DEEP-FAKES AND FRACTURED REALITIES: RECONFIGURING TRUST IN DIGITAL MEDIA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29121/shodhkosh.v7.i10s.2026.8122Keywords:
Deep-Fakes, Media Authenticity, Trust Erosion, Fractured Reality Framework, Algorithmic AmplificationAbstract [English]
The paper is a critical analysis of the way artificial intelligence-generated deep-fakes undermine authenticity in media, journalistic credibility, platform regulation, and democratic discourse. It identifies gap in current literature that missing a comprehensive theoretical framework, which would describe the systemic and multi-layered erosion of trust created by synthetic media. To address this gap, the article introduces Fractured Reality Framework that is a novel synthesis of media ecology, post-truth theory, platform capitalism, algorithmic governance, and critical AI ethics. The conceptual framework represents the mediated reality as a stratified system of authentic, synthetic, hybrid, and fractured layers, recursively punctured by algorithmically amplified feedback loops. The analysis places deep-fakes as the ecological powers that multiply the level of epistemological uncertainty, social inequalities, and political manipulation with far-reaching consequences to the working of the democratic communication and the media system.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Rashid Hashmi, Dr. Rajesh Kumar Shukla, Dr. Ramesh Kumar Sharma
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