There's an interesting new book out - with a little video introduction from the author:
From one of our leading experts on disinformation, the incredible true story of the complex and largely forgotten WWII propagandist Sefton Delmer – and what we can learn from him today. Peter Pomerantsev introduces us to Sefton Delmer, the anti-hero of How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler.
From one of our leading experts on disinformation, the incredible true... | TikTok
The Journalist Who Tried to Fight the Nazis With Radio Stories
In “How to Win an Information War,” Peter Pomerantsev looks to a World War II propagandist for lessons in the battle between Russia and Ukraine.
Book Review: ‘How to Win an Information War,’ by Peter Pomerantsev - The New York Times
His book is the Radio Times book of the week:
JOIN THE RADIO TIMES BOOK CLUB TODAY! – Radio Times Shop
With more from the FT:
“How do you win an information war?” asks Peter Pomerantsev in the introduction to his new book, before addressing its animating question with a personal flourish: “What can you do when those you love . . . slip away from you under a quicksand of lies, and move mentally into an alternative reality where black is white and white is black?”
The critical word here, it took me some time to realise, is “war”. In a war you do everything possible not to lose. It isn’t about posing your better values against the enemy’s, but about undermining popular belief in their “truth”.
Pomerantsev’s main current enemy is Vladimir Putin’s Russia, about whose complex and effective propaganda regime the academic and writer — who was born in Soviet Ukraine to dissident parents — has already written two books: Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible (2014), and This Is Not Propaganda (2019). Both were written before Putin launched his all-out bombs and guns war on his European neighbour.
How To Win an Information War was written in a time when Russians who are contacted by their Ukrainian friends and relatives, and told what is actually happening, usually respond with disbelief and rejection. Ordinary Russians have become unreachable by the living truth. Meanwhile in the US up to 40 per cent of Americans believe that the last presidential election was “stolen” and it is conceivable that the corrupt author of this fiction will become US president again.
So that’s what we face, and few questions keep democrats — conservative or liberal — awake at night like the one that Pomerantsev poses. It’s a question he answers by suggesting to us that we reflect on the extraordinary career of Britain’s top wartime counter-propagandist, Sefton Delmer, who was an all-out commander in the information war against Nazi Germany.
How to Win an Information War — a history lesson in effective counter-propaganda
Here he is talking to The Spectator:
Peter Pomerantsev: How To Win An Information War | The Spectator
Here is his view earlier on how to counter propaganda:
Meanwhile in Russia:
Jay Doubleyou: the propaganda wars today
The Soviet-born British journalist looks at the psychology:Jay Doubleyou: the politics of humiliation today
... and the theatre:
Jay Doubleyou: politics as theatre
Finally: how Russia is currently winning the information war:
Jay Doubleyou: information wars
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