You may have little or no interest in the dreadful case of Madeleine McCann but anyone who participates in on-line debate might have a look at this: J. Synnott et al. Online trolling: The case of Madeleine McCann, Computers in Human Behavior 71 (2017) 70e78 . *
It is of general interest because the bizarre world of the on-line participants is all too familiar. It is a world of certainty, aggression, obsession, rejection of argument, close identity matched by hostility to outsiders, sense of mission and refusal to accept that anyone could have good motives; it is a world of activists with “open minds” opposed to establishment cover-up.
John Synnott’s research interest and method could as easily have been directed at any one of dozens of political controversies. There is certainly an audience for the rejection of thought and there would seem now to be a political constituency to be lead.
Perhaps, however, it is misguided to view this as new. It may be an old 19th century fear that the masses are not always progressive or democratic.*
Incidentally, unless you’ve access to a college library or similar, you may be unable to read the article in full. Never mind, a bit of googling will bring up accessible media coverage of the research.
__________________________________________________________________________
* There’s accessible treatment of the original article here: http://www.nature.com/news/the-dark-side-of-social-media-1.21478
Colum McCaffery's Weblog 