“Good Job Reporting This!”: Examining Psychological Needs and Community Building in YouTube Conspiracy Narratives

The proliferation of conspiracy theories within online communities has tangible offline consequences, both on an individual and collective level. Conspiracy narratives can act as a radicalisation multiplier in such contexts, capitalising on pre-existing beliefs and grievances, and adding urgency to act through a narrative of imminent danger. Several incidents of individual violent extremism have been directly attributed to membership in online extremist communities related to conspiratorial ideologies. Previous research has proposed that belief in conspiracy narratives is driven by unfulfilled psychological needs such as existential threat, epistemic motives, and social motives, and calls have been made to examine conspiracy belief as a form of affective community investment. We conducted a one-month ethnography of conspiracy-related YouTube videos, exploring how conspiracy narratives address grievances and psychological needs. We performed an LDA topic model analysis of 102 videos and 455,738 comments and qualitatively examined 24 videos and 1,200 comments using an abductive approach. We validate and extend existing models of conspiracy beliefs, highlighting how conspiracy narratives address and amplify grievances and psychological needs in both official content and community-generated discourse. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying the spread and impact of conspiracy theories in online environments.