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Douglas Wilbur

University of Missouri Columbia, Missouri School of Journalism, Graduate Student

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Papers by Douglas Wilbur

Conspiracy Theories in Informational Warfare

Small Wars Journal, 2026

Modern armed conflict is often used to shape battlefields before violence occurs. Influence is de... more Modern armed conflict is often used to shape battlefields before violence occurs. Influence is decided by how people interpret uncertainty, threat and intent. In How to Create a Conspiracy Theory: What Information Warriors Need to Know, I argued that conspiracy theories function as cognitive environments rather than collections of false claims. They impose order on ambiguity, assign agency to events and stabilize belief under perceived existential threat. This follow on essay moves from explanation to application. It continues to rely on the Existential Threat Model (ETM) and the conspiracy belief formation model to explain how belief environments are constructed and why they persist in information warfare contexts. This essay will walk the reader through how these theoretical frameworks can be applied by information warriors to engineer an actual weaponized conspiracy theory.

Say one thing, mean three: the strategic use of contradiction in Propaganda during the second Indo-China (Vietnam) War

Small Wars and Insurgencies , 2026

What if propaganda doesn't resolve contradictions, but amplifies them on purpose? This study expl... more What if propaganda doesn't resolve contradictions, but amplifies them on purpose? This study explores how Vietnamese communist strategists weaponized contradiction not as a failure of logic, but as a deliberate tool of psychological warfare. Through a mixed-method content analysis of 102 propaganda documents, we examine how contradictions, explicit, implicit, antagonistic, and layered, were deployed to polarize identities, manage ideological complexity, and erode enemy legitimacy. Although contradiction framing was present in only a subset of texts, it consistently aligned with specific persuasive functions, including appeals to authority, moral reasoning, and U.S. value targeting. These findings challenge Western assumptions that view contradiction as a communicative flaw, revealing instead its strategic utility in high-context revolutionary messaging. In showing how contradiction can both clarify and destabilize, the study offers fresh insight into the rhetorical mechanics of communist propaganda-and valuable tools for decoding the language of information warfare.

Creating Conspiracy Theories: What Information Warriors Need to Know

Conspiracy theories play a growing role in modern conflict by shaping how audiences interpret thr... more Conspiracy theories play a growing role in modern conflict by shaping how audiences interpret threat, trust, and authority before overt action occurs. This essay examines conspiracy theories as cognitive environments rather than collections of false claims. Drawing on the Existential Threat Model and a political-psychological model of conspiracy belief formation, it explains how such beliefs are cultivated, why counter-messaging often fails, and what strategic risks weaponized conspiracy narratives pose for information warriors.

Identifying Santa Muerte Symbolic Vulnerabilities for Counter-Narco Communications

Small Wars Journal, 2026

Why do criminal organizations embedded in violent and illicit economies incorporate a folk saint ... more Why do criminal organizations embedded in violent and illicit economies incorporate a folk saint into their symbolic repertoire rather than rely solely on fear, money, or coercion? Across the internet, narratives surrounding Santa Muerte often referred to by devotees as La Niña Blanca (the White Girl). A skeletal female figure venerated as a supernatural intercessor. Devotion to the Santa Muerte circulates in prayers, songs, personal testimonies, and rituals that describe protection, justice and, survival in environments marked by institutional failure. [1] While the vast majority of Santa Muerte devotees are not involved in criminal activity, prior research has shown that drug cartels and affiliated actors have selectively appropriated this belief system into narco-culture where it functions as a legitimizing and motivational component of cartel propaganda rather than a benign form of folk religiosity.[2] Narcocultura (narco-culture) refers to the network of symbols, narratives, aesthetic forms, and moral logics that normalize and make sense of life under conditions shaped by drug trafficking and organized crime. In this context, Santa Muerte does not operate primarily as theology or doctrine, but as a narrative system. A set of recurring story forms that explain crisis, authorize violence, normalize risk, and bind obligation to perceived supernatural protection. Despite growing scholarly attention to Santa Muerte's history and social reach, the specific narrative genres through which her narco-cultural variant is sustained and reproduced remain largely unmapped.[3] This article addresses that gap by systematically analyzing devotee-generated digital narratives to identify the dominant story forms mobilized within cartel-adjacent Santa Muerte discourse. Also to assess the symbolic vulnerabilities these narratives introduce for counter-narco communications. Narco-culture does not rely on violence alone to normalize criminal authority; it relies on stories that render violence intelligible, justified, and even necessary within a moralized (and at times amoralized) worldview. Scholars of narcocultura have shown that criminal organizations sustain legitimacy through cultural production, music, imagery, ritual, and myth, that frames illicit actors as protectors, providers, and agents of justice rather than predators.[4] Religious symbolism becomes especially potent within this ecosystem because

