The Active Measures Newsletter Podcast

In this special edition of the podcast, host Mark Jacobson revisits the classic work of Edward Bernays whose 1928 book, Propaganda, argued that democracy required managed perception and was effective precisely because it bypasses conscious reasoning. Bernays wrote at a time when newspapers were the dominant form of communication, when radio and film were still nascent, but the clear implications of his work for our current world of algorithmically controlled media are numerous.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's been a dynamic year of growth for the Active Measures Newsletter Podcast.  With great guests and a ton of news, each week we've had more to talk about than time to do it.  So as the year winds down, hosts Mark Jacobson and Jim Ludes name their "final four"--the biggest stories from the Active Measures Newsletter in 2025.  Artificial Intelligence, Sabotage in Europe, America’s Unilateral Disarmament, and more contend for the biggest story of the year.  Mark and Jim have their pick.  What's yours? Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“They’re burning all the witches,” sang Taylor Swift on the album “reputation,” a lyric with meaning about modern-day witch hunts, cancel culture, and, in fact, disinformation. In this week’s episode of The Active Measures Newsletter Podcast, hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson break down the recent attack on Taylor Swift’s actual reputation and the self-harm done to America’s reputation by its new national security strategy.  Then, they welcome L. Gordon Crovitz, co-CEO of NewsGuard, for a great conversation about the current threat-landscape, America’s unilateral disarmament in this fight, the prospect for corralling social media and AI platforms, and the enduring value of good local news.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The terminology we use to describe new phenomena matters.  On this week's podcast, defense intellectual Frank Hoffman reviews Chinese, Russian, European, and--to the extent there is any--American writings about 'cognitive warfare.' For the uninitiated--this runs the gamut from traditional tools of influence to novel technologies, including chemical and directed energy weapons that can "alter peoples’ brains and thought processes. . . .” Co-hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson also discuss the latest news about CopyCop/Storm1516 and the latest recruiting ad for the 4th PsyOp Group.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

American social media is filled with high-strung posters, outrage-addicts, and partisan players.  It's a perfect avenue for amplifying division and most platforms let anyone play anonymously.  So it came as a shock to some this week when X turned on a new geolocation service and the overseas posting of active accounts--some with hundreds of thousands and even millions of followers--proved to originate from Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia.  In this special edition of the podcast, host Jim Ludes takes us back to 2017, when Russia's use of fake personas on social media first became obvious.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Naomi O’Leary, the Europe correspondent for The Irish Times, dives into the alarming tactics of Russian hybrid warfare, including incidents like severed pig heads outside French mosques. She details the recruitment of 'Telegram agents' for small-scale sabotage aimed at disrupting unity among Western states. The discussion spans various attacks across Europe, from arson to drone incursions, and highlights how these incidents are spun in Russian media to amplify narratives. O'Leary emphasizes the importance of investigative journalism amidst a U.S. media gap on these threats.

Journalists at Sky News created an elegant experiment to assess whether content on X in the United Kingdom had political bias. From a database of 90,000 posts created by 21,690 accounts collected over two weeks in May of 2025, they were able to observe ". . . a clear imbalance of content promoted on the platform, with right-wing voices dominating and the algorithm pushing posts to new users that don't align with their interests." Digital Investigations Journalists Kaitlin Tosh and Michelle Inez Simon join hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson to discuss their experiment and its findings.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Politico's Marion Solletty (Editor-at-Large, France) and Laura Kayali (Defense Correspondent) join hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson to discuss the "Red Hands" trial in France, reports of ties to Russian intelligence, and the broader context in which France finds itself as a "hot-spot in Russia's hybrid war against Europe."  The hosts also examine Shakespeare for lessons about irregular warfare and reports that Russia will spend less on defense but more on state-run information operations. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on the Active Measures Newsletter Podcast, hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson speak with Poppy McPherson (Special Correspondent for Southeast Asia) and Karen Lema (Philippines Bureau Chief) of Reuters whose recent reporting showed Chinese government use of a local public relations firm in the Philippines to mount a pro-China/anti-U.S. influence campaign in the country. Mark and Jim also review some of the big stories from this week's newsletter including Suzanne Nossel's case that Americans have lost sight of what 'soft power' actually is; Peter Pomerantsev on how to fight Putin in an information war; rising temperatures in the hybrid war in Europe; and the deepfake attack on Ireland's election.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this special edition of the Active Measures Newsletter Podcast, host Mark Jacobson explores how the disinformation lessons of the past echo in the digital age. Drawing on Mark Twain’s reflections on Gutenberg’s printing press, Jacobson traces how revolutions in communication have spread both knowledge and deception, and asks whether artificial intelligence will bring us closer to enlightenment—or to a new kind of chaos. The full podcast will return next week.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.