Open Access Peer-reviewed Case Study

From Aristotle to AI: Exploring the convergence of deepfakes and persuasion and their societal consequences

Article Sidebar

Download PDF
Submitted   Sep 22, 2024
Published   Jan 10, 2025
Issue    Vol 6 No 1 (2025)
DOI   10.25082/IJAH.2025.01.003

Views

76

Downloads

23

Citations

PlumX Metrics

Main Article Content

Amaka Peace Onebunne corresponding author
Department of Communication, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA

Abstract

From the foundational tenets of Aristotle’s rhetoric to the digital complexities of today’s AI-driven technologies, the path of persuasive communication involves a variety of tools and tactics. At the center of this technological evolution are ‘deepfakes,’ which are advanced AI-generated videos that are almost indistinguishable from real content. This study uses critical discourse analysis, to show how deepfakes not only exemplify Aristotle’s principles but amplify them in an indistinguishable way, raising concerns about the spread of misinformation, and distrust in the media and political discourse. By juxtaposing rhetoric and contemporary AI technology, this paper sheds light on this shade of persuasion, prompting reflections on its implications, and putting forward suggestions for this increasingly AI-infused communication space.

Keywords
rhetoric, political communication, deepfakes, artificial intelligence

Article Details

How to Cite
Onebunne, A. P. (2025). From Aristotle to AI: Exploring the convergence of deepfakes and persuasion and their societal consequences. International Journal of Arts and Humanities, 6(1), 288-296. https://doi.org/10.25082/IJAH.2025.01.003
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

