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Citation: Sorokin, Siim. 2022. The
“In-Between Land” of Suspicion and
Ambiguity: Plotting the MS Estonia
Shipwreck. Humanities 11: 92.
https://doi.org/10.3390/h11040092
Received: 1 May 2022
Accepted: 5 July 2022
Published: 22 July 2022
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humanities
Article
The “In-Between Land” of Suspicion and Ambiguity: Plotting
the MS Estonia Shipwreck
Siim Sorokin
Research Fellow in Culture Studies, Narrative, Culture, and Cognition Research Group, Institute of Cultural
Research, University of Tartu, 50090 Tartu, Estonia; siim.sorokin@ut.ee
Abstract:
The present article is multidisciplinary, drawing on and synthesizing narrative media
theories, philosophy of epistemology, conspiracy theory research, and creativity studies. I will
explore the following
central theoretical problem:
whether it is conceptually enriching to (i) further
develop the notion of and hence advance the scholarship in “conspiracy theorizing” and (ii) in doing
so, would it be productive to ponder the role of peoples’ affective state of suspicion in engaging with
ambiguous representations, something that is thrown into especially sharp relief by the conspiracist
discourse. Accordingly, my point of departure is the concept of ambiguity and the related semantic
field (including its antithesis, closure). Hereby, the concept of suspicion is introduced and treated as a
creativity-enhancing, productive affect rooted in narrative thinking and construction. In particular, a
specific manifestation of ambiguity apparent in digital sense-making discourses is foregrounded—a
self-reproduced ambiguity. These dynamics are explored in the context of, while aspiring to overcome
the scholarly emphasis on its negative valence, the practice of “conspiracy theorizing”. This popular
practice is hence reconceptualized as contra-plotting. It is understood as a form of sense-making
undertaken by the plotters of suspicion in challenging official explanations found unsatisfying and
straining one’s belief. Such activity emerges and becomes instrumental in the face of explanatory
uncertainty, such as the unsolved nature (“the how”) of the shipwreck, and is posited to be an
individual and collaborative creative construction characterized by “continual interpretation”. For,
as I will argue, the functional outcome of contra-plotting is to self-reproduce—not to obtain closure
for the—ambiguity. Motivated by the suspicious stance, it is a necessary operative mode of such
interpretation itself. In attempting to overcome their suspicions about official explanations, plotters
inadvertently also ‘plot’ suspicion. Consequently, such an interpretative process corresponding to
disambiguation plotting always feeds back into its own ever-expanding (narrative) ‘middle’, searching
for yet immediately disregarding, as if by design, any final crystallized ‘truth’. In this context, the
perhaps more understated meaning of “to interpret”—namely, to creatively supplement “deficiencies”
(supplentio)—may gain in conceptual relevance. In staking the proposed theoretical apparatus, I will
draw on my preliminary findings from analytical work on ‘real-time’ digital discussions—observable
as a chronological forum archive—on the 1994 shipwreck of the cruise ferry MS Estonia. In order to
instrumentalize the outlined tentative theoretical vocabulary, an interpretative close reading of posts
from different time periods from the conspiracist forum Para-Web will be provided. This analysis
combines textual and narrative analyses. The article ends with some concluding thoughts and aims
for further research.
Keywords:
(disambiguation and contra-) plotting; plotters of suspicion; (self-reproduced) ambiguity;
suspicion; MS Estonia; Para-Web
1. Introduction
“We project ourselves—a small, humble elect, perhaps—past the End, so as to see the
structure whole, a thing we cannot do from our spot in the middle.”
(Kermode 1966, p. 8)
Humanities 2022,11, 92. https://doi.org/10.3390/h11040092 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/humanities
Humanities 2022,11, 92 2 of 17
The MS Estonia was a cruise ferry of the company Estline on the Tallinn–Stockholm
route. It sank in September 1994 in the Baltic Sea during a highly stormy night, listing
starboard and capsizing due to poor cargo distribution. Essentially, the findings of the final
report of the multistate Joint Accident Investigation Commission (JAIC) argued that the
sinking was caused by the storm, noting how strain from the waves caused the bow door
locks to fail, with the bow visor (claimed to be under-designed) and ramp being torn off,
ultimately leading to flooding. The report also criticized what it conceived as the crew’s
passivity at the crucial time.
1
Various theories on the causes of the sinking—invoked by
dissatisfaction with the JAIC report—still continue almost thirty years later.2
However, why have I chosen the discussions involving this particular incident as
a basis for theorizing and analysis? First of all, it is no exaggeration to say that it has
had a significant impact on the Estonian national cognition (perhaps to the degree of
9/11 in U.S.). Even almost three decades after the event (itself occurring within the
first years of state independence), new investigations still make national headlines, and
nonfiction and fiction books are being published (similarly so in Finland and in Sweden).
MS Estonia’s sinking took 852 lives, and notwithstanding the fact that many of the victims
were also of Scandinavian origin; for a small country with only a little over one million in
population, such as Estonia, the tragic outcome of the shipwreck directly affected the lives
of a considerable amount of the native population, with many losing close loved ones. In
addition, more were no doubt affected indirectly (through friends, collateral relatives, etc.),
Secondly, and no less importantly, the MS Estonia’s sinking has been considered one of
the worst maritime disasters of the 20th century and one of three deadliest in peacetime
European waters, together with Titanic (1912) and Empress of Ireland (1914). These socially
sensitive considerations, especially when taken together, certainly afford a strong impetus
for studying the digital discourse surrounding this event.
The theoretical discussion throughout the present article makes its case as a multidis-
ciplinary venture. It synthesizes relevant literature from, among others, narrative media
theories, philosophy of epistemology, conspiracy theory research, and creativity studies.
It draws on a case study of a conspiracist sense-making community, distinctive in how
its participants creatively confront ambiguities particular to their topic of engagement.
The following
central theoretical problem
will be explored: whether it is conceptually
enriching to (i) further develop the notion of and hence advance the scholarship in “conspir-
acy theorizing” (especially by integrating insight from narrative theory) and (ii) whether,
in doing so, it would be productive to explicitly highlight the role of peoples’ affective
state of suspicion in engaging with what may be perceived as ambiguous representations,
something that is thrown into especially sharp relief in conspiracist discourses. Section 2
functions as a general introduction. I will maintain that the notion of “ambiguity” needs
to be considered in a relationship of tension with its qualitative opposite: “closure”. To
this end, some guiding inspiration is drawn from recent findings from social cognition and
catastrophe studies.
First, cognition scholars, such as Bertram Malle, have observed that people tend to
“wonder why” when they are (1) mentally preoccupied with a particular event, (2) which
invokes a lack of understanding (“a state of nonunderstanding”), while (3) appearing
relevant to their interests. As Malle explains, “[n]onunderstanding is subjective—for people
to wonder why, they must believe they lack an explanation (
even if they do have one
)
[ . . . ]
”
(Malle 2004, p. 73; emphasis in original, underlining added).
This observation dovetails with a recent study by Karl Halvor Teigen et al. These
scholars found that the question of how some past event began—i.e., what cemented it as
an event of interest—might “loom larger” than its ending, at least in the inquiring minds of
some people. Even in cases where the ending is clear-cut (e.g., a well-documented historical
occurrence), the beginning is “judged as more important and interesting, warranting more
explanation, and having more causal power” (Teigen et al. 2017, p. 26). Arguably, these
event-beginnings can be conceived as peoples’ cognitive representations, “temporally
extended” into the present, “structuring [
. . .
] the landscape of [their] collective history
Humanities 2022,11, 92 3 of 17
that is continually updated, changed, or reinforced by public narratives” (ibid.: 27). Indeed,
cast in this light, the tragic shipwreck of the MS Estonia may certainly be appreciated as an
exemplary case. With only its catastrophic ending known beyond any shadow of doubt in
its tragic entirety, this 1994 event still begets pages upon pages of forum discussions—ever
since the topical thread was initially posted in 2004—following new pieces of information
published in the mass media.
