DEEPFAKE MEDIA AND THE CRISIS OF VISUAL TRUTH: IMPACT ON POLITICAL TRUST AND MEDIA CREDIBILITY IN PAKISTAN

Abstract

The rapid development of deepfake technology has created substantial epistemological challenges for the political communication research domain, as concerns the forthcoming emergent liberal democratic systems, a category within which Pakistan is located. The research examined how exposure to deepfake media affects Pakistani citizens' political trust and their evaluations of media credibility. The study obtained data using a cross-sectional quantitative survey design, involving 500 adult participants from four Pakistani provinces via stratified random sampling. The researchers used validated measurement tools to assess deepfake exposure, political trust, media credibility, digital media literacy, information skepticism, and participants' sociodemographic characteristics. The researchers applied hierarchical multiple regression analyses, together with the PROCESS Macro Model 1, to assess the moderated regression results. The research results indicated that deepfake exposure decreased both political trust and media credibility assessments, with deepfake exposure as the main factor driving the decline (β = -.36, p < .001) and (β = -.34, p < .001). The researchers discovered that the moderating variable was digital media literacy whose effect was positive and non-significant in lowering political trust (ΔR2 =.02, p =.003) and that the effect of deepfake exposure was not so strong among individuals with high media literacy. The process of information skepticism functioned as an essential mediating pathway. The research findings demonstrate that Pakistan needs immediate national media literacy initiatives and synthetic media control systems and methods for rebuilding institutional trust in its digital information ecosystem.