Nope, that’s not a lie. And that title was generated by AI. As the 2024 election gets closer and closer, media literacy is as important as ever. While we often think of propaganda as those cartoons from WWI depicting Germany as a gorilla headed for the streets of New York, there is a much broader definition with the growth of the internet. Currently, we can think of hit ads, direct to consumer mail, rallies, debates and catchphrases as ways that you may be drawn to one campaign over another, but a recent contender has entered the ring. The growth of AI in the past 10-15 years has been hugely effective at infecting our brains without us even realizing it.
With the recent tragedies of Hurricane Helene, AI generated images have been used to damage Biden’s administration by prompting an emotional reaction to young children and animals. The picture of a young girl wearing a life vest and holding a small puppy while crying in a boat as we see houses being flooded around her is meant to provoke an emotional response, to make people feel bad for those in the hurricane.
“I don’t know where this photo came from and honestly, it doesn’t matter.” says Republican Amy Kremer defending her decision to keep the AI generated image of the "survivor" on her X feed.
And to be honest, she’s kind of right. The spread of misinformation is everywhere and although we shouldn’t be spreading misinformation, people’s opinions on a subject often don’t change after they’ve already formed an opinion based on a visual. Photos tend to evoke emotions into people before they have time to process what they are seeing.
In a hypothetical study done by the Royal Society of Open Science in 2018, they found that between the political candidates both parties generally didn’t change their view point after finding out that information about their candidate was fake or that their candidate had been fact checked and this is still relevant today, where Trump supporters don’t care whether or not Harris is actually a communist, or if she even wore the outfit, but the image reinforced the idea that they had heard, that Harris is a communist.
Some of Trump’s claims over the years have been ridiculously absurd, like the idea that the illegal aliens are eating the dogs and cats in Springfield or that Harris is a communist. And while these may seem like harmless jokes or drawn out extremes that no one would believe, it can gradually warp your brain. While the AI generated images of pets in Springfield holding up signs that say “Don’t Let Them Eat US! Vote for Trump!” may seem satire, many believe they are really perpetuating a conspiracy theory about the immigrant community, prompting threats to schools and government buildings.
These may not be liked or posted by Trump himself, it is unlikely he has even seen some of the propaganda but there is no doubt that Elon Musk posting Kamala wearing a communist uniform to his audience of over 201 million people had an impact on the favor Trump has been receiving as the polls get closer and closer come to election time.
It is unclear whether or not these kinds of images have affected the polls this election, but since then, even with the generally positive response to how the Biden Administration is handling Hurricane Helene, Harris has fallen in the polls. But more than public image, we should really be concerned about how the media can manipulate public opinion. If people are perhaps literate enough to understand what is fake and what is not, it is still abundantly clear that they don’t care.
"The standard of live news has sagged deep into the entertainment department, several floors below." Ed Turner, Editor at large, CNN, 1998
https://www.npr.org/2024/10/18/nx-s1-5153741/ai-images-hurricanes-disasters-propaganda
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.180593#RSOS180593C39