Second, and building on previous insights, this continuous digital engagement with
the MS Estonia shipwreck could hint at a contemporary manifestation and instrumental-
ization of the “shipwreck with spectator” metaphor, with its origin in the ancient Roman
literature (Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura) (Vidauskyt
˙
e 2017;Winter 2019). When transposed
into the present day, though, the “theorists” in the forum—if to keep in mind the Greek
word theoríabeing derived from theoros, i.e., “spectator”—fashion the MS Estonia catas-
trophe into a collaboratively approached “object” of (aesthetic) contemplation, one that is
engaged with as if from a non-involved distance (Dürbeck 2012, pp. 2–3).
Guided by these leitmotifs and building on the discussion in Section 2, I will next
outline my proposed theoretical vocabulary (Section 3). I will distinguish a particular mani-
festation of ambiguity—a self-reproduced ambiguity. I will maintain that such reproduction
characterizes the activity of contra-plotting by conspiracy theorists—a value-laden notion I
will reconceptualize as plotters of suspicion. Moreover, it will be argued that suspicion, as
a creativity-enhancing, productive affect can be considered as the ‘motive force’ for the
activity of contra-plotting.
The theoretical discussion in Sections 2and 3is thereafter augmented with an illustra-
tive interpretative close reading combining textual and narrative analyses. The analysis
aims to highlight a variety of narrative plottings conceived to develop chronologically
across three intersecting but asynchronous time periods (Section 4). This analysis is intended
to provide some empirical counterweight to the preceding abstract discussion. Finally, in
Section 5, I will offer some concluding observations and suggest further lines of inquiry for
the topics on hand.
2. Ambiguity, Closure, and Interpretation (supplentio)
It could be said that a more focused scholarly discussion on the meaning and function
of ambiguity rose to a special prominence with literary and poetry criticism, notably with
William Empson’s sensitive close readings of poems in his classic Seven Types of Ambiguity.
As Anthony Ossa-Richardson remarks in his interdisciplinary study A History of Ambiguity,
Empson’s 1930 work was shortly “canonized as the watershed in the history of thinking
about ambiguity” (Ossa-Richardson 2019, p. 5). Ossa-Richardson introduces ambiguity
by foregrounding two of its general themes: (1) “the subjective state of doubt” and (2) “its
objective correlative in the world, or a text, a painting, a sonata” (ibid.: 1). Narratologist
Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan specifies these themes in the context of narrative representations
(e.g., novels), speaking of narrative ambiguity within the interplay of readerly hypotheses
formulation and textual revelations (or lack thereof) (Rimmon-Kenan 1977).
3
Hypotheses
once considered “plausible” may become untenable in the long run, for the incoming
narrative information necessitates constant re-evaluations of one’s interpretative designs.
Conversely, a hitherto “incomplete” or even initially discarded hypothesis might re-emerge
due to an increase in its coherence, consistency, and overall simplicity, ultimately leading
to its formulation as the “finalized hypothesis”.
Moreover, this is where ambiguity enters, for “sometimes we close the book with
more than one ‘finalized’ possibility in mind” (ibid.: 9–10, 51–52). However, it does
not follow that ambiguity is present in all of such cases, Rimmon-Kenan argues. She
differentiates narrative ambiguity from, say, multiple subjective interpretations attributed
to a given work, for the former—and this is Rimmon-Kenan’s underlying argument—”is a
fact in the text” (ibid.: 12; see, pp. 12–25 for an interesting discussion about a number of
other differentiations).
Humanities 2022,11, 92 4 of 17
A narrative text obtains ambiguity when it is apparent that there is a “co-existence
of mutually exclusive” (i) readings (“finalized hypotheses”) and (ii)” systems” or “link-
ages” of hermeneutic “gap-filling clues” that invoke these readings (ibid.: 27). These
“clues”, as I understand Rimmon-Kenan’s argument, give content to and “confirm” the
evidence for their respective hypothesis, while scaling according to the same logical relation
(mutual exclusiveness) as the hypotheses they form, hence “repudiating” the other(s) in
the nitty-gritty details. Accordingly, either on the level of the virtual whole or its parts,
reader’s “choice [is rendered] impossible
. . .
frustrat[ing] the reader’s expectations of a
univocal, definitive meaning” by “restricting uncertainty to an insoluble oscillation” be-
tween emergent narrative potentialities”. In other words, Rimmon-Kenan maintains that
these potentialities—in her treatment of ambiguity—are restricted by and contingent on the
“subjectivity of creation”, i.e., “the work itself” (Rimmon-Kenan 1980/1981, pp. 185–86).
Instead of being keyed wholesale to the imaginative or creative capacity of the reader,
ambiguity is a “regulative textual norm for interpretation”, and in that sense, something
objective, “preinterpretative” (Rimmon-Kenan 1977, p. 12; see also, Bahti 1986, p. 210ff).
While certainly sympathetic to and acknowledging the explanatory power Rimmon-
Kenan’s structuralism-influenced perspective brings to the table, the present discussion
does not see an urgent necessity in being as restrictive and narrow. Instead, in bringing
the discussion on ambiguity into the present empirical context, it might be worthwhile
exploring the potential middle ground cautiously, on the one hand, by keeping in mind the
official explanation narrative of the MS Estonia shipwreck (the 1997 Final Report by The
Joint Accident Investigation Commission of Estonia, Finland, and Sweden [JAIC]) and, on
the other, the popular plottings which, to some extent, draw on it (the discussions in the
Para-Web forum). I will return to and elaborate on this in Section 4.
To the latter end, though, it must first be outlined, in the most rudimentary terms suf-
ficient for subsequent discussion, what is presently meant by “ambiguity”. Ambiguity may
be a characteristic operating quality of some form of (not exclusively fictional) (narrative)
representation, leading to a perplexing reception. The Oxford English Dictionary defines
ambiguity as something “uncertain, open to more than one interpretation, of doubtful
position”. Etymologically, ambiguity originates from circa 1400s Old French ambiguite
(uncertainty, doubt, indecision, hesitation) and the Latin ambiguitatem (nom. ambiguitas)
(double meaning, equivocalness, double sense). Reportedly, the early 15th century adds
the meaning of “obscurity in [the] description”. Moreover, the prefix ambi- (ambhi-) means
“around” and “about”, with the Latin root verb ambigere (<ambi- agere) indicating “to dis-
pute about, contend, debate”. Perhaps most interestingly, the literal meaning of ambigere is
“to wander, go about, go around”; thus, figuratively to “hesitate, waver, be in doubt”. (Agere
further augments the latter with its root ag- carrying the meaning of “to drive, draw out or
forth, move”) (Ossa-Richardson 2019, p. 18n62).4
Arguably, then, the making sense of something ambiguous denotes—if to speak
metaphorically—a wandering within its confines, engaging with it through “work[ing]
[one’s] way back” to the meaning (ibid.: 4) (similarly to how, when you get lost in the woods,
you need to start looking for a path that would lead you out). In other words, confrontation
with ambiguity leads to a ‘walk-about’—a kind of imaginative exploration—filled with
hesitation, uncertainty, and suspicion. Its ultimate purpose is to “draw out” (make ac-
cessible, bring to plain sight)—through “relentless questioning” (
Zuckerman 2019
)—(the)
meaning(s) that has (have) been so far shrouded by (or in) ambiguity. Moreover, the previ-
ous metaphorical observation could be reinforced and further augmented if, together with
Baldo degli Ubaldi—a key legal commentator of the 14th century—we would consider that
the very word interpretation (interpretatio) is ambiguous. For it indicates both “clarification”
(or “exposition”, declaratio) or, more pertinent for the present discussion, supplentio, the
supplying (satisfying) or “repairing” of, “deficiencies” (Ossa-Richardson 2019, p. 82n44).
