@article{2025:vief:synthetic_,
title = {Synthetic disinformation detection among German information elites – Strategies in politics, administration, journalism, and business},
year = {2025},
note = {Since the technology for generating synthetic media content became
available to a wider audience in 2022, the social and communication
sciences face the urgent question of how these technologies can be
used to spread disinformation and how well recipients are equipped to
deal with this risk. Research so far has focused primarily on the
phenomenon of deepfakes, which mostly refers to visual media generated
or modified by artificial intelligence. Most studies aim to test how
well recipients can detect such deepfakes, and they generally conclude
that recipients are rather poor at detecting them. In contrast, this
analysis focuses on the broader concept of synthetic disinformation,
which includes all forms of AI-generated content for the purpose of
deception. We investigate the process of how actors with professional
expertise in the field of disinformation try to detect AI-generated
disinformation in text, visual and audio content and which strategies
and resources they employ. To gauge an upper bound for societal
preparedness, we conducted guided interviews with 41 actors in elite
positions from four sectors of German society (politics, corporations,
media and administration) and asked them about their strategies for
detecting synthetic disinformation in text, visual and audio content.
The respondents apply different detection strategies for the three
media formats. The data shows substantial differences between the four
groups when it comes to detection strategies. Only the media
professionals consistently describe analytical, rather than simply
intuitive, methods for verification.},
journal = {SCM Studies in Communication and Media},
pages = {594--624},
author = {Vief, Nils and Bösch, Marcus and Unger, Saïd and Klapproth, Johanna and Boberg, Svenja and Quandt, Thorsten and Stöcker, Christian},
volume = {14},
number = {4}
}