ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Commun.
Sec. Media Governance and the Public Sphere
Fog of War: The role of fake news in initiating and prolonging conflict
Provisionally accepted
- University of Graz, Graz, Austria
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This article examines how fake news in mainstream war reporting can help initiate or prolong armed conflict by laundering atrocity narratives from unaccountable or invested sources into accepted public "facts." Drawing on propaganda theory and the Propaganda Model, it first outlines the historical and conceptual links between fake news, information warfare, and principles of war propaganda, with a focus on how enemies are framed as evil, atrocity‑committing, and norm‑breaking. The study then analyzes three high‑profile fake news cases from Afghanistan (Russian "bounties" for Taliban attacks), Libya (Gaddafi's alleged Viagra‑fuelled mass rapes), and Israel/Palestine (Hamas allegedly beheading babies), using qualitative discourse analysis of 37 articles to examine sourcing practices, linguistic choices, and patterns of amplification and (non‑)retraction. Across all three cases, the analysis finds heavy reliance on anonymous officials and ideologically invested eyewitnesses, emotional and sensationalist language, under‑hedged reporting verbs, and presuppositions that convert unevidenced allegations into perceived facts, especially when bandwagon journalism recycles claims originated elsewhere. These patterns systematically embed Morelli's principles of war propaganda into news discourse and show how mainstream outlets, by amplifying spectacular but weakly evidenced atrocity stories while giving far less attention to later debunkings, can help manufacture consent for conflict escalation or the extension of military campaigns.
Keywords: anonymous official sources, bandwagon journalism, conflict escalation, disinformation, fake news, Mainstream news media, war propaganda
Received: 17 Jan 2026; Accepted: 13 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Scherling. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Johannes Scherling
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