5
The above observations can be specified further and along more narrative theoret-
ical lines. The seminal work of semiotician Umberto Eco on the reader’s role would be
a worthwhile resource. In his discussion of reader “hazard[ing] forecasts” about narra-
Humanities 2022,11, 92 5 of 17
tive omissions or gaps (or other ambiguous storytelling strategies), Eco highlights two
particular sense-making operations in engaging with a narrative text. These are: (i) un-
dergoing an “inferential walk” during which one might, (ii) ‘write’ a “ghost chapter”
(
Eco 1984, pp. 214ff, 252–56
). As Eco explains, in forecasting, the reader probes the still
unfolding fabula by imaginatively anticipating, among others, also the probabilities of the
unsaid. The nonexplicit, yet presumed as virtually existent, narrative information (e.g.,
events from b to e leading to f in sequence a—f; cf. Gerald Prince’s narratological concept of
the “disnarrated”). The latter necessitates the construal and emergence of as-if “world[s]”
and “subworlds [of] expectations” (ibid.: 220, 254; emphasis added).
Therefore, an inferential walk (for Eco, a type of interpretative mental “move”) occurs
when the reader “shifts from one hypothesis to another”, switches between different
“intertextual frames”, utilizes broader, extratextual “encyclopedic” knowledge, and so
on (ibid.: 214, 253). It is worth noting here that while for Eco these “walks” necessitate
movements “outside the text”, were we to take the literal meaning of ambigere seriously, it
could be posited that such inferential walks are also undertaken during one’s immersion
in ambiguous information. For instance, by moving between and fitting together diverse
elements of its content. Accordingly, such prospective ‘furniture’ of imagination might
come to furnish what Eco terms the “ghost chapters”—“implicitly validate[d] [by the
text], tentatively written by the reader”. In other words, where a considerable part of
the fabula (or two or more mutually exclusive fabulas in ambiguous representation, to
follow Rimmon-Kenan) may well be realizable on the level of the narrative discourse, some
of its “actualization” remains virtual (ibid.: 214–15). Thus, in the liminal, porous space
of one’s expectations, an effort—even if relatively far-fetched—for disambiguation will
be undertaken.
Such displeasure due to a looming ambiguity, therefore, is “the antithesis [of] closure”
(Carroll 2007, p. 7). It indicates an ‘openness’ with no pay-off for curiosity, stoked through-
out by the (narrative) suspense. By being confronted with the inability to answer (or
interpret away the narrative’s refusal to answer) the questions posed about a narrative (or
those evoked by it), “[t]he reader is not offered easy satisfactions, but a challenge to creative
co-operation” (Kermode 1966, p. 19). As philosopher Noël Carroll puts it, such “question
formation” is not only our “ordinary critical response” to narratives—the nagging feeling
of suspicion articulated by bemoaning what “has been left out”, not entirely agreeable, and
so on. It is a natural feature of engaging with whatever type of obtained information. “If
[our] storytelling mind cannot find meaningful patterns in the world, it will try to impose
them” (Gotschall 2012, chp. 5, sub-chp. 4; emphasis added). For we tend to wonder why.
6
Therefore, some narrative (a fictional plot arc or a real-life event explanation) has
obtained “closure” when its perception has reached “stable conclusiveness” (Segal 2007;
emphasis added). Arguably, while Carroll’s treatment of the concept first defines “closure”
in general—augmenting it thereafter with a proposal for narrative closure—the two defini-
tions largely coincide (cf. Feagin 2007). Hence, where generic closure suggests a “sense of
[the phenomenological
7
feeling of] finality” for concluding “just [at] the right point”, with
“nothing left to say [or] left unsaid” (Carroll 2007, pp. 2–3; emphasis added).
8
Narrative
closure is secured when “any question that arises from the causal nexus of the story will
count as narrative question proper, whose answer may then be an ingredient in narrative
closure. [
. . .
] [T]he very insufficiency of the stated causal connections in most narratives
incites our curiosity. [
. . .
] Such questions are narrative questions because they arise from
an internal feature of narrative” (Carroll 2007, pp. 12–13; emphasis in original).
In juxtaposing these two definitions above, I would like to highlight the strong sense of
subjectivity or reception specificity they share, which might not necessarily be restricted to
more or less explicit gaps in the narrative’s causality chains attributable wholly to authorial
intent, as Carroll’s discussion, in parts, appears to indicate. Carroll might not strictly
disagree on this point, either. For he readily acknowledges how the “estimation” of probable
answers, and therefore the achievement of closure tout court, is in the purview of the
recipient: “[T]he impression of narrative closure occurs not simply when all the [questions]
Humanities 2022,11, 92 6 of 17
have been answered, but only when the informed audience member realizes they have been
answered” (ibid.: 5, 8; second emphasis in original; Klauk et al. 2016, pp. 25–26n13).9
Hence, it might be justified to posit that while the distinction of narrative closure may
be merited, it is worthwhile to drive such distinction deeper still. I would suggest that
reciprocally speaking (the experientiality of) closure itself can manifest in narrative terms
(say, in the digital discourse). Arguably, such a narratively-infused perspective could be
conceived of as disambiguation plotting. For, to borrow a phrase from Don P. Fowler, no
end-point is “hermetically sealed” (Fowler 1989, p. 80). Even the kinds that are supposed
to afford closure might necessarily not be successful in achieving the complete erasure of
doubt and suspicion. For example, in cases where some authority (e.g., a state government
or a creator of a television series) provides specific explanations and assumes the matter
is concluded.
Therefore, in engaging with various representations, the quest for closure may fre-
quently remain active. It might pre-empt any ‘final words’ from having any considerable
effect. Hence, closure can also be conceived as a purposeful activity (however obstinate)
of “organizing and keeping track of the representations of events and the states of affairs”
toward a kind of end explanation that ‘feels’ appropriate. Such a format of overt ques-
tioning, characterized and driven by suspicion, keeps “map[ping] a circumstantial space
of possibilities” by “plot[ting]
. . .
a line through that space” (Carroll 2007, p. 8; emphasis
added). For, if we were to regard our world as “open”, it is our storytelling that (at least
aims to) “close” it (Lawson 2013). Keeping the latter idea in mind, I will next conceptualize
the creative activity of contra-plotting and discuss its wider implications, which I have
tentatively termed disambiguation plotting.
3. Mistrust, Creative Suspicion, and Plotting
Recent scholarship on (social) trust, such as in fields like international politics, has
suggested that at least ever since the financial crisis of 2008 and the preceding watershed
of the 9/11 suspicion, uncertainty and insecurity permeate and are normalized in (liberal
Western) society, officialdom and popular alike. It is noted that to a significant degree, this
is exacerbated by “capitalism and anxiety revel[ing] in an intricate relationship which is
neigh-on impossible to separate” (Eklundh et al. 2017, p. 2). Whereas some governmental
actors (e.g., in the U.S. Transportation Security Administration) are explicitly trained and
tasked to maintain “anxious alertness” as a default stance of supposed threat prevention,
and law enforcement agencies consider suspicion as a type of a “logic of anticipation” for
procuring ‘actionable’ intelligence” (Guittet and Brion 2017, pp. 80, 83), laypeople have
grown increasingly distrustful of and prone to question authority and its policies (i.e.,
politicians and acclaimed experts, the “trustee[s] of the people”, according to the social
contract theory (Gumpert and Drucker 2007, pp. 189–90)). For the latter are perceived—
owing to the complex designs of governance—as decreasing transparency, complicating
popular oversight, and thus driving ever deeper the wedge between governance (‘the few’)
and governed (‘the many’) (Bakir and Barlow 2007, pp. 3–5).
