Rather than disappearing into the past with the authoritarian regimes of the 20th century, propaganda is proving to be more prevalent than ever in the age of digital revolution and social media. For over a century, the art of persuasion and mass manipulation has been constantly refined, to be used in the service of manufacturing consent or dissent. In the age of generative artificial intelligence, information is more than ever a power issue in international relations. In this lecture, David Colon draws on historical examples and contributions from various sciences to explain how our brains have become the target of a new global information war.

David Colon is a professor and researcher at Sciences Po Paris. Specialist in the history of media and mass communication, he is the author of two award-winning books, Propagande (Flammarion, 2021) and La Guerre de information (Texto, 2025). Strongly committed to the fight against Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI), he is a member of Reporters Without Border's Propaganda Monitor’s steering committee, and of World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on Information Integrity.

This lecture will be introduced and moderated by Marie-Laure Salles, Director of the Geneva Graduate Institute.