The Media Anthropology Network e-seminars are email-based discussions centred on media anthropology-related papers (e.g., working papers, published materials) or events (e.g., follow-up seminars on workshops or panels). Discussions typically run over a two-week period, with discussion materials circulated in advance by the Network Convenors. Each e-seminar features a moderator and discussants to facilitate discussion; however, all list members are welcome to participate. Many authors find constructive feedback valuable in enhancing their manuscripts for publication.
- Subscribe to the EASA Network for Media Anthropology (MediaNet) mailing list
- E-seminar seminar archive (featuring presented papers and discussion transcripts)
- Propose a paper for a future e-seminar to network coordinators.
The seminar will run from Monday, 30 Mar – Sunday, 12 Apr.
Memeing the Great Reset: Circulating post-COVID conspiracies in the UK Freedom Movement
Paper for the EASA Media Anthropology Network E-Seminar Series
March 2026
by Campbell Thomson (King’s College London)
Abstract
This paper argues that memes can be regarded as social practices for understanding how conspiratorial narratives circulate and are transformed within the UK’s “conspiracy-attuned” Freedom Movement. The Movement first emerged in opposition to COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates in 2020. It has expanded to organise around a wider range of issues, including opposing urban Low Emission Zones (LEZs) and “15-Minute City” schemes, Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), and “chemtrail” sightings. These issues are understood to form part of an (allegedly) unfolding “Great Reset”: a secretive plot to abolish democracy and establish a technocratic world government, to the terms of the World Economic Forum (WEF). The paper draws on a year of online and in-person fieldwork conducted with Movement activists in 2022 and 2023. Introducing the concept of memeing, I argue that memes are not only digital artefacts but practices which invoke mutually recognised genres across both online and in-person interactions. I demonstrate how the “Great Reset” is made recognisable, portable and affectively resonant across protest marches, Instagram parody accounts and webshow discussions. In doing so, this paper contributes to anthropological approaches to digital politics, in which boundaries between online and in-person life are increasingly fluid.