CONSPIRACY: WHO REALLY RUNS THE WORLD?

ACTIVITIES

Guidance

These activities support a variety of individual, paired and group work and can be chosen and adapted to suit the needs of the students involved.

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Programme-related activities

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www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/
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Was 9/11 a US government plot?

Ask pupils if they believe that George Bush wanted 9/11 to happen for political reasons, and may even have been involved in organising it? Ask them to research conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11, using the websites in Find out more, and then ask the question again. Do they still give the same answer? If their views have changed, what's different? Do they believe more, or less, strongly in a conspiracy theory behind 9/11? Why?

The influence of the internet

In groups or pairs, ask pupils to brainstorm and list the benefits and dangers of the way that any individual can transmit information and ideas via the internet to huge audiences. Discuss findings with the whole class.

Are you a conspiracy believer?
Clip: 34:10 – 39:34

• In (narrator): 'Both Chris and Patrick strongly believe that some people are more likely…'
• Out (narrator): '…are key to determining whether you will believe in conspiracies.'

View the experiment on the programme, then ask pupils to decide whether they tend to believe in conspiracy theories or are more likely to dismiss them. They can then see if their prediction was correct by using Patrick Leman's online Conspiracy Test:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/
conspiracy_files/6161425.stm

Points for pupils to discuss:

• What lies behind your tendency to believe or disbelieve?
• Do you agree with Patrick Leman's assessment of the types of people who are more likely to believe conspiracy theories?

What makes a plausible conspiracy theory?

In groups, ask pupils to consider the three conspiracy theorists shown in the programme:

• Tony Topping, who claims to have had alien experiences
• David Icke, who believes in the Illuminati
• Jon King, who thinks Diana was assassinated.

Groups can then discuss:

• Which of the three do you find most plausible? Why?
• If you have doubts about any of them, what is it that makes you uncertain?