10
Foregrounded by such
misgivings is peoples’ felt lack of “epistemic access”, their disadvantageous position vis-à-
vis what is perceived as “opaque” power: “It is hierarchy that blocks the direct knowledge
of the goals of reasoning of our leadership from those that are led” (Sanders and West 2003,
pp. 2–3; see also, Basham 2012, p. 52).
As Guittet and Brion put it, such tendencies lead to a condition where “we are all
watchers and suspects at the same time [and] what people say, do (or write) cannot be
trusted as such” (Guittet and Brion 2017, p. 84).
11
Such an atmosphere can be exacerbated
further by the contemporary overabundance of information due to the Internet. Some
scholars have remarked that, comparatively, the volume of information acquired by one
individual in the course of a lifetime in the 17th century equals the amount that can be read
in a single newspaper issue of today (Kuosa 2013, p. 93).
The previous observations on our era of suspicion and anxiety—what conspiracy the-
ory scholar Peter Knight has termed the “unmanageable reality”—lead us directly to the role
Humanities 2022,11, 92 7 of 17
of ambiguity in the contemporary (Western) volatile sociocultural context. An atmosphere
where embedded doubts persist within multiple layers of the power hierarchy throws what
I have called disambiguation plotting into exceptionally sharp relief. This “world anxiety”,
maintain creativity scholars Bonetto and Arciszewski, “seems to be the main cause for
creating new narratives that frame the world” (Bonetto and Arciszewski 2021, p. 918).
To counteract a persistent lack of closure, “invariabl[e] ‘sieving’ [of] the dominant
authorial storytelling [for] ostensible inconsistencies[, potential transgressions] and per-
ceived disruptions” (Sorokin 2018, p. 34)—especially prevalent in digital discussions spaces
and platforms—may cut across the very ontological boundaries ordinarily differentiating
truth and falsehood and fact and fiction. Accordingly, suspicion breeds an acute ubiquity,
power, and persuasion of narrative and storytelling identifiable in various areas of our
contemporary public life (Salmon 2017). For people aspire to rewrite in their terms any mat-
ter of interest perceived as incoherent. Conceivably, these alternative, counter-hegemonic
plottings include sense-making activities coalescing around a wide variety of topics, most
timely of those the suspicion-driven “citizen sleuths” of conspiracy theorizing.
Taking stock of the previous discussion, this section develops an initial understanding
of and proposes theoretical vocabulary for the umbrella concept of disambiguation plotting.
To that end, I will posit that the narrative activity of contra-plotting by plotters of suspicion
feeds on and breeds self-reproduced ambiguity. This terminology will then be drawn upon in
the Analysis in Section 4. It will focus on the discussion of the 1994 MS Estonia shipwreck
on the conspiracist forum Para-Web.
Recent years have offered several pertinent scholarly works that seek a more bal-
anced and scientifically objective understanding of conspiracy theorizing. These scholars
challenge the leading evaluative academic and social trend of the blanket stigmatization,
pathologization, and irrationalization of all varieties of such practice.
12
In my modest nar-
rative theoretical contribution toward the former tradition, broadly construed, I have been
inspired by the “particularist” stances from epistemological philosophy, anthropology, and
communication studies and by some cultural critiques disputing the received view of such
theorizing being antagonistic to the Enlightenment rationality underwriting contemporary
(post)modernity (e.g., Hagen 2022;Thalmann 2019;Dentith 2018;Rankin 2017;Barkun
2016;DeHaven-Smith 2013;Basham 2012;Aupers 2012;Coady 2006).13
Influenced by my overall microanalytical focus on the digital discourse dynamics, I
have previously noted the importance of the collaborative dimension contained in the verb
“to conspire”. Namely, its respective Latin roots—con (‘with’) and spirare (‘to breathe’)—
indicate conspiratorial plotting as an “act of ‘breathing together’ [
. . .
] a coordinated effort
of plotting for some particular purpose” by some “set of agents with a plan” acting (or
having acted) in secret (at least for a time) (Sorokin 2019, p. 72; 2021, p. 58). This literal
meaning—the “breathing together”—already suggests the second, concomitant meaning
evident in the common language. For where ”to plot” indicates something undertaken
by some real-life conspirators (a plan, an executed chain of events); it similarly imparts
the quality of storytelling. That is, there is “another set of people”—”epistemically vigilant
agents” (Sperber et al. 2010, p. 361)—who plot a story (in a similarly “coordinated effort”
though not in secret) about how and why these former supposed conspirators plot. In the
process, they challenge some official explanation, if one exists. Therefore, these plotters can
be viewed, in some cases, as being part of an “atypical for[m] of resistance against what is
seen as official truth” (Fassin 2021, p. 133). In short, they “plot (about) [those first order]
plotters—and that is fundamentally a narrative act” (Sorokin 2019, p. 76). Accordingly,
for the notion of “conspiracy theorizing” is a value-laden term with plentiful (even if in
many cases justifiably) negative baggage, it might be best to be reconceived as narrative
Contra-plotting. For “[f]aced with information perceived as unreliable, incomplete, or
contradictory, [plotters] plot arrangements of fact claims that “run contrary to accepted or
authorized beliefs” (Felski 2011, p. 16) [
. . .
] [into] alt-narrative[s] [that are] sanctioned by
their peers (but which may become contested internally)” (Sorokin 2019, p. 78).
Humanities 2022,11, 92 8 of 17
Contra-plotting, then, as I envision it, is a creative exercise in interpretative discovery.
In the case of ‘conspiracist’ explanations,
14
peoples’ contra-plotting aspires—by utilizing
the “raw materials of history” (Olmsted) and various other material or mental resources—to
piece together a potential outcome (to ‘close a case’) that would at least appear to make
(the most) sense (at a given time). Therefore, authors, such as Matthew Hayes and David
Lafferty, have recently rightly maintained that the plotters’ “imaginative speculation” in
“making sense of a world in which everything is connected” crucially hinges on their
creativity. By blurring “fact and fiction [within] narrative structures that are developed and
redeveloped many times”, they set themselves on a quest to overcome ambiguity (Hayles
2017, pp. 665, 667; Lafferty 2014, pp. 805, 807).15
However, it remains open, what could be understood as the driving force behind this
phenomenon of contra-plotting? If to cash in on the variety of multidisciplinary insights
discussed thus far, I would posit the core ‘motor’ being suspicion. In particular, suspicion
conceived as a creative and impellent affective force. However, what kind of implications
does the proposed adage for plotters, the “of suspicion”, tease out?
As I see it, “of suspicion” indicates two perspectives. (1) By contra-plotting one is
rigorously engaged in attempting to pursue ‘truth’ about some “event conspiracy” (Barkun
2003, p. 6) deemed “suspicious” by their peers (owing to the perceived status of the official
explanation narratives). As some authors in the field of conspiracism research have noted,
pursuant to such aims, contra-plotters’ interpretations are always already “continual”
(Fenster 2008, p. 94). In practice, therefore, (2) contra-plotting forecloses “the end” (i.e.,
“closure”) in any measure, type, or form.
Consequently, contra-plotting is characterized by a “mistrustful”, suspecting manner of
interpretation and investigation (Gambino and Pulvirenti 2019, p. 389;
Carey 2017, p. 100ff
).
As a digital articulation of “shrewd incredulity”, it perpetuates ambiguity by its very nature
(Barnwell 2016, p. 15). For the self-reproduction of ambiguity is its operative mode. Imaginatively
reasoned patterns of in-development, virtual knowledge with ever-expanding Aristotelian
‘middles’ (“the space of suspense” (Brooks 1992, p. 18) of deferred endings) are construed and
fitted together. A final, crystallized ‘truth’ is indeed sought, but as if by design, immediately
discarded upon (perhaps) at last grasping its contours. Insofar as the plotters of suspicion
endeavor to obliterate any suspicion and reach peer-agreed, concrete, and straightforward
event explanation, their very activity paradoxically creates—and is scaffolded on the eter-
nal existence of—suspicion. Nevertheless, how to explain “suspicion” itself, as a concept,
for present purposes? Moreover, how do the conceptual designs of creativity and affect
intersect here?
