Paul M. H. Buvarp

I study what happens to knowledge when the machinery that carries it changes.

I am a senior research scientist at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, where I work on disinformation, influence operations and cognitive security. My research concerns the epistemic order that print built over five centuries, and the conditions now dismantling it.

Much of that work turns on a single claim: language has begun to arrive without anyone having composed it. I call this condition tertiary orality, and I think it is the third transformation of the word.

I hold a doctorate in political science from the University of St Andrews. I write for Aftenposten, Klassekampen, Samtiden and Vagant, in Norwegian and in English.

• 10 Aug
  2026

  Hva vi glemmer når verden brenner

  Arendalsuka/Fredssentrene/Arendal/Panelist NO

• 10 Aug
  2026

  Nordic resilience in antagonistic times

  Arendalsuka/Nordforsk/Arendal/Ordstyrer EN

• 10 Aug
  2026

  Universitetenes rolle i å bygge demokratisk motstandskraft i samfunnet

  Arendalsuka/Universitetet i Agder/Arendal/Ordstyrer NO

Talks

• 2026

  Maktens oversettelsesmaskin

  Vagant/On Palantir

• 2026

  TODO — Aftenposten piece on social media age limits

  Aftenposten

• 2026

  Brytningsteknologi og det kognitive trussellandskapet

  FFI-rapport/For the Ministry of Defence

• 2025

  Synets uutholdelige glatthet

  Vagant/On the recursion of text, image and video

The full index

• Tertiary orality

  Language produced without a composing subject.

• Structural receptivity

  The condition of an audience that makes a falsehood liveable.

• Aletheic breakdown

  The failure of the shared procedures by which a society settles what is true.

• The Gutenberg Parenthesis

  The five centuries of print-shaped knowledge now closing behind us. Sauerberg's and Pettitt's term, not mine.