How fake is fake enough? : Deepfakes potential effect on the way news media is used and experienced today and in the near future

Abstract: Deepfakes are synthetic content, like pictures, videos, and sounds, that are generated with advanced deep learning and AI-technology. Anyone can create deepfakes and therefore, deepfakes create threats to the individual, financially and to the society. For example, bullying, defamation, fraud, damage to democracy and news media manipulation. The aim of the study is to analyze and discuss whether deepfakes potentially can affect the way society views and uses news media in a positive or negative way. The research methodology chosen was a cross-sectional study. A cross-sectional study is done to measure a particular aspect of a social phenomenon or trend. In this study the phenomenon is deepfakes and how they might affect the way news media is used, what are the affordances and constraints with this phenomenon? The study was conducted in two steps. The first step of was to study discussion forums and blogs. Discussion forums and blogs where AI and deepfakes were discussed. The second step was to conduct semi-structured interviews with people selected through purposive sampling. The results show that deepfakes have both positive and negative aspects to them. Deepfakes could have great impact on the entertainment business and within news media and journalism. They can be used to show things that only are speculative or very hard to capture on video or in a picture. They can be used within news media or journalism to protect people and get a broader following. The results also shows that deepfakes can lead to psychological, financial and social harm. Source criticism is a topic that needs to be more discussed and have a bigger part in education. Without source criticism and with a larger use of deepfakes people could experience a lot of fear and confusion since it might get harder to know what source to trust and to determine whether published content is fake or not.