Inside the Mind of QAnon: An interview with Mia Bloom

Issue 17: An interview with Mia Bloom about QAnon; why people believe in conspiracy theories; the role of polarization on campus; our argument with Facebook; and win an autographed copy of our book.

This week, we were thrilled to interview Dr. Mia Bloom, Professor of Communication and Middle East Studies at Georgia State University, about her new book, ‘Pastels and Pedophiles: Inside the Mind of QAnon’.

Dr. Bloom is a leading expert on extremism and has published several books on this issue, including ‘Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror’, ‘Bombshell: Women and Terror’, and ‘Small Arms: Children and Terror’. She has conducted field work in Europe, the Middle East and South Asia, and recently began examining radicalization of Americans via the QAnon conspiracy theory.

With her co-author and fellow expert on radicalization, Sophia Moskalenko, Dr. Bloom explains the rapid rise of QAnon, its particular appeal to women, and how we can support friends or family who have fallen under its thrall. We have written about cult psychology, the problems with social media, and political polarization in previous newsletters and were interested in how these issues relate to the rise of the…