John Funchion
Biographic Data
| ID | 1073792 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John Funchion |
| GIVEN NAMES | John |
| FAMILY NAME | Funchion |
| SIGNATURE | FUNCHION J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Miami |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8734-5495 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 226 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Beyond the City and the Country
This chapter explores how country and city stand in as proxies for political, racial, and cultural positions. The country operates as the custodian of the “real America,” which becomes imagined as white, masculine, traditionalist, and working class. The city, meanwhile, teems with the elite and the cosmopolitan. Such gestures conjure away any trace of Indigenous peoples, migrant farmers and ranchers, urban–rural labor alliances, black agrarian Po…
White genocide conspiracy
Belief in White Replacement
The "White Replacement" conspiracy theory, that government and corporate leaders are "replacing" white people, is linked to several mass shootings. Given its recent ubiquity in mainstream elite rhetoric, concerns have arisen about how widespread beliefs in the "White Replacement" conspiracy theory are in the United States. However, political scientists have yet to understand why people believe or act upon this idea, or what the political and psyc…
The New Satanic Panic
A moral panic animated by conspiracy theories alleging ritual sex abuse swept through the United States in the 1980s. During that “Satanic Panic,” as it came to be known, people expressed fears of social change regarding gender and sexuality. Beginning in 2022, conservative politicians, pundits, and pastors in the United States levied similar accusations of child grooming, sex trafficking, and satanic sex abuse at the LGBTQ + community, teachers,…
The Relationship Between Social Media Use and Beliefs in Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation
Who Supports QAnon? A Case Study in Political Extremism
The QAnon conspiracy theory has garnered increasing attention as more than 80 pro-QAnon congressional candidates vied for nominations in 2020 primary races. The QAnon movement is widely characterized as "far right" and "growing," but such claims rest on flimsy evidence. Using six public opinion polls from 2018 to 2020, we find that support for QAnon is both meager and stable across time. QAnon also appears to find support among both the political…
Do conspiracy beliefs form a belief system? Examining the structure and organization of conspiracy beliefs
Despite regular reference to conspiracy theories as a “belief system,” few studies have attempted to explore the structure and organization of conspiracy beliefs beyond an examination of correlations between those beliefs. Employing unique data from two national surveys that includes respondent beliefs in 27 conspiracy theories, we decipher the substantive dimensions along which conspiracy beliefs are organized, as well as subgroupings within tho…
American Politics in Two Dimensions
Contemporary political ills at the mass behavior level (e.g., outgroup aggression, conspiracy theories) are often attributed to increasing polarization and partisan tribalism. We theorize that many such problems are less the product of left‐right orientations than an orthogonal “anti‐establishment” dimension of opinion dominated by conspiracy, populist, and Manichean orientations. Using two national surveys from 2019 and 2020, we find that this d…
The 2020 presidential election and beliefs about fraud
Why do people believe Covid-19 conspiracy theories
As conspiracy theories about COVID-19 take root in the United States, understanding the psychological foundations of conspiracy beliefs is increasingly critical. Our research shows that beliefs in two popular variants of COVID-19 conspiracy theory are the joint product of the psychological predispositions 1) to reject information coming from experts and other authority figures and 2)
Hobbes, Sovereignty, and Early American LiteratureFictions of Mass Democracy in Nineteenth-Century America
US literary critics and historians often tell a version of the same story about sovereignty in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world. It proceeds as follows: Classical republican ideas were circulated and then debated alongside vigorous discussions of John Locke’s model of liberal individualism. Imperfectly synthesized, so the tale goes, republicanism and liberalism came to define nineteenth-century US politics, culture, and letters. Although thi…
Putting the Past Out to Pasture
“Among the Corn-Rows,” a short story appearing in Hamlin Garland's Main-Travelled Roads (1891), opens with a telling dialogue between homesteader Rob Rodemaker and Seagraves, a local newspaper editor. At one point during their exchange, Rodemaker explains why he left his native Waupac County in Wisconsin to settle further west in the Dakota Territory: “We fellers workin' out back there got more ‘n’ more like hands, an' less like human beings. Y' …
American Politics in Two Dimensions
Contemporary political ills at the mass behavior level (e.g., outgroup aggression, conspiracy theories) are often attributed to increasing polarization and partisan tribalism. We theorize that many such problems are less the product of left‐right orientations than an orthogonal “anti‐establishment” dimension of opinion dominated by conspiracy, populist, and Manichean orientations. Using two national surveys from 2019 and 2020, we find that this d…
The Relationship Between Social Media Use and Beliefs in Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation
The 2020 presidential election and beliefs about fraud
Do conspiracy beliefs form a belief system? Examining the structure and organization of conspiracy beliefs
Despite regular reference to conspiracy theories as a “belief system,” few studies have attempted to explore the structure and organization of conspiracy beliefs beyond an examination of correlations between those beliefs. Employing unique data from two national surveys that includes respondent beliefs in 27 conspiracy theories, we decipher the substantive dimensions along which conspiracy beliefs are organized, as well as subgroupings within tho…