Though drawing from a somewhat different context, Ashley Barnwell’s (
Barnwell 2016
)
arguments might outline some possible answers.
16
Barnwell envisions suspicion as a “liv-
ing, dynamic form of [social] attention”, entrenched in a “pervasive hypervigilance”. It
carries a particular kind of creative potential and provides communal, shared significance
by attuning (giving “rhythm” for) peoples’ lives (ibid.: 12–14, 16). For Barnwell, suspicion
is something of a ‘motor’ of, or a motive force for, everyday knowledge—an affective ca-
pacity for its structuration (ibid.: 17). Suspicion, “reasoned [and] increasingly informe[d]”,
may come to enrich one’s knowledge reserves (Dalsgaard 2022, pp. 84–85). Therefore,
according to Barnwell, in uncovering an “explanatory logic”, suspicion both “knits” to-
gether and becomes “the knitting together of seemingly disparate events and utterances”
(
Barnwell 2016, p. 13
). By simultaneously indexing and making sense of the “ever-evolving
patterns of causality”, suspicion embodies a lived tapestry that may translate, or perhaps
instead weave itself into, popular knowledge. Although it “never seems to reach the closure
it desires, but continues to desire it nonetheless” (ibid.: 15).
As Barnwell’s discussion implies, suspicion, therefore, certainly holds affective, if not
altogether ‘reasonable’ merit,
17
especially in light of diminishing popular trust owing to in-
creasingly complex social designs and relationships in entrenched capitalism. In attempting
to understand events whose beginnings, say, are subjectively and collaboratively perceived
as concealed, suspicion—as Timothy Melley suggested—obtains a narrative quality.
Humanities 2022,11, 92 9 of 17
Accordingly, the presently proposed compound notion of plotters of suspicion en-
deavors to capture how suspicion—as a productive, creativity-enhanced affect in joint
cognitive activity—operates as a narrative filter in popular imagination’s confrontation
with uncertainty. Hence, suspicious thinking and plotting, for those involved, at the very
least afford the potential to eke out a “much more real” reality—a latent “substratum
hidden under the layer of appearance”. (Melley 2021, pp. 65, 66n10; Beckmann 2022;
Boltanski 2014, p. xv;
Gambino and Pulvirenti 2019, p. 148; cf. Felski 2011). Subsequently, I
will offer an illustrative close reading of some forum posts on Para-Web (from the periods
2004–2008 and 2020–2021) discussing the MS Estonia catastrophe. This is meant to sug-
gest how the ‘real-time’ occurrences of contra-plotting of suspicion could be rendered in
analytical terms.
4. Analysis
“If to compile all of the new knowledge with the old, then [ . . . ]”18
The limited analysis presented in this section aims to illustrate how “self-reproducing
ambiguity” underlies the activity of contra-plotting by the plotters of suspicion. My
data stem from the lively discourse around the catastrophic 1994 shipwreck of the cruise
ferry MS Estonia on Para-Web. The analysis is preceded by (1) a short overview of the
necessary contextual information about most recent, contested findings about the MS
Estonia shipwreck and the Para-Web forum and (2) a short methodological note on how
the data were collected and the overall analysis conducted.
A Few Words on Immediate Context and the Para-Web Forum
For present purposes, two recent real-world developments hold most significance:
(1) The
re-emergence of the MS Estonia catastrophe into the public eye due to the suppos-
edly revelatory Swedish docuseries Estonia—fyndet som ändrar allt. This five-part series
aired on Sweden’s Discovery Channel in September 2020, touching upon some of the
most well-known theories about the MS Estonia’s sinking. It depicted diving onto the
Baltic seafloor near the wreck. Specifically, the documentary’s key revelatory turn made it
evident that there indeed is a huge hole (or crevasse) in the ship’s hull—as had been long
speculated vis-a-vis the official narrative. (2) The two ongoing explorations on and about
the MS Estonia’s wreck, one of which discovered even more holes in the hull of the ship.
Para-Web is a bilingual (Estonian and English) conspiracist forum accommodating
diverse ‘alternative’ interest topics. My focus has been on its long-running thread (in
Estonian) on the MS Estonia shipwreck, titled “The Catastrophe of Estonia—accident?
Conspiracy?”
19
that can be found under a section titled “Secret Societies and Conspir-
acies” (itself a subsection of “Alternative History”). The thread was originally posted
in 2004 and contains to date (28 April 2022) over 2600 posts with almost 450,000 total
views.
20
These statistics highlight it as one of the most popular threads in this particular
forum environment.
Data Collection, Ethical Concerns, and Analysis Methodology21
For the present analysis, posts from (i) the outset of the Para-Web thread (2004–2008);
(ii) more recent (end of 2020); and (iii) recent (from September 2021) period were collected.
22
The process of complete data collection is still ongoing and contingent on the inflow of
user posts. Related ethical concerns were carefully weighed, and it was found that due
to the forum content existing in the public domain (user account to browse the forum
threads is not necessary), the anonymity of the user base (nicknames and avatars), and
user postings not containing what could be conceived as ethically sensitive information,
peoples’ privacy in the analyzed dataset has been respected and preserved (see, e.g.,
Creswell 2009, pp. 89–91
). The guiding objective of the analysis for these data was to
pinpoint narratively significant developments in real-time, that is, to detect continuities,
contrasts, and similarities in peoples’ plotting between these different time periods. The
analysis followed a Mixed Methods approach. (1) After a long-term observation of the
Humanities 2022,11, 92 10 of 17
discourse—itself a manifestation of “Big Data” (see, e.g., Vogt et al. 2014, pp. 158–65)—a
humanly manageable data sample for qualitative analysis was gathered from the Para-Web
thread and inserted into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet in two columns (user/date—post)
via copy and paste. This spreadsheet was, in turn, inserted into GATE Developer, a Digital
Humanities tool for computer-assisted coding. Data gathering and extraction processes
were followed by a preliminary surface reading and subsequent coding of the overall
sample via GATE and by hand. The coding process was inspired by a mixture of “motif”
and “narrative” coding practices, concentrating predominantly on the instances of and
plotting patterns featuring the motif of “hole” [auk] (or holes) in the ship’s hull, related
motifs and themes (e.g., revolving around ship’s visor, the theory of the bomb, potential
collision with a submarine, etc.), and their narrative interrelationships (for more on motif
and narrative coding, see, e.g., Saldaña 2009, pp. 105–12). (2) The computer-mediated
data analysis was followed by the utilization of qualitative methodology, namely, an
interpretative close reading of the emerging discourse considered across three time periods.
This stage of the analysis combined textual and narrative analyses and is presented below
(see, e.g., Vanderstoep and Johnson 2009, pp. 210–15). In addition to outlining the dynamics
of digital storytelling, such a format of analysis, too, “produces stories (e.g., [
. . .
] case
studies) [and] call[s] attention to the use of emplotment and narrative configuration as its
primary analytic tool” (Polkinghorne 1995, p. 6).
Analysis
In the early years of the Para-Web thread, the emergence of some clear overarching
premises can already be easily identified.
23
Ever since the initial posts, the overall common
understanding amongst the plotters is two-fold: the “real”, “actual truth” about MS Estonia
will not be known, and the state governments (and related institutions) involved (primarily
those of Estonia and Sweden) must have been (and are) “lying”, for why else would they
“fear new investigation[s]”, “keep silent”, or attempt to cover the wreck with concrete.
