knowledge, that is why, with the birth of the Internet and Social Media they found a perfect environment to flourish. In this new world, the catchy content shared by believers of conspiracies finds an easy and fast way to spread. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok, in which visual language plays a leading role in communication, are used to create imagery around conspiracy theories. But how does it happen?
Is there a path followed by supporters of conspiracies in the use of visual content? And what are the most investigated areas?
This research aims to discover what makes the aesthetic of conspiracy theories so powerful and catchy, in particular on Social Media. The purpose is to understand which visual language conspiracists use to communicate, if there are some differences or similarities between conspiracies and what are the elements that contribute to build a specific symbology on which they base their theory.