The second speakers in this session at the 2026 International Communication Association conference in Cape Town are the fabulous Annett Heft and Kilian Bühling; their focus is on the coverage of conspiracy theories in far-right US media. Such media are anti-establishment, have a transgressive reporting style, and are overtly ideological and biased; they are frequently linked to the spread of disinformation and conspiracy theories. In this, they also serve as bridging actors towards broader audiences.
The present study compares the coverage of conspiracy theories in legacy and far-right hyperpartisan media. It assumes that such content appears earlier in far-right media, and that topical convergence is triggered by elite cues, especially at key strategic moments during political debates and struggles. It examines content between 2011 and 2021 from a set of mainstream and far-right media, focussing especially on conspiracy theories related to the false New World Order and Great Replacement narratives.
Data were collected using relevant keywords, with subsequent classification and topic modelling; they were distinguished into timeframes before and after Trump’s first presidential run in 2015. Journalistic reporting styles (narration and endorsement vs. neutral reporting and critique) were also coded manually and via LLMs.
Alternative media outlets drive this coverage, especially after 2015; there is also an increase in legacy media, however. There was an attention shift from hyperpartisan to legacy media for a number of such topics, including culture war topics, claims about election irregularities, and global power struggles. Trump’s own discourse plays a considerable role in this.
This shift did not change the reporting style itself, however: legacy media maintain a strongly neutral or critical stance overall, while hyperpartisan media overwhelmingly employ a supportive, narrative style for these conspiracy theories. Even such detached reporting by legacy media amplifies these conspiracy theories, however, and (mainstream) journalism needs to consider the consequences of such reporting approaches.