24
Accordingly, ‘the real story’ will remain partial and ambiguous, at best, and unknown, at
worst, because of “all the evidence having been eliminated” and presumably also because
of the enforcement of the gravesite sanctity law. Only one point, indeed, appears as the
most probable and agreed upon: that the MS Estonia catastrophe “cannot any longer be
sold as an accident”.
25
User Kaabulott, writing in 2006, explicitly references the breaking
news from two years earlier when a former Swedish customs officer claimed on Swedish
television that in September 1994 (the month of the shipwreck) MS Estonia had been used
to transport military equipment.
26
For Kaabulott, this revelation had been ground zero for
growing suspicious: “I got to say that I have never been much of an advocate of conspiracy
theories. [
. . .
] But after it came to light that the transport of weaponry indeed occurred,
everything changed. For if the governments already hid something of such magnitude,
they might hide something else, too”.27
Indeed, a number of posters from this early period (2004–2008) foreground the “bomb
version” (at least partially influenced by German freelance journalist Jutta Rabbe’s diving
expedition leading to earliest claims of holes in the ship’s hull, i.e., “the theory of the
hole”
28
): “What is clear is that the visor discharged by a bomb”. At the same time, though,
some remain skeptical of Rabbe, for apparently she neither “glimpsed nor photographed
[any] hole”, i.e., it may well just be idle talk, unsubstantiated by evidence.
29
There are also
suggestions that Rabbe herself might have been an agent of subterfuge, as it were: her
“story could have also been only for deception [
. . .
] Maybe she was paid for her story to
calm people down or something”.30
Be that as it may, in 2006, a photograph circulated in the Para-Web thread depicting
the hole. Due to broken hyperlinks, however, it remains impossible to confirm whether
the plotters engaged with a modeled, speculative simulation or, indeed, an actual footage
capture of some sort.
31
Nevertheless, the dissemination of such imagery leads to further
elaborations on the bomb theory. Hence, user madman07, who posted the image, opines
Humanities 2022,11, 92 11 of 17
that in the depiction “the edges of the hole are torn from the inside to outside”, such as “in
case of an explosion”.
32
Whereas zepac supposes the reverse: the hole was inflicted from
inside-out due to “some object breaking out of that side at some point”.33
Two years later still, Paavo’s plotting could be, perhaps, seen as covering the more
realistic ground. Drawing on insight from resources, such as computer simulations sinking
the model MS Estonia and survivor testimonies, Paavo downplays the potentiality of a
bomb explosion in favor of the “fact” of the visor breaking off (“at around 1:30 a.m.”)
being the direct result of prior “large-scale” negligence surrounding the ship’s construction.
Something supposedly keenly hushed (and covered) up, even by resorting to the “murder
[of] star witnesses”. Hence, it is maintained that “an explanation [for the loss of visor] does
not necessarily presuppose a bomb. For Estonia was not the first ship whose handle of
the visor lock had been broken up”. While key Estonian personnel (e.g., Avo Pihl) were
supposedly knowledgeable of and “anxious about ship’s condition”, Paavo writes, their
Swedish counterparts “did not want to keep the ship in repairs even for a single day”,
and to top everything off, the eligibility documents for sea voyage of MS Estonia had also
been “forged”.
However, the subsequent reply by Thorondor appears to contest this particularly time-
coded reading of the “fact” of the visor breaking off.
34
Paavo elaborates further in the
next post, explicitly instrumentalizing survivor testimonies: some escaped by supposedly
“hanging on [ship’s] ramp”, but “[f]rom the outside of the ship the access to the ramp
became possible only after the visor had separated”. Paavo also notes computer simulations
“which put the time of the accident earlier”. This latter insight especially is of foundational
importance for Paavo, paving the way to the final presupposition “that the visor separated
around 1:00 (this time fits the simulations the best), not fifteen minutes later, as the report
claims”. Consequently, any theories of the visor breaking off gradually become effectively
disqualified (e.g., the official version in the report). By foreclosing any ‘straightforward’ or
most ‘obvious’ explanations, ambiguity is necessarily insisted upon: “Something critical
occurred, visor separated momentarily, that is a few minutes at maximum, and soon Estonia
had sunk”.35
Now, while a great number of earlier plotting examples can be highlighted that, sim-
ilarly to Paavo’s, feature mining insight from various (intermedial) resources (e.g., user
mart46, writing a few months later, who integrates a document of an official VINNOVA
flooding test conducted in Sweden,
36
also see below). I will next focus on more contempo-
rary data (2020–2021) for the remainder of this section, noting developmental correlations
of these vis-a-vis the 2004–2008 plottings where appropriate.
Many Para-Web discussions from 2020 are illuminated by coming to terms with the at
the time just established ‘fact’ about the existence of one gaping hole in the ship’s hull (due
to the Swedish documentary noted at the outset of this section). Several subthreads emerge
with mutual back-and-forth replies highlighting particular facets of this finding and linking
it, albeit indirectly, to discussions almost two decades ago. One of such is initiated by
a post featuring a schematic image of what might be a construction blueprint of the MS
Estonia. The image appears to foreground one of the flanks of the cruise ferry, with the
below the deck area especially zoomed in on, indicated by a circle drawn in red.
37
In the
accompanying commentary, it is reasoned (though the closing winking eye emoji leaves the
post somewhat ambiguous) that due to hole’s position—above the ship’s carcass—maybe
the “welded seam”, due to being “delicate”, was “torn asunder”. Hence there might not
even have been any “big bang”, for a “tiny nudge” from the visor would have sufficed.38
It is notable here how the discussion and theories revolving around the “bomb version”
from the 2004–2008 period begin to be updated with novel, contemporary assemblies of
virtual knowledge applied to it. The initial suggestion of the “welded seam” beckons
further refinement from subsequent plotters. Hence, in developing further the hypothesis
(or its incorrectness) about the “welded seam”, the potential significance of the visor, and
the possible explosion, the replies draw further insight from sources as diverse as the
aforementioned Swedish documentary (Mauno: “[T]he force of the impact was calculated
Humanities 2022,11, 92 12 of 17
[there] based on the indented dint not [based on the hole itself]”); elementary knowledge of
(or lack thereof of) ship building (Geargirl: “[W] ouldn’t it be easier to weld the hull together
from rectangular metal plates? This hole, however, is askew, isn’t it?”); a profession-related
visit to a Swedish pipe factory (Aadu66: “[T]he welded seam was stronger than any other
part of the pipe
. . .
it never was torn asunder”); or the well-known fact of a strong storm
on the night of the shipwreck (Vasamasa: “[T]he wave banged [on it], the weight of the
visor + the mass of the water pushing it = damage to ship’s hull”).39
However, in what ways will any of these plottings from 2004 to 2020 so far considered
develop in the face of the most up-to-date and revelatory information, i.e., the finding of
more than one hole in the hull? Around the end of September 2021, a number of news items
were published (in the widely popular web portal Delfi), overviewing and detailing the
most recent findings by two investigation crews, with one of those discovering even more
holes in the ship’s hull. Given the central focus of the motifs of “hole” and “visor”, as well
as the “theory of the bomb”, in the Para-Web discourse across decades, I would find it
helpful, if only briefly, to zoom in on the posts written around the matching period.
On September 29, Mauno posts a YouTube video uploaded by a self-professed inde-
pendent Swedish research group Fokus Estonia.
40
User engagement with this particular
contributed resource led to an almost identical discussion from 2006 as if seamlessly picking
up where the latter had left off. For here, we have user I’ll be back inquiring: “Interesting,
how could have the explosion caused deformation on the visor from outside-in?”
41
In
replies, more hypotheses are entertained, such as “[p]erhaps the explosives were already
planted beforehand[?]”42
Yet, just as there are users, such as kr1s (in the previous quote), who are still on board
with the bomb suspicion (or explanation), some others discard the bomb theory entirely,
responding to I’ll be back’s inquiry by suggesting that the “[b]ig dent on the nose of the
visor is due to a collision with the bulbous bow after the former had broken off from the
ship”.
