The Influence of Deepfakes in the US election campaign - A panel study

In this study, the relationship between the perceived use of deepfakes by political parties and their supporters in the US election campaign will be examined using various psychological, political and socio-demographic variables. During the last election campaign in 2020, social media was observed to have an impact on citizens (Guess e al., 2023). We therefore assume that social media will also play a major role in the upcoming election campaign, in which deepfakes are appearing more and more frequently. The basic aim is to investigate how the influence of deepfakes on democratic processes is perceived. There is already some research that deals with the effects of deepfakes on democratic processes. For example, they lead to lower trust in institutions, distortion of democratic discussions and lower legitimacy of political decisions (Pawelec, 2022; Chesney & Citron, 2019). Thus, there is already evidence that deepfakes influence democratic processes. We would like to combine these approaches with socio-psychological approaches to threat research and refer to the Intergroup Threat Theory (Stephan, Ybarra & Morrison, 2009), which distinguishes between symbolic and realistic threat, among other things. We assume that deepfakes have an impact on the perception of a symbolic threat to democratic values and discussion culture, and that a fundamental willingness of people to engage in political discussions influences this perception, as they scrutinize media content more carefully (Scheufele et al. 2002). On the other hand, we assume that they have an effect on the perception of realistic threats of potential abuse by political opponents, whereby we consider party affiliation and proximity to the party to be decisive influencing factors. We will collect data at four data points in time, three of them being before the election and one after the election.