The Intersection of Deepfake Technology, Post-Truth Media, and Credibility Judgments among Social Media Users in Pakistan

Abstract

Drastic development of the deep fake and Artificial technology has highlighted the issue of misinformation, credibility judgements, and media information literacy in post truth media environment, where an emotional appeal to the heart and ideology can win and prevail over factual truth, so they are being subjected to misleading visuals at times of excessive information overload to the individuals. Therefore, this paper examines the credibility judgements, deep fake awareness and media information literacy of Pakistani University students in information overloaded digital arena of post truth media world. A survey design is used with a structure of a Likert scale to gather the data. Results showed that that post-truth media orientation and information overload are important predictors of credibility judgments, whereas media and media literacy have a positive effect on evaluative capacity. On the contrary, deep fake awareness does not come out as an important predictor on its own, which suggests that critical skills are not enough to combat misleading media act because of awareness alone. Cognitive and contextual factors are more important in the evaluation of credibility judgements than technological awareness, which means that the study is an empirical contribution to the post-truth and misinformation academic field. In practicality, the results show the need of institutional media literacy education among the masses, especially in the developing nation where the rate of digital growth is very high. This research will be providing both theoretical and empirical as well as policy-wise information to scholars, teachers, and regulators who need to deal with the issue(s) of misinformation as a result of the deployment of deep fakes.