43
While Sturm appears to treat the latter proposal as a definite, almost everything
else is left ambiguous, however, from the supposed time of the visor’s separation (“did it
precipitate the accident, or was the ship already listing by the time of the visor’s separation,
with people escaping”) to the plausibility of JAIC’s official theory (“[f]or [it] to be tenable,
the visor had to already have been broken off and the ramp wide ajar on the moment the
listing started”). Nevertheless, if the official theory is found to be untenable, “there’s a
strong probability for the water to get in from somewhere else”, that is, from any of the
holes so far discovered.44
Meanwhile, Zaqzaq has explored the Swedish YouTube clip in closer detail. The latter
leads them to the observation that, given Fokus Estonia’s apparent suggestion that the
explosion was “executed later, under the water”, the question arises: “[U]nder water,
later why?”
45
Yet, a possible explosion (to get rid of the visor for a yet unknown reason)
notwithstanding, Zaqzaq does allow that the “later removal of the visor” would “fit with
everything” but only “if there wouldn’t be such a confident testimony by Ain-Alar Juhanson
[one of the survivors] about climbing along the ramp”.46
Now, perhaps no other post more aptly exemplifies what this illustrative close reading
analysis in the present section has attempted to achieve than TTT’s remark used as an
epigraph: “If to compile all of the new knowledge with the old, then
. . .
” For TTT, this
means an increasing appreciation toward “the bomb theory”, or, as they specify, “the
theory of 2–3 bombs, to be precise”.
47
According to TTT’s plotting, one significant ‘clue’
has to be “for starters, this time of day, [the] 1 am sharp”, as if knowingly recalling Paavo’s
2006 computer simulation-derived hypothesis on when the visor was supposed to have
separated. For “until now the several bangs” around the time past 1am “had been taken as
the visor thumping, but probably needlessly so” (the latter point seems to implicitly take
into account the official JAIC report of the visor separating gradually, thumping as it did).
Instead, TTT surmises, “it appears that one blasting charge was by the visor”. Drawing
on the communal knowledge reserves, TTT finds it appropriate to conclude the latter
being the case for “that is why the investigator threw away the cap screw of the lock
. . .
Humanities 2022,11, 92 13 of 17
recognizing the signs of an explosion by eye”. Due to the explosions, therefore, the visor is
“in essence hidden away”, has its “hinges [cut off]” (for those would “betray” an explosion),
and new details have been welded onto the wreck as replacements after the ship had gone
under (an observation also shared by Zaqzaq48).
5. Concluding Remarks
The tragic shipwreck of the MS Estonia, with only its ending fully known and ‘com-
plete’, begets pages upon pages of forum posts to this day, especially when some new piece
of information is publicized. Even in the wake of a controversial Swedish television exposé
featuring the first ‘hard proof’ of a gaping hole in the ship’s hull—something that had
been long speculated as existent and presumably responsible for the quick sinking—the
plotters in the analyzed Para-Web thread did not sit idly by but kept “wondering why”.
They insisted on revisiting the topic of the “hole”, by ever so slightly shifting attention to
the concomitant minutiae. The central inquiry into the possibilities that once reinforced the
potentiality of such a hole were diverted to instead target as well as reuse potentialities of
the “how?” (was the hole inflicted) and (by) “what?” (e.g., a strong wave, visor’s impact,
or submarine collision). Obviously, any of these inquiries are complicated even further
due the most recent publicized findings by investigation crews. Whereas the apparent
confirmation of the existence of not one, but many holes is taken at least to some degree as
vindicating some of plotters’ key assumptions going back almost two decades, this very
acknowledgment comes with further inquiries attached, yet to be ‘solved’. Therefore, al-
though the most wholesome “closure” is naturally preferred, partial closures, if to call them
that (e.g., the confirmation about the holes), may rather act as discursive reconfigurators.
The
central aim
of this article was to provide the means for the advancement of
knowledge with regard to the very timely issue of digital conspiracism by way of a mul-
tidisciplinary synthesis. To this end, the article made its case primarily as a theoretical
exploration. It sought to develop less value-laden vocabulary for and critical apparatus
cognizant of and bring to bear various insights from several scholarly disciplines interested
in conspiracism discourses, while enriching these individual scholarly fields in the process.
Therefore, on the top of reconceptualizing “conspiracy theorizing” as contra-plotting, other
foundational notions in its field of meaning, such as “ambiguity” and “suspicion” were
developed accordingly.
Future research would entail further refinement of the proposed theoretical vocabulary
and the continuation of the empirical study. Similarly, it may prove helpful to identify
potential comparative digital environments (e.g., commentary sections accompanying
topical news stories (Sorokin n.d.) as well as other forums with topical content) and topics
(e.g., COVID denialism, antivaxxers, 9/11 ‘truth’ movement) within both the local and
international corpora.
Funding:
Research for this article was supported by the European Union Regional Development
Fund (Center of Excellence in Estonian Studies).
Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicable.
Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable.
Data Availability Statement: Not applicable.
Acknowledgments:
I am very thankful for the insightful conceptual suggestions and critical com-
mentary by the three anonymous reviewers and, especially, by the Academic Editor of Humanities. I
am also grateful to my Research Group for listening to and giving useful feedback on some of the
initial ideas elaborated on in this article.
Conflicts of Interest: The author declares no conflict of interest.
Humanities 2022,11, 92 14 of 17
Notes
1For more details, see: https://onse.fi/estonia/summary.html and passim (accessed on 19 April 2022).
2
For more on the ferry and the sinking, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Estonia; and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Sinking_of_the_MS_Estonia (accessed on 11 November 2021).
3
While the use of a relatively old study might at first glance appear surprising, the up-to-date online resource The Living Handbook
of Narratology does not list the notion of “ambiguity” at all. For this reason, the usage of Concept of Ambiguity seemed appropriate.
4
“Ambiguity”, Etymonline, accessed on 18 May 2021, <https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=ambiguity>; emphases added.
Bahti notes that the root ambo also holds the meaning of “both, two together, doubled”. For him, this suggests ambiguity as
indicating “the doubled or duplicitous character of signification. A sign represents one thing or meaning, and another (and
another)” (Bahti 1986, pp. 210n3, 211; emphasis in original).
5
Cognitive linguist Thijs Pollmann observes that although “zooming in and out of” a text may lead to “a coherent interpretation”,
the “logic of coherence” itself is such that it never coheres as “objectively true”. Rather, what may be maximally attained is “a
conclusion that makes the favored interpretation more probable than others” (Pollmann 2000, p. 173). This observation correlates
directly with the concept of “closure”, discussed below.
6
See also, Abbott (2005, p. 66); Kermode (1966, p. 127ff); and real-life events employed as “raw materials of history”, Olmsted
(2009, p. 7).
7
Klauk, et al. take Carroll’s usage of “phenomenological” to denote closure as a “phenomenon that is as yet unexplained”
(Tobias Klauk et al. (2016, p. 25n11)). While Carroll indeed is not explicit about this usage, I am inclined to take this term in its
conventional meaning, i.e., indicating a certain experiential quality undergone by the reader/viewer.
8
Cf. Rabinowitz’s “inertial” [conforming to one’s expectations] and “non-inertial” [non-conformative] endings—“neither necessar-
ily yielding or failing to yield closure”; Abbott (2005, p. 66). Don J. Fowler suggests that Barbara Herrnstein Smith, in her classic
Poetic Closure, adapted the concept from Gestalt psychology (see, Fowler 1989, p. 78n11; Herrnstein Smith 1968, p. 33n29). For a
recent development on Smith’s ideas, see, Segal (2007). Klauk et al. note that while (i) no consensus in contemporary scholarship
about the definition of closure exists (Klauk et al. 2016, p. 23); (ii) earliest narratological accounts of the notion, without explicitly
using the term, may have started with Gerald Prince’s discussion of narrativity and “feeling of wholeness” (ibid.: 26n14). For an
earlier account, see Fowler’s typology; as well as his concise historiography on the treatments of closure esp. in 20th-century
classicist literary criticism (Fowler 1989, pp. 75–78; cf. Klauk et al. 2016, p. 22n1).
