I have studied conspiracy theories for over fifteen years, long enough to remember when the topic raised eyebrows in academic circles. My work focuses on the semiotic logic that makes conspiratorial narratives persuasive: how they construct interpretive communities, exploit ambiguity, and turn suspicion into a worldview. I am particularly interested in how conspiracy theories resonate with people's genuine interests, social needs, and desires for meaning, and how this resonance is instrumentalised in strategic communication. I was born on 28 September, the date of the Estonia ferry disaster and the subject of some of the most persistent conspiracy theories in Estonian collective memory.
Since 2019 I have published extensively on Russian-origin influence operations, analysing how threat narratives, blame attributions, and fear discourses are constructed in media coverage of hybrid warfare. This work appears in journals including Media, War & Conflict, European Security, and Armed Forces & Society. I also collaborate with strategic communication specialists and defence institutions, which keeps the research grounded in real operational concerns.
Theory matters more when it is useful. I have contributed to two publicly accessible media literacy platforms: a learning environment for the Estonian Defence Forces to help conscripts recognise and critically interpret hostile influence techniques (https://mojutustehnikad.ee/), and an educators' toolkit developed within the Erasmus+ SHIELD project on critical digital literacy in higher education (https://shieldvsdisinfo.com/educators-e-toolkit). I have also actively communicated my research findings to broader audiences through Estonian media.
Strategic Conspiracy Narratives: A Semiotic Approach (Routledge, 2020, with Andreas Ventsel)
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429020384
This book develops an original theoretical framework for analysing how conspiracy theories function as strategic tools in contemporary information conflicts. Drawing on the Tartu-Moscow semiotic tradition, Ernesto Laclau's discourse theory, and strategic narrative research, it conceptualises conspiracy theories as semiotic conflicts in which competing meaning systems clash over the definition of social reality. The analytical backbone combines Umberto Eco's concepts of the Model Reader and the Model Author with strategic narrative theory, examining how conspiracy narratives target specific audiences, shape their interpretive horizons, and guide them towards desired meanings. The empirical analysis focuses on conspiracy theories depicting George Soros as an omnipotent villain across political discourse, marketing, and alternative knowledge communities. The book argues that conspiracy theories are more dangerous than discrete misinformation because they function as interpretive anchors that systematically redirect how audiences make sense of entire series of events.
Discursive Opportunities for the Estonian Populist Radical Right in a Digital Society (Problems of Post-Communism, 2019, with Andres Kasekamp and Louis Wierenga)
https://doi.org/10.1080/10758216.2018.1445973
This article analyses how the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE) used social media to build political prominence. Through thematic and semiotic analysis of EKRE's Facebook and Twitter content, it identifies four core narrative themes: an anti-Russian stance, Euroskepticism, traditional family values, and anti-immigration discourse. The study shows how these themes are held together by conspiracy theory frameworks that construct simple causal explanations for complex social developments. The article situates EKRE within the broader landscape of Central and Eastern European populist radical right parties, highlighting how digital communication has enabled new forms of political mobilisation outside mainstream media.
Discourse of fear in strategic narratives: The case of Russia's Zapad war games (Media, War & Conflict, 2021, with Andreas Ventsel, Sten Hansson and Vladimir Sazonov)
https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635219856552
This article analyses how fear functions as a strategic resource in Russia's military communication, using the Zapad 2017 military exercises as a case study. Drawing on cultural semiotics and strategic narrative theory, it identifies three interlocking narratives constructed by Russian official spokespeople: casting NATO as a fearmongerer, alluding to Russia's growing military power through indirect means, and positioning Russia as a moral victim of Western "Russophobia." The analysis shows that fear discourses in information warfare are often more sophisticated than direct threats, working instead through ambiguity, affirmation through negation, and mirror projection. The article contributes to understanding how military exercises function not only as combat training but as large-scale information operations.