Warfare of Position: When the Decisive Struggle Precedes the First Shot

Military Strategy Magazine , 2026

This article examines Antonio Gramsci's concept of the "war of position" as a distinct philosophy... more This article examines Antonio Gramsci's concept of the "war of position" as a distinct philosophy of warfare, where the decisive struggle unfolds within civil society long before any physical violence erupts. Unlike the rapid, direct "war of maneuver," which aims to seize state power through forceful confrontation, the war of position involves prolonged sociocultural, informational, and propaganda efforts to establish hegemony, reshape collective identities, erode the legitimacy of the incumbent regime, and build counter-narratives through institutions such as education, media, religion, and community networks. By the time armed conflict begins, populations may already perceive insurgent cadres as legitimate representatives of local interests while viewing the existing administration as distant, coercive, or predatory, thereby predetermining the political outcome in favor of the challengers. The piece illustrates this dynamic through historical examples, including the Malayan Emergency, where subversive activities and grassroots radicalization created conditions for revolutionary success. It argues that modern adversaries increasingly exploit this approach to achieve strategic surprise, emphasizing that contemporary conflicts are often won or lost in the interpretive and legitimacy battles within the "social battlefield" via information operations, cultural influence, and narrative control rather than kinetic action alone. Western militaries must therefore integrate positional strategies into broader doctrine to recognize and counter such threats effectively, as failing to do so risks ceding decisive advantage before the first shot is fired.

Blurring the Source: Information Laundering and the Cognitive Architecture of Modern Propaganda

Media Psychology Review, 2026

Contemporary propaganda often succeeds not by inventing falsehoods, but by obscuring where inform... more Contemporary propaganda often succeeds not by inventing falsehoods, but by obscuring where information comes from. This study examines how state-aligned messaging weakens source visibility as narratives circulate across digital media environments. Analyzing 200 Kremlin-aligned texts archived by EUvsDisinfo, we combine automated language analysis with close qualitative review to identify recurring patterns that blur attribution. The findings show that vague references to authority, recycled phrasing, and repeated re-use of claims across outlets systematically erode audiences' ability to track authorship, even when the content itself remains familiar. To explain this process, the study introduces the concept of attribution decay: the gradual loss of source cues produced by repetition, intertextual borrowing, and cross-platform circulation. Rather than treating source confusion as a cognitive failure alone, the analysis shows how contemporary media infrastructures actively facilitate this erosion. By linking research on memory and source monitoring with the study of mediated discourse and propaganda, the article demonstrates how networked communication environments allow disinformation narratives to persist and gain credibility long after their original sources have faded from view.

Words as Weapons: The Strategic Power of Chinese Slogans in Modern Propaganda

Small Wars Journal, 2025

Modern information warfare operates less by persuading through facts than by shaping how humans r... more Modern information warfare operates less by persuading through facts than by shaping how humans recognize patterns. This essay explains how human pattern recognition—rooted in memory, emotion, and narrative—creates cognitive vulnerabilities that adversaries systematically exploit. Drawing on pattern theory, it distinguishes between external patterns observable in networks and information flows, and internal patterns that govern interpretation and belief. The analysis introduces core concepts including regularity, form, and order; micro-, meso-, and macro-patterns; and pattern languages, showing how influence campaigns escalate from emotional triggers to collective identity and ideological worldview. Using recent state-sponsored information operations as illustrative cases, the essay demonstrates how repetition and familiarity generate intuitive truth and stabilize belief over time. It argues that effective information warfare depends on controlling patterned meaning rather than individual messages. To counter such campaigns, information warriors must learn to detect, interpret, and disrupt pattern systems early—thinking in patterns, not posts—before belief becomes entrenched.

Finding the Signal within the Noise What Information Warriors Need to Know About Human Pattern Recognition

Small Wars Journal, 2025

Modern information warfare succeeds by shaping how humans recognize patterns, not by persuading t... more Modern information warfare succeeds by shaping how humans recognize patterns, not by persuading through facts alone. This essay explains how human pattern recognition—rooted in memory, emotion, and narrative—creates cognitive vulnerabilities that adversaries exploit to construct belief. Drawing on pattern theory, it distinguishes between external patterns observable in networks and internal patterns that guide interpretation, and it shows how meaning emerges when the two align. The article introduces key concepts including regularity, form, order, micro-, meso-, and macro-patterns, and pattern languages, illustrating how influence campaigns escalate from emotional cues to collective ideology. Using recent information operations as examples, the essay demonstrates how repetition and familiarity generate intuitive truth. It concludes by arguing that information warriors must think in patterns, not posts, to detect, disrupt, and counter adversarial campaigns early.

