From scientific to syncretic patchwork storytelling: The discursive ecosystem of Italian stop 5G refused knowledge communities

Abstract

This chapter addresses the discursive practices, media-related and not, adopted by the Italian Stop 5G RKC to produce, stabilise and transform its shared (refused) knowledge. Adopting an ecological approach, this inquiry has its main focus on the digital sphere as a transmedia circulation environment in which a range of discourses and narratives can coexist and interact in multiple ways, sometimes colliding and competing, sometimes adapting to each other, sometimes merging in new ways. In particular, it shows how, during the pandemic crisis, the Stop 5G RKC transformed its discursive practices (and, consequently, its shared knowledge) from a 'scientific patchwork' storytelling approach-based on a rigid definition of borders and selection of scientific sources-to a 'syncretic patchwork' storytelling approach-based on combining diverse and sometimes conflicting discursive sources (e.g. scientific knowledge, folklore, new age spirituality and conspiracy theories). This perspective allows to highlight the close relationship between the RKCs' discursive practices, their forms of organisation and the shared (refused) knowledge they produce and reproduce.