This article explains the secrecy paradox, but don’t tell anyone!

The present study examined how the secrecy paradox-signalling privileged knowledge while at the same time concealing its content to preserve exclusivity-affected communication in an online community. Data were a comprehensive discussion thread about the existence and location of a large secret underground command centre (a "Riksbunker") that would serve as the Swedish governments Cold War contingency plan for a potential World War III. The study used a mixed-method design combining critical discourse analysis (CDA) with citation network and community cluster analysis. Network analysis revealed a modular structure of tightly connected clusters with a small number of core users controlling the information flow. The CDA revealed six recurrent discourses that together sustained a steep hierarchy and highly stratified social order within these clusters, which emphasizes exclusivity and-ironically and paradoxically-preserves the very secrecy the thread was originally initiated to explore. One main conclusion is that the secrecy paradox can be seen not as a mere influencing factor in communicative interaction but as an emergent social practice around which social structures, identities, and norms are formed.