You Won’t Believe What They Just Said! The Effects of Political Deepfakes Embedded as Vox Populi on Social Media
Disinformation has been regarded as a key threat to democracy. Yet, we know little about the effects of different modalities of disinformation, or the impact of disinformation disseminated through (inauthentic) social media accounts of ordinary citizens. To test the effects of different forms of dis...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
SAGE Publishing
2022-08-01
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| Series: | Social Media + Society |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051221116346 |
| _version_ | 1817998236496953344 |
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| author | Michael Hameleers Toni G. L. A. van der Meer Tom Dobber |
| author_facet | Michael Hameleers Toni G. L. A. van der Meer Tom Dobber |
| author_sort | Michael Hameleers |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Disinformation has been regarded as a key threat to democracy. Yet, we know little about the effects of different modalities of disinformation, or the impact of disinformation disseminated through (inauthentic) social media accounts of ordinary citizens. To test the effects of different forms of disinformation and their embedding, we conducted an experimental study in the Netherlands ( N = 1,244). In this experiment, we investigated the effects of disinformation (contrasted to both similar and dissimilar authentic political speeches), the role of modality (textual manipulation versus a deepfake), and the disinformation’s embedding on social media (absent, endorsed or discredited by an (in)authentic citizen). Our main findings indicate that deepfakes are less credible than authentic news on the same topic. Deepfakes are not more persuasive than textual disinformation. Although we did find that disinformation has effects on the perceived credibility and source evaluations of people who tend to agree with the stance of the disinformation’s arguments, our findings suggest that the strong societal concerns on deepfakes’ destabilizing impact on democracy are not completely justified. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-14T02:49:54Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-45385d37998e4e74b639d7ee4111842b |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2056-3051 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-14T02:49:54Z |
| publishDate | 2022-08-01 |
| publisher | SAGE Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Social Media + Society |
| spelling | doaj.art-45385d37998e4e74b639d7ee4111842b2022-12-22T02:16:18ZengSAGE PublishingSocial Media + Society2056-30512022-08-01810.1177/20563051221116346You Won’t Believe What They Just Said! The Effects of Political Deepfakes Embedded as Vox Populi on Social MediaMichael HameleersToni G. L. A. van der MeerTom DobberDisinformation has been regarded as a key threat to democracy. Yet, we know little about the effects of different modalities of disinformation, or the impact of disinformation disseminated through (inauthentic) social media accounts of ordinary citizens. To test the effects of different forms of disinformation and their embedding, we conducted an experimental study in the Netherlands ( N = 1,244). In this experiment, we investigated the effects of disinformation (contrasted to both similar and dissimilar authentic political speeches), the role of modality (textual manipulation versus a deepfake), and the disinformation’s embedding on social media (absent, endorsed or discredited by an (in)authentic citizen). Our main findings indicate that deepfakes are less credible than authentic news on the same topic. Deepfakes are not more persuasive than textual disinformation. Although we did find that disinformation has effects on the perceived credibility and source evaluations of people who tend to agree with the stance of the disinformation’s arguments, our findings suggest that the strong societal concerns on deepfakes’ destabilizing impact on democracy are not completely justified.https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051221116346 |
| spellingShingle | Michael Hameleers Toni G. L. A. van der Meer Tom Dobber You Won’t Believe What They Just Said! The Effects of Political Deepfakes Embedded as Vox Populi on Social Media Social Media + Society |
| title | You Won’t Believe What They Just Said! The Effects of Political Deepfakes Embedded as Vox Populi on Social Media |
| title_full | You Won’t Believe What They Just Said! The Effects of Political Deepfakes Embedded as Vox Populi on Social Media |
| title_fullStr | You Won’t Believe What They Just Said! The Effects of Political Deepfakes Embedded as Vox Populi on Social Media |
| title_full_unstemmed | You Won’t Believe What They Just Said! The Effects of Political Deepfakes Embedded as Vox Populi on Social Media |
| title_short | You Won’t Believe What They Just Said! The Effects of Political Deepfakes Embedded as Vox Populi on Social Media |
| title_sort | you won t believe what they just said the effects of political deepfakes embedded as vox populi on social media |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051221116346 |
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