Deepfake: images in times of post-truth.

Abstract

This study aims at constructing a socio-mediatic scenario that will enable an analysis of the deepfake phenomenon, a true threat to discourses in time of post-truth. To do so, it proposes a classification of genres, cases, discursive fields, technologies of production and detection, ethical issues and cultural challenges that are imposed by this emergent form of constructing narratives through image and sound. The background of this scenario is set by the concept, post-truth, understood as a phenomenon that arose within the digital media, and which has fueled a war of power discourses in such media. The deepfake scenario is revealed to be emergent, evolutionary, changing, highly dynamic and progressive; further, deepfake is identified as a phenomenon that functions as political tool, piece of entertainment, means of activism and threatening weapon that poses new technological, ethical, legal and cultural challenges.