Economic precarity, media manipulation, and systemic injustice fuel susceptibility to conspiracy narratives
Original framing: “Why life's hardships may make conspiracy theories more appealing” — Phys.org
Marginalized groups—low‑income workers, refugees, and Indigenous peoples—report higher exposure to disinformation yet are rarely consulted in policy design, perpetuating a cycle where their lived realities are pathologized rather than addressed.
The appeal of conspiracy theories cannot be reduced to personal hardship; it emerges from intersecting structures of economic precarity, media monopolies, and historical patterns of state deception.
Indigenous and cross‑cultural lenses reveal that mistrust is a rational response to broken treaties and colonial legacies, while scientific evidence shows that systemic stressors amplify cognitive biases. By embedding media literacy within community networks, guaranteeing basic services, enforcing platform transparency, and integrating relational healing practices, societies can transform the fertile ground of distrust into resilient, inclusive ecosystems. Actors ranging from municipal governments to Indigenous councils and tech regulators must coordinate to rewrite the narrative from pathology to collective justice.