QAA Podcast

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QAA Podcast

Julian Feeld, Travis View & Jake Rockatansky

500 episodes

4 days ago

There isn’t yet a tariff on conspiracist narratives. So former Daily Wire podcaster Candace Owens imported one from France. Which is why she now finds herself the subject of a serious lawsuit filed by the French President Emmanuel Macron and the First Lady Brigitte Macron. Owens used Instagram influencer aesthetics to recycle a 2021 theory for American audiences that was originally promoted by a French spiritual medium and spread through “Yellow Vest” and antivax networks. For some reason, Owens wasn’t satisfied with the genuinely odd history of the Macrons’ relationship (they met when Brigitte was married with children and Emmanuel was just 14, despite most American sources claiming they met when he was 15.) Instead she picked up the convoluted conspiracy theory that Brigitte is really her brother Jean-Michel Trogneux who became a trans woman and proceeded to assist with turning Emmanuel into an MKULTRA-controlled “Manchurian Candidate.” In Owen’s ludicrous tale, the Macrons then killed anyone who started asking questions about Brigitte’s past, Clinton-body-count style. But since this nonsense is powered by crude bigotry rather than any investigatory impulse, the evidence is unsurprisingly weak. Owens’ method of argumentation involves ignoring the fact that Jean-Michel Trogneux is clearly alive and a separate person, looking at real photos and declaring them fake, and birthday numerology. Travis, Jake, and Julian unpack Owens’ past, the history of the conspiracy theory, how she promoted it through the 8-part series “Becoming Brigitte,” and the lawsuit that now threatens her independent media empire. Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/qaa 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) https://qaapodcast.com QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast. /// We’ve launched a new podcast miniseries network: Cursed Media. The very first Cursed Media miniseries is Science in Transition. Science in Transition is an investigation into the intellectual origins of the contemporary right wing backlash against transgender acceptance. Through six deeply-researched episodes, hosts Liv Agar and Spencer Barrows unearth a bizarre coalition of well-meaning clinicians, aristocratic sexologists, militant feminists, right-wing culture warriors, headline-chasing journalists, and conservative politicians. Binge all six episodes of Science In Transition by subscribing through this link. www.cursedmedia.net/ Subscribers to Cursed Media get access to three new podcast series per year, plus every episode of QAA’s existing mini-series (properly organized!) ////

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Episodes (20/500)

QAA Podcast

The Problem of Disinformation (E334)

This 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 Olivier 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 Thanks for subscribing to QAA on patreon. 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) https://qaapodcast.com QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast. /// We’ve launched a new podcast miniseries network: Cursed Media. The very first Cursed Media miniseries is Science in Transition. Science in Transition is an investigation into the intellectual origins of the contemporary right wing backlash against transgender acceptance. Through six deeply-researched episodes, hosts Liv Agar and Spencer Barrows unearth a bizarre coalition of well-meaning clinicians, aristocratic sexologists, militant feminists, right-wing culture warriors, headline-chasing journalists, and conservative politicians. Listen to the first five episodes of Science In Transition right now and all episodes after the sixth one is released by subscribing through this link. www.cursedmedia.net/ Subscribers to Cursed Media get access to three new podcast series per year, plus every episode of QAA’s existing mini-series (properly organized!)