Marianna in ConfirmationBiasLand

By Brian Clegg

I’m interested in why people believe odd things (and ignore the science), so I thought I’d give the podcast Marianna in ConspiracyLand a try. This is the work of Marianna Spring, the BBC’s ‘disinformation and social media correspondent’, who has the cringe-making habit of referring to herself as ‘A.K.A. Miss Information.’

The first series follows the rise in support for conspiracy theories in the West Country town of Totnes, boosted by a conspiracy-spreading newspaper called The Light. Despite a certain naivety in the interviewing, I found the series interesting for two reasons. The obvious one is the nature and danger of conspiracy theories, particularly around subjects like vaccination and climate change. I’m always looking for ways to get scientific views across and (as demonstrated so well in the book I recently reviewed, Science with Impact), it can be really hard to get past conspiracy viewpoints. When someone can claim, as they do in one of Marianna’s interviews, that there is no evidence for the effectiveness of Covid vaccines you really have to wonder how to get through to someone like this. The series portrays well the response of conspiracy theorists to questioning their beliefs and the dangers that arise from the spread of these theories.

But the other interesting aspect was the way that Marianna herself displayed confirmation bias. (I must admit to being particularly on the lookout for this having just read Alex Edmans’ May Contain Lies.) Her assumption was clearly that conspiracy theories were right wing affairs and was struggling to understand why the people of Totnes should be particularly susceptible, given that many of them apparently have a hippy-dippy new age viewpoint, which gives off more left wing vibes (man).

For me, it seems obvious that this would be an ideal breeding ground for conspiracy theories because these are people who already have a tendency to soak up misinformation and disinformation on the likes of alternative medicine, crystals and goodness knows what. The show’s text description even says ‘The small town of Totnes in Devon is known for its warmth and open-mindedness, gong baths and healing crystals’, hardly a recipe for rationality. But Marianna’s confirmation bias doesn’t allow her to see the evidence – she can’t resist the model that such conspiracies should come from the socially conservative right wing.

At one point she is talking about the content of The Light and says ‘It’s a mixture of wellness-type articles: “How to detox naturally” and “Pioneers of frequency medicine” which Peter [local paper editor] says go down well with some locals. But its content feature a lot of disinformation.’ She seems entirely oblivious to the reality that these ‘wellness-type articles’, used as a contrast to the bad material, are potentially dangerous themselves: at best misinformation and sometimes definitely disinformation. 

Until presenters of this kind of programme can be more aware of their own biases it’s arguable that all they do is act as freak shows – ‘Look at these nasty people!’ – if the programme makers want to encourage listeners to have a more rational, evidence-driven view of the world, they need to employ a little more self-reflection.

You can hear Marianna in Conspiracyland on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts.

Image from BBC: fair usage

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Now Appearing is the blog of science writer Brian Clegg (www.brianclegg.net), author of Inflight Science, Before the Big Bang and The God Effect.