9
I would also affix this with “
. . .
and agrees with the answers”. Carroll’s argument for specifically narrative closure, though,
coalesces around what he calls “erotetic narrative”: a “network of questions and answers” (Carroll 2007, p. 5). The implication
here is that there ought to be something question-like evoked by a narrative, thereupon earmarked by the audience (“who is the
murderer?”, “will the murderer be caught?” being the most prominent examples). However, what of cases where specific event
explanations and, in particular, their underlying minute details—both in fiction and in real life—elicit questions in their own
right, well beyond any authorial intent (broadly construed)?
10
Amongst USA, UK and Australia, Bakir and Barlow also note trust in government being low in “many post-socialist countries”
(ibid.: 5).
11
As Ossa-Richardson puts it: “Every action, every decision, every law, every televised utterance has seemed parsable in two ways
or more. [ . . . ] Uncertainty appears all-encompassing” (Ossa-Richardson 2019, p. 2).
12
A series of empirical studies conducted by philosopers Napoliano and Reuter showed that “the predominant sense of conspiracy
theory is evaluative”. In the first study, 150 respondents were tasked to denote three conditions for something to be a “conspiracy
theory”, with only a single respondent “stat[ing] that a conspiracy theory is [something that is] claimed to be false by officials”.
This result was further reinforced by a vignette study with 101 respondents. Finally, a corpus analysis of posts in Reddit featuring
evaluative adjectives and term “conspiracy theory” corroborated the findings further still, with out of 50 most frequent adjectives
25 being negative (for comparison: same study for “theory” resulted in 6 out 50 being negative evaluations) (for more details, see,
Napoliano and Reuter 2021). See also, Fassin (2021, pp. 129–30, 132–33), for a critical discussion on Popperian and Hofstadterian
legacies in conspiracy theory research.
13
For a working definition of “conspiracy theory” as such, I have found history scholar Cornel Zwierlein’s broad definition most
productive for it underscores both the tricky ambiguity instrumental to any such ‘theory’, and its dimension of narrativized
(and counterfactualized) past. Observes Zwierlein: in “mix[ing] fact and fiction
. . .
[a] conspiracy theory is typically a narrative of a
possible past constructed with a material of a large amount of facts that have really happened and that are commonly accepted as ‘real’ and
other fictions, or at least not proven and not commonly accepted elements which are supposed to have happened” (Zwierlein 2013,
p. 70; emphasis added).
14
In this article, I am exploring the notion of contra-plotting through conspiracy theorizing discourse (viz., by plotters of suspicion).
And while it is not the present objective, I would argue that the activity of contra-plotting also applies, with necessary modifica-
tions, for digital fan discussions on, say, widely popular television serials (e.g., Breaking Bad). I am exploring these connections in
my most recent work, (Sorokin n.d.).
Humanities 2022,11, 92 15 of 17
15
Creativity researchers Eric Bonetto and Thomas Arciszewski have very recently argued that a conspiracy theory, as “an original
explanation of a specific event” satisfies the “standard definition of creativity” (i.e., an idea/object is both original and meaningful)
(Bonetto and Arciszewski 2021, pp. 917–18). I would tentatively specify this further, however. For notwithstanding how “creative”
one or another narrative itself is, the ground level activity of plotting—the productive ’walk-about’ within and beyond one
particular “event conspiracy”—might ultimately prove even more so.
16
The discussion in Barnwell (2016) is grounded in a critical reading of Kathleen Stewart’s Ordinary Affects. Briefly put, Barnwell
maintains that although Stewart announces to observe the workings of everyday “paranoia” from the perspective of affect,
hence signifying a turn away from the “hermenutics of suspicion” of conventional cultural and critical theory, she ends up
reinforcing it (ibid.: 14). Incidentally, Barnwell’s observation that a scholar may share, or ultimately come to mimic, the “vigilant,
interpretative attention” under scrutinity calls to mind an argument from conspiracy theory literature on the similar “logics”
of scientific theorizing and experimentation, and conspiracy theorizing, respectively (Roniger and Senkman 2019; see also,
Barnwell 2016, p. 17
). Finally, whilst Barnwell appears to employ “paranoia” and “suspicion” synonymously, I have opted for
the latter to avoid yet another value-laden term.
17
As George E Marcus has put it about conspiracy theories, they may be “a ‘reasonable’ component of rational and commonsensical
thought and experience in certain contexts”.
18 From the post by TTT (29 September 2021) from the Para-Web thread on MS Estonia.
19 Here and subsequently, all translations from Estonian to English are mine.
20
It is worth to note that most recently also a new thread (“Part II”) has been posted to apparently prevent data loss. So far it has
105 posts and 18,000 total views (visited: 28 April 2022): https://para-web.org/showthread.php?tid=10239.
21
The analysis and data preparation methodology described are adapted from my previous work (see, Sorokin 2019, pp. 74–78;
2021, pp. 64–68).
22 The whole thread can be found here: https://para-web.org/showthread.php?tid=569 (accessed on 3 July 2022).
23
Parts of the present analysis of the Para-Web dataset also appear in my other recent work (see, Sorokin 2021). In this article,
however, some of it is elaborated on by yet unpublished insight, however.
24 e.g., posters rha (9 October 2004), Kaabulott (2 April 2006), undikoer (1 October 2007), HidoTozi (4 June 2009).
25 Rha ibid.
26 Marguuus (28 August 2006).
27
https://web.archive.org/web/20110613015500/http://svt.se/2.13038/1.293822/translation_in_english (visited: 12 November 2021).
28 Kaabulott (2 April 2006).
29 Ibid.
30 Rha, ibid.
31 Gulja (30 March 2006).
32
Non-functioning hyperlinks in conspiracist discourses have, in fact, also received recent scholarly attention; see, e.g., Easterbrook
(2022).
33 Madman07 (29 August 2006).
34 zepac (29 August 2006).
35 Paavo (29 February 2008, 19:59); Thorondor (29 February 2008, 20:44).
36
Paavo (29 February 2008, 21:45). Mart46 (25 July 2008) specifies even further, observing that “Estonia is the first ’eligible for
sea voyage’ ship in the history of sea voyage which wrecked faster than for instance the German ship Wilhelm Gustloff which
received a three-time torpedo hit. It is a true miracle which seems to be last plentiful time and money to be proved”.
37 mart46 (25 July 2008). See https://archive.md/rJ6Uo (visited: 13 November 2021).
38
For the image (already inaccessible through the forum), see https://ibb.co/RyJshHJ [uploaded 15 March 2021]. At least for me it
proved impossible to find its origin. It could also be sketched by this user themselves.
39 Vasamasa (16 November 2020 18:09).
40 (Mauno 16 November 2020); (Geargirl.(16 November 2020); (Aadu66, 17 November 2020); (Vasamasa, 17 November 2020).
41
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zup7OxqMyoo [https://web.archive.org/web/20211114182206/https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=zup7OxqMyoo] (visited and archived: 14 November 2021).
42 I’ll be back (29 September 2021).
43 kris (29 September 2021).
44 Sturm (29 September 2021).
45 ZaqZaq (29 September 2021).
46 Ibid.
47 TTT (29 September 2021).
Humanities 2022,11, 92 16 of 17
48
Ibid. TTT argues the “second” and “third” charge to have been placed on the car deck, possibly to account for the quick flooding
and hence, sinking of the ship.
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