Engineering Belief: How Rhetorical Structure Activates Cognitive Bias in Propaganda and Disinformation

Media Psychology Review, 2025

This study analyzes how Russian disinformation achieves persuasion through the interaction of lin... more This study analyzes how Russian disinformation achieves persuasion through the interaction of linguistic, emotional, and structural mechanisms. Using quantitative content analysis of 260 verified texts, it identifies recurring patterns that link rhetorical form to cognitive bias activation. Repetition, emotional tone, and ambiguity consistently increase perceived credibility, while moral and threat framing heighten emotional engagement. Although intentional design cannot be proven, the consistency of these bias-triggering structures makes coordinated production highly probable. The analysis introduces cross-source fusion-the blending of credible and conspiratorial sources-as a key mechanism explaining how false narratives acquire legitimacy. These findings integrate cognitive and rhetorical theories of persuasion, showing how belief can be engineered through form rather than fact. Practically, the results offer tools for identifying structural patterns that reveal bias activation before disinformation spreads, advancing efforts to detect, interpret, and counter the psychological design of modern propaganda.

The Algorithm Will See You Now: Multimodal Propaganda and Chinese Cognitive Warfare

Journal of Information Warfare , 2025

This study analyzes AI-generated propaganda videos produced by Chinese state-affiliated actors to... more This study analyzes AI-generated propaganda videos produced by Chinese state-affiliated actors to examine how meaning is constructed through multimodal design. Using a social semiotic framework and multimodal qualitative content analysis, the research explores how visual, textual, and auditory modes interact to encode ideological messages. Findings reveal that these videos deploy strategic combinations of symbolic imagery, ambient sound design, and compositional framing to represent American institutions as morally bankrupt, militaristic, or culturally hollow. Rather than relying on explicit argumentation, the propaganda achieves persuasion through emotional tone, irony, and mythic symbolism-inviting viewers to adopt a critical or oppositional stance toward the United States. This aestheticized approach reflects a shift in Chinese cognitive warfare: from declarative messaging to immersive perception management. The study contributes to propaganda theory by mapping how intermodal coherence functions as rhetorical strategy and offers practical implications for information warfare professionals confronting an increasingly ambient and algorithmically distributed threat environment.

Agents of Influence Weaponizing Credibility: How to Win a Wartime Narrative from Within

. Inter Populum: Journal of Irregular Warfare and Special Operations, 2025

This study examines how a communist agent of influence, Pham Xuan An, shaped Western media narrat... more This study examines how a communist agent of influence, Pham Xuan An, shaped Western media narratives from within Time magazine during the Vietnam War, and what that means for contemporary information warfare. Using mixed methods and natural language processing, we analyzed 245 Time articles and found high levels of rhetorical convergence with Vietnamese communist propaganda. Strategic failure framing, moral ambiguity, and civilian victimhood appeared in over 60% of the coverage, aligning closely with themes emphasized in North Vietnamese propaganda. The most predictive element of convergence was not emotional language, but how journalists framed cause, blame, and moral weight. This highlights framing as a primary vehicle for narrative influence. Though causality cannot be proven, the patterns reveal how adversaries can exploit open information systems through trust-based manipulation. This case demonstrates that narrative dominance can be achieved without lies or censorship, making agents of influence a critical threat vector in the cognitive domain of irregular warfare.

format_quote63% of analyzed Time articles exhibited narrative convergence with Vietnamese propaganda, highlighting the effectiveness of influence tactics.format_quote

Matching Consequences and Causes in Crisis Public Relations

Journalism and mass communication, Jun 27, 2023

This exploratory study examines the phenomenon of consequence cause matching, which is based on t... more This exploratory study examines the phenomenon of consequence cause matching, which is based on the representativeness heuristic, from cognitive psychology, upon crisis management and public relations. A 2(Large Scale Crisis vs. Small Scale Crisis) × 2(Large Scale Cause vs. Small Scale Cause) mixed factorial design experiment was conducted based upon a hypothetical crisis scenario. This study found initial evidence that consequence cause matching is a phenomenon that can impact the process of attribution for a crisis. It highlights a potential new area of theoretical growth for the situational crisis communication theory.

Predictability: The Missing Variable in Public Relations

Romanian Journal of Communication and Public Relations

This study offers an initial and exploratory examination of the role that the variable of predict... more This study offers an initial and exploratory examination of the role that the variable of predictability plays in crisis management. Leveraging the situational crisis communication theory, it employed two separate but inter-related experiments. They examined how manipulations of the level of crisis predictability impacted a number of crucial variables important for crisis response. The findings strongly indicate that when a crisis is framed as having been predictable, it results in a host of negative consequences for the involved organizations and complicates the recovery process. When a crisis is framed as having been unpredictable, it results in positive benefits for the organizations involved. This study provides justification for future research exploring the role of predictability during a crisis.

