QAnon Anonymous
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The Problem of Disinformation (E334)
🕑 Added 2025-07-30 05:16:37 +0000 UTCThis week we are joined by Dr. Olivier Jutel, a lecturer in the Department of Media, Film & Communication at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. His scholarly focus is in communication studies and media theory, particularly around populism, digital media, political economy, and critical theory.
Travis and Julian chat with Dr. Jutel about his iconoclastic take on the paradigms that have dominated U.S. technology and communications policy since 2016.
Olivier argues that fear of foreign influence has been leveraged by a coalition of Silicon Valley firms, national‑security agencies and allied think‑tanks to deflect structural reform of platforms. Drawing on Cold‑War communication theory, this coalition frames all online conflict as “information warfare,” treating citizens as passive targets for behavioral manipulation while ignoring deeper political‑economic drivers of democratic decay. Jutel retraces the military origins of mass‑communication research, critiques Shoshana Zuboff’s “surveillance capitalism” thesis, and dissects the role of high‑profile disinfo professionals whose methods, he contends, don’t question the core assumptions of tech industry platforms and national‑security priorities.
Olivier concludes that while this disinformation framework is past its heyday, its war‑like view of social life persists, empowering actors such as Palantir while sidelining antitrust and public‑interest remedies. The solution? A shift toward true democratic governance of digital infrastructure.
Dr Olivier Jutel at University of Otago
https://www.otago.ac.nz/mfco/staff/olivier-jutel
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Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)
QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.
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Comments
Emily
Ironically, the nuance and the discrepancies are important *because* of how real the threat of foreign disinformation is. Remaining steadfast in a commitment to honesty is the best we can do. I say that as one of the people who has had to slowly and gently deprogram their “Ukraine footage is CIA crisis actors” spouse over the course of years. How to re-skepticize a “skeptic”…skeptically? 😵💫
hope
i'm finally listening to the last few minutes of this episode: travissss i was taught in high school by the man who created the phrase "intelligent design" 😭 have you ever heard of the film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed?
Elizabeth DiNenno
Great episode. Could you guys do one covering how disinformation is making govt employees literal targets (eg CDC shooting)?
WOLLYMIGHT
black lodge mentioned
Charles Dworetz
Love the show, been listening and patronizing since 2018 or 2019, but could only make it 30 minutes into this episode. Your guest is full of shit about a lot of things, over-simplifies, and…what’s the word for when someone takes some Twitter posts from a handful of grifter accounts and then generalizes it to an entire political ideology? Whatever that word is, he’s doing it. Anyway, everyone is allowed a huge miss every now and then.
