“C’est en pensant à plusieurs que la démocratie peut survivre.”
– Thierry Apothéloz
Katja Gentinetta, the newly appointed President of the Foundation Board at the Geneva Graduate Institute, opened the 2025 academic year by underscoring the gravity of today’s global landscape. “We are living in a pivotal moment in history,” she affirmed, “one that we must all observe and accompany with a critical eye — but also a self-critical one.” She emphasised the Institute’s distinctive role, noting that it bears “a very special responsibility at this moment in time.”
Following the welcome address of Thierry Apothéloz, President of the Council of State of the Republic and State of Geneva, Director Marie-Laure Salles introduced the keynote, reflecting on the seductive power of manipulated narratives. “We live today in the age of the sirens,” she said, invoking Homer’s Odyssey. “The more troubled the times, the more elusive and dangerous their songs become.” She underscored the importance of studying fake news and disinformation not just to correct distortions, but to “understand the deeper societal fractures they reveal” as an essential step to “confront those wounds with lucidity, and perhaps begin to heal them”.
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“La guerre de l'information se situe dans un continuum entre la guerre et la paix, entre ce qui est privé, ce qui est public, ce qui est secret, ce qui est officiel, ce qui relève de l'État, ce qui relève d'acteurs économiques ou d'acteurs non étatique plus largement.”
– David Colon
David Colon’s lecture was dedicated to the renewed prevalence of propaganda in the age of digital revolution and social media. Holding to the Geneva Graduate Institute’s bilingual traditions, the lecture was in both French and English. Tracing its evolution from early 20th-century public campaigns to Cold War tactics, David Colon showed how psychological strategies from advertising serve political ends. He focused on current influence operations by the United States, Russia, and China, warning that our minds have become battlegrounds in a new era of engineered consent.
The lecture concluded with a discussion between David Colon and Marie-Laure Salles, followed by a Q&A session focusing on the ongoing global information war and practical ways to navigate propaganda in our daily lives amid AI algorithms and biased news sources.
The evening marked a thought-provoking start to the academic year, reaffirming the Institute’s commitment to critical inquiry and global engagement.