Discourses of blame in strategic narratives: the case of Russia's 5G stories (European Security, 2023, with Sten Hansson and Andreas Ventsel)
https://doi.org/10.1080/09662839.2022.2057188
This article analyses how blame functions as a strategic tool in Russia's international communication, using RT and Sputnik coverage of the global 5G debate as a case study. Combining discourse-analytic approaches to blame with strategic narrative theory, it identifies five distinct blame vectors through which Russian state-funded media delegitimise the US and its allies, construct a discursive alliance between Russia and China, and frame the conflict over 5G rollout as a trade war rather than a security issue. The article shows that blame discourses are often more effective when the influencer remains a bystander, citing Western voices to emotionalise narratives while concealing Russia's role as an agitator. Methodologically, the study introduces a novel framework that bridges discourse analysis and strategic narrative research, demonstrating for the first time how state actors can shape international conflicts discursively without appearing as participants in those conflicts.
Building Resilience Against Hostile Information Influence Activities: How a New Media Literacy Learning Platform Was Developed for the Estonian Defense Forces (Armed Forces & Society, 2024, with Andreas Ventsel, Sten Hansson and Merit Rickberg)
https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X231163265
This article documents the development of a web-based media literacy platform designed specifically for Estonian Defence Forces conscripts and active servicemen. Drawing on action research methodology, it outlines a three-step evidence-based approach: surveying learners' media consumption habits and vulnerability to manipulation, analysing the main influence techniques deployed by Russian state-funded channels, and applying learning design principles suited to a military context. The resulting platform, mojutustehnikad.ee, is built around four thematic blocks covering disinformation, polarisation, discrediting opponents, and false identity, and uses play-based learning and dialogic feedback to build lasting resilience. The article proposes a methodology that is transferable beyond Estonia and applicable to military education in other countries facing hostile information influence activities.
Who's Afraid of Conspiracy Theories? Analysis of Fear Discourses in Estonian Media (TLU Press, 2025, with Andreas Ventsel)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/403049614
This chapter analyses how fear manifests in both conspiracy theories and the discourse that critiques them, revealing that despite their opposing positions, both draw on similar semiotic mechanisms. Using the frameworks of fear semiotics, feeling rules, and the concept of phobophobia, it examines Estonian media texts and social media posts from 2022 to 2023. The analysis shows that conspiracy theories and anti-conspiracy discourse alike rely on participial meaning-making (a logic of contagion where contact between objects and subjects transfers meaning and intensifies threat), binary oppositions, and semantic maximalism, and that both presuppose a deep story of the human being as a rational actor whose thinking can be manipulated. The chapter argues that phobophobic critiques of conspiracy theories risk replicating the very logic they oppose. It offers recommendations for moving away from polarising communication toward dialogue grounded in empathy and respect.
From Shorthand Cues to Elaborate Dystopian Reasoning: The Affordances of Orwell's 1984 in Strategic Online Conspiracy Narratives (forthcoming 2027, with Tatjana Menise, Routledge)
This chapter examines how George Orwell's 1984 is mobilised in the strategic conspiracy narratives of Estonian online portals Uued Uudised and Objektiiv, associated respectively with right-wing populism and conservative anti-liberal discourse. Drawing on cultural-semiotic theory, it conceptualises both conspiracy theories and 1984 as code texts embedded in shared cultural memory, and analyses how Orwellian tropes function as code signals that activate conspiracist meaning-making without requiring full narrative exposition. The chapter identifies four thematic constellations through which 1984 affordances organise conspiracy discourse: technological surveillance framed as totalitarian control, anti-disinformation initiatives recast as censorship, linguistic change around climate and gender framed as brainwashing, and the gradual erosion of independent judgement through self-censorship. It introduces the concept of conspiracy theory literacy to explain how these portals cultivate audiences capable of reading condensed Orwellian cues as conspiracist signals. It further shows how the dual nature of fictional texts enables a strategy of calculated ambivalence, allowing political messages to circulate as cultural allegory while tacitly activating conspiracist interpretations for readers equipped to complete the analogy.
Relational approaches to strategic historical narratives (2023–2027), Estonian Research Council (https://www.rashina.ut.ee)
Russia and China's strategic partnership and the use of artificial intelligence in information influence activities (2026–2028), Estonian Defence Forces
Research keywords: cultural semiotics, discourse analysis, conspiracy theories, disinformation, critical disinformation studies, strategic narratives, information influence activities, Russian influence operations, information warfare, media literacy, digital culture, political communication