Who Supports QAnon? A Case Study in Political Extremism
The QAnon conspiracy theory has garnered increasing attention as more than 80 pro-QAnon congressional candidates vied for nominations in 2020 primary races. The QAnon movement is widely characterized as "far right" and "growing," but such claims rest on flimsy evidence. Using six public opinion polls from 2018 to 2020, we find that support for QAnon is both meager and stable across time. QAnon also appears to find support among both the political…
Belief in White Replacement
The "White Replacement" conspiracy theory, that government and corporate leaders are "replacing" white people, is linked to several mass shootings. Given its recent ubiquity in mainstream elite rhetoric, concerns have arisen about how widespread beliefs in the "White Replacement" conspiracy theory are in the United States. However, political scientists have yet to understand why people believe or act upon this idea, or what the political and psyc…
Putting the Past Out to Pasture
“Among the Corn-Rows,” a short story appearing in Hamlin Garland's Main-Travelled Roads (1891), opens with a telling dialogue between homesteader Rob Rodemaker and Seagraves, a local newspaper editor. At one point during their exchange, Rodemaker explains why he left his native Waupac County in Wisconsin to settle further west in the Dakota Territory: “We fellers workin' out back there got more ‘n’ more like hands, an' less like human beings. Y' …
Hobbes, Sovereignty, and Early American LiteratureFictions of Mass Democracy in Nineteenth-Century America
US literary critics and historians often tell a version of the same story about sovereignty in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world. It proceeds as follows: Classical republican ideas were circulated and then debated alongside vigorous discussions of John Locke’s model of liberal individualism. Imperfectly synthesized, so the tale goes, republicanism and liberalism came to define nineteenth-century US politics, culture, and letters. Although thi…
Why do people believe Covid-19 conspiracy theories
As conspiracy theories about COVID-19 take root in the United States, understanding the psychological foundations of conspiracy beliefs is increasingly critical. Our research shows that beliefs in two popular variants of COVID-19 conspiracy theory are the joint product of the psychological predispositions 1) to reject information coming from experts and other authority figures and 2)
Do conspiracy beliefs form a belief system? Examining the structure and organization of conspiracy beliefs
Despite regular reference to conspiracy theories as a “belief system,” few studies have attempted to explore the structure and organization of conspiracy beliefs beyond an examination of correlations between those beliefs. Employing unique data from two national surveys that includes respondent beliefs in 27 conspiracy theories, we decipher the substantive dimensions along which conspiracy beliefs are organized, as well as subgroupings within tho…
American Politics in Two Dimensions
Contemporary political ills at the mass behavior level (e.g., outgroup aggression, conspiracy theories) are often attributed to increasing polarization and partisan tribalism. We theorize that many such problems are less the product of left‐right orientations than an orthogonal “anti‐establishment” dimension of opinion dominated by conspiracy, populist, and Manichean orientations. Using two national surveys from 2019 and 2020, we find that this d…
The 2020 presidential election and beliefs about fraud
Who Supports QAnon? A Case Study in Political Extremism
The QAnon conspiracy theory has garnered increasing attention as more than 80 pro-QAnon congressional candidates vied for nominations in 2020 primary races. The QAnon movement is widely characterized as "far right" and "growing," but such claims rest on flimsy evidence. Using six public opinion polls from 2018 to 2020, we find that support for QAnon is both meager and stable across time. QAnon also appears to find support among both the political…
The Relationship Between Social Media Use and Beliefs in Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation
Belief in White Replacement
The "White Replacement" conspiracy theory, that government and corporate leaders are "replacing" white people, is linked to several mass shootings. Given its recent ubiquity in mainstream elite rhetoric, concerns have arisen about how widespread beliefs in the "White Replacement" conspiracy theory are in the United States. However, political scientists have yet to understand why people believe or act upon this idea, or what the political and psyc…
The New Satanic Panic
A moral panic animated by conspiracy theories alleging ritual sex abuse swept through the United States in the 1980s. During that “Satanic Panic,” as it came to be known, people expressed fears of social change regarding gender and sexuality. Beginning in 2022, conservative politicians, pundits, and pastors in the United States levied similar accusations of child grooming, sex trafficking, and satanic sex abuse at the LGBTQ + community, teachers,…
Beyond the City and the Country
This chapter explores how country and city stand in as proxies for political, racial, and cultural positions. The country operates as the custodian of the “real America,” which becomes imagined as white, masculine, traditionalist, and working class. The city, meanwhile, teems with the elite and the cosmopolitan. Such gestures conjure away any trace of Indigenous peoples, migrant farmers and ranchers, urban–rural labor alliances, black agrarian Po…
White genocide conspiracy
Psychology (8 works) · Political science (7 works) · Social Psychology (6 works) · Misinformation and Its Impacts (5 works) · Politics (5 works) · Social Psychology (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Law (4 works) · Ideology (3 works) · Law (3 works)