2022 Three Minute Thesis
Award Winner
Recipient of the 2022 Three Minute Thesis Competition Award - Second Place.
Award selection process: The top two from each group in the first heat advanced to the final round and presented again. Winners were selected from those top four.
To go to the Graduate Student Award Recipients collection page, click here.
Presentation Type
Open Access Poster Presentation
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Keywords
Cooper, William Milton--Influence; Conspiracy theories--United States--History;
Abstract
William Milton Cooper was a radio show host, author, and conspiracy theorist. Among other things, Cooper claimed insider knowledge of a plot, guided by an ancient Luciferian religious order, to consolidate nations into a socialist New World Order. Although currently unexamined in academia, Cooper’s conspiratorial influence can be found everywhere from the Oklahoma City Bombing to contemporary false flag accusations to QAnon mythology. While this influence includes shared content, Cooper’s approach to evidence, persona, and narrative framing demand attention in a world of increasingly visible conspiracy discourse. Through application of Hocker-Rushing’s western hero archetype, my research indicates that Cooper’s Mystery Babylon radio series functioned as an archetypal reiteration of American frontier narratives, among numerous reiterations in 20th century American media. Because many of these iterations do not engage in conspiracy rhetoric, future research should consider the relationship between American frontier narratives and rhetoric that informs far-right extremist organization and actions.
Start Date
11-11-2022 12:00 PM
End Date
11-11-2022 1:30 PM
Event Host
Graduate College, University of Northern Iowa
Faculty Advisor
Catherine Palczewski
Department
Department of Communication and Media
Copyright
©2022 Matthew Bancroft-Smithe
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Bancroft-Smithe, Matthew, "Cowboy Cooper Goes West: Mystery Babylon and the Western Hero Archetype" (2022). Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) at UNI. 4.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/tmt/2022/all/4
Additional Files
Matthew Bancroft-Smithe.mp4 (469612 kB)Video
Closed Captioning File.srt (4 kB)
Closed Captioning SRT File
Cowboy Cooper Goes West: Mystery Babylon and the Western Hero Archetype
William Milton Cooper was a radio show host, author, and conspiracy theorist. Among other things, Cooper claimed insider knowledge of a plot, guided by an ancient Luciferian religious order, to consolidate nations into a socialist New World Order. Although currently unexamined in academia, Cooper’s conspiratorial influence can be found everywhere from the Oklahoma City Bombing to contemporary false flag accusations to QAnon mythology. While this influence includes shared content, Cooper’s approach to evidence, persona, and narrative framing demand attention in a world of increasingly visible conspiracy discourse. Through application of Hocker-Rushing’s western hero archetype, my research indicates that Cooper’s Mystery Babylon radio series functioned as an archetypal reiteration of American frontier narratives, among numerous reiterations in 20th century American media. Because many of these iterations do not engage in conspiracy rhetoric, future research should consider the relationship between American frontier narratives and rhetoric that informs far-right extremist organization and actions.
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