Authority-led conspiracy theories in China during the COVID-19 pandemic – Exploring the thematic features and rhetoric strategies

The COVID-19 pandemic has witnessed the flourish of various conspiracy theories globally, where governmental authorities have often played an essential role in spreading and promoting such misleading information. This study examines the authority-led conspiracy theories in China by analysing 44,068 conspiracy theory relevant Weibo posts. The sample was collected by 46 sets of keywords representing popular conspiracy theories circulating online in the pandemic. Through structural topic modelling and textual analysis, we revealed the thematic features and rhetorical strategies of authority-led conspiracy posts. Authorities were found to employ conspiratorial narrative as a regular tactic in the political discourse, and often phrased them in a connotative manner with specific rhetorical strategies. And non-authority users would often elaborate relevant topics endorsed by authorities to apparent conspiracy theories. This study enriches our understanding of authority’s role in spreading conspiracy theories during uncertain times in authoritarian countries.