References

  1. Agarwal, S., Farid, H., Gu, Y., He, M., Nagano, K., & Li, H. (2019). Protecting World Leaders Against Deep Fakes. In CVPR Workshops, 1, 38–45.
  2. Aristotle. (1984). The Nicomachean Ethics. (W. D. Ross, Trans.). In J. Barnes (Ed.), The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation (Vol. 2). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  3. Baumlin, J. S., & Meyer, C. A. (2018). Positioning Ethos in/for the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction to Histories of Ethos. Humanities, 7(3), 78. https://doi.org/10.3390/h7030078
  4. Beattie, A., Edwards, A. P., & Edwards, C. (2020). A Bot and a Smile: Interpersonal Impressions of Chatbots and Humans Using Emoji in Computer-mediated Communication. Communication Studies, 71(3), 409–427. https://doi.org/10.1080/10510974.2020.1725082
  5. Brader, T. (2005). Striking a Responsive Chord: How Political Ads Motivate and Persuade Voters by Appealing to Emotions. American Journal of Political Science, 49(2), 388–405. Portico. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0092-5853.2005.00130.x
  6. Braet, A. C. (1992). Ethos, pathos and logos in Aristotle’s Rhetoric: A re-examination. Argumentation, 6(3), 307–320. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00154696
  7. Brummett, B. S. (2022). Rhetoric in Popular Culture. Sage Publications, Incorporated.
  8. Burke, K. (1964). Shakespearean Persuasion. The Antioch Review, 24(1), 19. https://doi.org/10.2307/4610566
  9. Chesney, R., & Citron, D. K. (2018). Deep Fakes: A Looming Challenge for Privacy, Democracy, and National Security. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3213954
  10. Clayton, E. W. (2004). The Audience for Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Rhetorica, 22(2), 183–203. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2004.22.2.183
  11. Cobb, M. D., & Kuklinski, J. H. (1997). Changing Minds: Political Arguments and Political Persuasion. American Journal of Political Science, 41(1), 88. https://doi.org/10.2307/2111710
  12. Dehnert, M., & Mongeau, P. A. (2022). Persuasion in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI): Theories and Complications of AI-Based Persuasion. Human Communication Research, 48(3), 386–403. https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqac006
  13. Fairclough, N. (2013). Critical Discourse Analysis. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315834368
  14. Figueira, Á., & Oliveira, L. (2017). The current state of fake news: challenges and opportunities. Procedia Computer Science, 121, 817–825. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2017.11.106
  15. Fletcher, J. (2018). Deepfakes, Artificial Intelligence, and Some Kind of Dystopia: The New Faces of Online Post-Fact Performance. Theatre Journal, 70(4), 455–471. https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2018.0097
  16. Fortenbaugh, W. W. (1992). Aristotle on Persuasion Through Character. Rhetorica, 10(3), 207–244. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1992.10.3.207
  17. Garver, E. (1996). The Political Irrelevance of Aristotle’s “Rhetoric.” Philosophy & Rhetoric, 29(2), 179–199.
  18. Goodfellow, I., Pouget-Abadie, J., Mirza, M., Xu, B., Warde-Farley, D., Ozair, S., Courville, A., & Bengio, Y. (2020). Generative adversarial networks. Communications of the ACM, 63(11), 139–144. https://doi.org/10.1145/3422622
  19. Halloran, S. M. (1975). On the End of Rhetoric, Classical and Modern. College English, 36(6), 621. https://doi.org/10.2307/374944
  20. Ingram, J. (2009). Political Emotions: Aristotle and the Symphony of Reason and Emotion. Philosophy & Rhetoric, 42(1), 92–95. https://doi.org/10.2307/25655340
  21. Kennedy, G. A. (2007). Aristotle : On rhetoric : A theory of civic discourse. Oxford University Press.
  22. Kietzmann, J., Lee, L. W., McCarthy, I. P., & Kietzmann, T. C. (2020). Deepfakes: Trick or treat? Business Horizons, 63(2), 135–146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2019.11.006
  23. Ling, H., & Björling, E. (2020). Sharing Stress With a Robot: What Would a Robot Say? Human-Machine Communication, 1, 133–158. Portico. https://doi.org/10.30658/hmc.1.8
  24. Machin, D., & Mayr, A. (2012). How to do critical discourse analysis : a multimodal introduction. Sage.
  25. Marwick, A. E., & Lewis, R. (2017). Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online.
  26. Mayer, R. E., & Moreno, R. (2003). Nine Ways to Reduce Cognitive Load in Multimedia Learning. Educational Psychologist, 38(1), 43–52. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep3801_6
  27. Mirhady, D. C., & Garver, E. (1996). Aristotle’s “Rhetoric”: An Art of Character. Phoenix, 50(2), 179. https://doi.org/10.2307/1192712
  28. Nichols, M. P. (1987). Aristotle’s Defense of Rhetoric. The Journal of Politics, 49(3), 657–677. https://doi.org/10.2307/2131273
  29. O’Sullivan, D. (2023, May 2). https://twitter.com/donie/status/1653556187487502336?s=20
  30. Qayyum, A., Qadir, J., Janjua, M. U., & Sher, F. (2019). Using Blockchain to Rein in the New Post-Truth World and Check the Spread of Fake News. IT Professional, 21(4), 16–24. https://doi.org/10.1109/mitp.2019.2910503
  31. Rhodes, S. C. (2021). Filter Bubbles, Echo Chambers, and Fake News: How Social Media Conditions Individuals to Be Less Critical of Political Misinformation. Political Communication, 39(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2021.1910887
  32. Rossler, A., Cozzolino, D., Verdoliva, L., Riess, C., Thies, J., & Niessner, M. (2019). FaceForensics++: Learning to Detect Manipulated Facial Images. 2019 IEEE/CVF International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1109/iccv.2019.00009
  33. Sundar, S. S. (2008). The MAIN model: A heuristic approach to understanding technology effects on credibility. Digital Media, Youth, and Credibility/MIT Press, 73-100. https://doi.org/10.1162/dmal.9780262562324.073
  34. Stenberg, G. (2006). Conceptual and perceptual factors in the picture superiority effect. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 18(6), 813–847. https://doi.org/10.1080/09541440500412361
  35. Sunstein, C. R. (2017). Republic. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400884711
  36. Ternovski, J., Kalla, J., & Aronow, P. M. (2021). Deepfake Warnings for Political Videos Increase Disbelief but Do Not Improve Discernment: Evidence from Two Experiments. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/dta97
  37. Thompson, A. (2023, May 25). https://twitter.com/AlexThomp/status/1650817703584645122?s=20
  38. Vaccari, C., & Chadwick, A. (2020). Deepfakes and Disinformation: Exploring the Impact of Synthetic Political Video on Deception, Uncertainty, and Trust in News. Social Media + Society, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120903408
  39. van Dijk, T. A. (1993). Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis. Discourse & Society, 4(2), 249–283. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926593004002006
  40. Vincent, J. , & Fortunati, L. (2009). Electronic emotion: the mediation of emotion via information and communication technologies.
  41. Weber, C. (2012). Emotions, Campaigns, and Political Participation. Political Research Quarterly, 66(2), 414–428. https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912912449697
  42. Westerlund, M. (2019). The Emergence of Deepfake Technology: A Review. Technology Innovation Management Review, 9(11), 39–52. https://doi.org/10.22215/timreview/1282
  43. Williams, J. D. (2013). An introduction to classical rhetoric : essential readings. Wiley-Blackwell.
  44. Wodak, R., & Meyer, M. (2015). Methods of Critical Discourse Studies. SAGE.
  45. Yumak, Z., Ren, J., Thalmann, N. M., & Yuan, J. (2014). Modelling Multi-Party Interactions among Virtual Characters, Robots, and Humans. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 23(2), 172–190. https://doi.org/10.1162/pres_a_00179