Method & Theory

The content chosen for analysis was published after the peak of daily COVID-19 cases which occurred in mid-April 2020. The date range, the beginning of May to mid-July, covers 80 days of novel-coronavirus-related web posts written by Global Research founder Michel Chossudovsky. Focusing on the founder was both convenient for narrowing down the study scope and, because he is the chief editor, his narratives are likely the most authentic to Global Research.

One challenge was to narrow down the research domain, while having some breadth so that narratives, the elements that form them and their relationships, could be studied. Generally, posts from earlier dates which were republished were excluded, as were commentary on videos.

To conduct this study, narrative theory and propaganda modeling must be reconciled, as a frame analysis would require focusing on coverage of an event and thus, it would be too narrow in scope.

The research question requires a narrative analysis. The initial approach isolates the narrative core from the supporting characteristics, and looks at these elements putting characters or actants in a subservient position to the action spheres, and looking at various states or stages of the narratives (Franzosi, p. 521).

Franzosi says character roles can be whittled down to: the villain, the donor, the helper, the sought-for-person and her father, the dispatcher, the hero, and the false hero. He explains a narrative model where characters interrelate through actions: “(a) the sender initiates or enables the event; (b) the receiver benefits or registers the effects of the event; (c) the opponent retards or impedes the event by opposing the subject or by competing with the subject for the object; (d) the helper advances the event by supporting or assisting the subject (Franzosi, 1998, pp. 523-524). Characters and social structures found in the research domain can be interpreted with the above in mind.

Mason discusses the validity of figure-ground analysis (2019, p. 13): “… conspiracy narratives are constructed using an interwoven combination of fictive and nonfictive discourse, often with a single phrase or sentence blending elements of the two.” Thusly this type of analysis, she says, does not aim to distinguish stylistic differences between fictive and nonfictive discourse. This study follows this rule. 

Figure-ground profiling, (Mason, 2019, p. 13) provides insight about how texts position readers to alter their attention focus: “At any given moment we consciously and unconsciously select what to pay attention to and, as a byproduct, the other things in our visual field fade into the ground.”

To conduct this study, narrative theory and propaganda modeling must be reconciled, as a frame analysis would require focusing on coverage of an event and thus, it would be too narrow in scope.

The propaganda value of Global Research lies in its click-bait conspiracy narratives. Connolly et al. (2019) explain that conspiracy arguments often powerful groups act secretly to take advantage of events and circumstances at the detriment of the common good. This is a form of misinformation, which encourages prejudice and bad actions, the study suggests.

As for conspiracy arguments, Goertzel (2010, p. 494) suggests looking out for cascade logic: “This occurs when defenders of one conspiracy theory find it necessary to implicate more and more people whose failure to discover or reveal the conspiracy can only be explained by their alleged complicity.” He also says (p. 494) to look for exaggerated claims about the conspirators’ power: “The more vast and more powerful the alleged conspiracy, the less likely that it could have remained undiscovered.”