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Social media can advocate for social causes and catalyse audience support. To better understand the role of social media in advocacy communication, this article explores how advocates utilised Facebook to advocate for the 'Taa Marbuta' women empowerment campaign in Egypt. Our research draws on the dragonfly effect model and muted group theory as theoretical and analytical frameworks. In-depth interviews are conducted with advocates from all campaign partners who were directly involved in planning and managing the campaign. Following the dragonfly effect model, findings show that the campaign has a clear goal and uses various message strategies and pop culture for grabbing audience attention and generating audience engagement; however, there is no clear call for action. Thematic analysis also reveals two emerging themes: customisation of women empowerment communication and a supportive community of women empowerment that can stimulate societal debates necessary for social change. This study contends that including men can mitigate the muted effect on women in a male-dominant society and paves the way towards women's empowerment. Overall, this study shows how social media helps make the 'Taa Marbuta' campaign an icon of women empowerment.

Despite regular reference to conspiracy theories as a "belief system," few studies have attempted to explore the structure and organization of conspiracy beliefs beyond an examination of correlations between those beliefs. Employing unique data from two national surveys that includes respondent beliefs in 27 conspiracy theories, we decipher the substantive dimensions along which conspiracy beliefs are organized, as well as subgroupings within those dimensions. We find that variation in these conspiracy beliefs can be accounted for with two dimensions: the first regards partisan and ideological identities, while the other is composed of anti-social orientations, such as narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and acceptance of political violence. Importantly, these two dimensions are uncorrelated. We also find that conspiracy beliefs group together by substantive content, such as those regarding partisan actors or science/medicine. Our findings also demonstrate that inferences about the correlates of conspiracy beliefs are highly contingent on the specific conspiracy theories employed by researchers. We provide suggestions for future research in this vein.

AbstractContemporary political ills at the mass behavior level (e.g., outgroup aggression, conspiracy theories) are often attributed to increasing polarization and partisan tribalism. We theorize that many such problems are less the product of left‐right orientations than an orthogonal "anti‐establishment" dimension of opinion dominated by conspiracy, populist, and Manichean orientations. Using two national surveys from 2019 and 2020, we find that this dimension of opinion is correlated with several antisocial psychological traits, the acceptance of political violence, and time spent on extremist social media platforms. It is also related to support for populist candidates, such as Trump and Sanders, and beliefs in misinformation and conspiracy theories. While many inherently view politics as a conflict between left and right, others see it as a battle between "the people" and a corrupt establishment. Our findings demonstrate an urgent need to expand the traditional conceptualization of mass opinion beyond familiar left‐right identities and affective orientations.