A No Limits Partnership on Propaganda

Journal of Information Warfare, 2023

The Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China signed a formal agreement to cooperate ... more The Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China signed a formal agreement to cooperate on the creation and dissemination of a jointly constructed propaganda narrative for a global audience. There is some anecdotal evidence and some very basic research to suggest this cooperation might be happening. However, this study aims to use scientific research methods from the Agenda Setting Theory to prove or disprove this alleged propaganda cooperation. The author assessed a N = 600 sample of articles from English language versions of Russian Sputnik and the Chinese Global Times and People's Daily. The evidence indicates a low level of propaganda cooperation. Russia and China appear to be pursuing their own strategic goals with propaganda. This finding has important implications for information warriors' and strategic communication professionals' task and counterpropaganda.

format_quoteStatistically significant correlation exists in issue salience between Russian and Chinese media, though weak links to Sputnik's coverage.format_quote

Matching Consequences and Causes in Crisis Public Relations

Journalism and Mass Communication, 2023

This exploratory study examines the phenomenon of consequence cause matching, which is based on t... more This exploratory study examines the phenomenon of consequence cause matching, which is based on the representativeness heuristic, from cognitive psychology, upon crisis management and public relations. A 2(Large Scale Crisis vs. Small Scale Crisis) × 2(Large Scale Cause vs. Small Scale Cause) mixed factorial design experiment was conducted based upon a hypothetical crisis scenario. This study found initial evidence that consequence cause matching is a phenomenon that can impact the process of attribution for a crisis. It highlights a potential new area of theoretical growth for the situational crisis communication theory.

Predictability The Missing Variable in Public Relations

Romanian Journal of Communication and Public Relations, 2023

This study offers an initial and exploratory examination of the role that the variable of predict... more This study offers an initial and exploratory examination of the role that the variable of predictability plays in crisis management. Leveraging the situational crisis communication theory, it employed two separate but interrelated experiments. They examined how manipulations of the level of crisis predictability impacted a number of crucial variables important for crisis response. The findings strongly indicate that when a crisis is framed as having been predictable, it results in a host of negative consequences for the involved organizations and complicates the recovery process. When a crisis is framed as having been unpredictable, it results in positive benefits for the organizations involved. This study provides justification for future research exploring the role of predictability during a crisis.

format_quoteHighly predictable crises showed significantly lower organizational reputation (M=3.90 vs. M=5.51, p<.001), highlighting predictability's impact on public perception.format_quote

Using Junk News to Build an Agenda for Violence: Russian Propaganda Targeting American Right-Wing Extremists

Journal of Information Warfare, 2022

This article examines a known Russian propaganda website, News Room for American and European Bas... more This article examines a known Russian propaganda website, News Room for American and European Based Citizens (NAEBC), run by the Internet Research Agency (IRA), that delivers propaganda through junk news. Using agenda-building theory, it seeks to determine if it can uncover the propagandists' goals and motivations in order to examine its implications for information warfare. It finds that the IRA is using its extensive resources to agitate right-wing political extremists into violence. This calls into question whether the provocation of a civil war within the United States is a strategic information warfare goal of the Russian Government.

format_quoteNAEBC primarily promotes selective facts and omits contradictory information, rather than outright disinformation.format_quote

Employing Junk News to Drive a Propaganda Narrative

Journal of Information Warfare, 2022

This study examines the testable question of whether junk news in the service of propaganda can f... more This study examines the testable question of whether junk news in the service of propaganda can form coherent narrative structure that can be analyzed and countered. The analysis was conducted using a known junk news site, USA Really, which is sponsored by the Russian Government, and which targets American citizens. Leveraging the Narrative Paradigm theory and ethnographic content analysis are the methods of research; an analysis of (N =150) were qualitatively analyzed. An unexpected finding that USA Really was constructing a conspiracy narrative targeting far right-wing extremists emerged. The study also identified a new type of narrative, not accounted for in narrative paradigm theory, that was meant to cause dissension rather than to serve as a guide for proper conduct.

Public Relations as a Factor in the Prevention of Suicide: The Veteran Administrations Crisis Line

Health Communication, 2022

This study examines the effectiveness of the Veterans Administration's (VA) public relations and ... more This study examines the effectiveness of the Veterans Administration's (VA) public relations and the effectiveness of advertisements of its suicide hotline, which is called the veterans crisis line (VCL). Using the organization-public relations theory (OPR) this study examined whether known failures of VA marketing campaigns for the VCL could be related to public relations factors. This study found that the VA suffers from a negative perception with veterans, and this translated into lower support for the VCL compared to another suicide hotline. This study concludes that ineffective public relations may indeed be a factor in the reluctance of veterans in crisis to call the VCL for life saving mental health support.

Public Relations as a Factor in the Prevention of Suicide: The Veteran Administrations Crisis Line

Health Communication