Research Associate at the Hellenic Folklore Research Centre of the Academy of Athens
anounanaki@academyofathens.gr
I am a Research Associate at the Hellenic Folklore Research Centre of the Academy of Athens and hold a PhD in Folklore Studies. My research focuses on digital folklore, contemporary narrative genres, and the vernacular production of belief in online environments.
A central strand of my work examines conspiracy theories as contemporary forms of popular narrative, exploring how they combine rumours, legends, mythological motifs, pseudo-scientific claims, and platform-specific modes of circulation.
I am particularly interested in the ways digital communities construct, negotiate, and stabilize alternative explanations of reality, often transforming fragmented cultural materials into persuasive narrative systems.
My work also focuses on TikTok and other social media platforms as spaces where conspiratorial imaginaries are performed, visualized, commented on, and collectively reworked. My academic contributions include peer-reviewed publications and presentations at international conferences on digital folklore, popular belief, conspiracy narratives, and online vernacular expression.
Relevant publications
My work relates to conspiracy theory through my interest in how alternative explanations of reality are narrated, circulated, and made meaningful in digital environments. Rather than approaching conspiracy theories only as misinformation or false belief, I examine them as culturally productive narrative systems that draw on familiar motifs, symbolic materials, rumours, myths, and claims of hidden knowledge. I am especially interested in how these narratives gain authority through repetition, affective intensity, pseudo-evidential language, and participatory circulation on social media platforms. In this sense, my work explores conspiracy theory as a form of contemporary vernacular meaning-making, shaped by digital media, collective imagination, and popular belief.
Nounanaki, A.-L. & Zochios, S. (under publication). Orthodox Apocalyptic Discourse and the “Mark of the Beast”: Authority, Technology, and Conspiracy Transmission, Journal of Religion and Pop Culture.
Nounanaki, A.-L. (under publication). Neocosmological Myths: Activists, Media, and World-Making Respondent to Toni Saarinen’s article “Agency in the Apocalypse: Late Modern Conspiracism’s Vision of Human Action in Eschatological Times.” Cultural Analysis.
Nounanaki, A.-L. (2024). “(Re)inventing a National Myth: A New Narrative on the Origin of the Greek Nation through Conspiracy Thinking”. Contemporary Legend 2 (June):1-21. https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/cl/article/view/38425
Kakampoura, R. & Nounanaki, A.-L. (2022) Conspiracy Theories about the Pandemic of COVID-19 and their Function on the Greek Internet. In
Papadakis, S. & Kapaniaris, A. (ed.) The Digital Folklore of Cyberculture and Digital Humanities. IGI Global: 46-78.