Oxford Digital Ethnography Group Seminar Series

OxDEG – Exploring the Flat Earth: Beliefs, Identity, and Rationality

In this seminar Dr. Krafft reports on a mixed methods study of the North American Flat Earther community, drawing on documents from two Flat Earth Society websites, three surveys, and participant observation at the 2018 Flat Earth International Conference. Across the three surveys they find that around 20-30% of respondents are at least to some extent uncertain that the shape of the earth is round. Drawing on interpretive methods, they conduct an investigation of what meaning flat earth beliefs have to their adherents. The varieties of motivations and meanings identified challenge existing prominent models of belief formation that have recently been employed in the fields of human-computer interaction and media studies.