The brave new world of political communication in the age of AI

Politics today operates in a media environment more chaotic, fragmented, and saturated than anything we've previously known. Content production is no longer the privilege of a few but a mass sport. For Tibor Dessewffy, these developments bear a stark warning. Like it or not, it’s in the AI-shaped environment of the here and now that impact must be made. Those who stay out of this space don’t just fall behind – they become invisible. 

Public debate around artificial intelligence – especially once politics enters the frame – is currently steeped in a vaguely apocalyptic and a vocabulary of threat: disinformation, deepfakes, digital deceit.

The NRA’s infamous slogan, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” serves, ironically, as a useful framework for thinking about AI. Technology doesn’t act alone. It’s a tool. Beyond the moral panics and the sci-fi dystopias, a simple truth remains: the threat doesn’t lie in AI itself, but in what we use it for. The more relevant question isn’t “will it lie to us?”, but rather “why are we so ready to believe it?”

Because the real transformation is subtler than a deepfake and more systemic than disinformation. It’s the capacity of generative AI to shift our sense of what counts as true, what feels relevant, and what even qualifies as “real” in the first place.

AI today is not some autonomous intelligence. It is both infrastructure – the algorithmic terrain through which political content moves – and instrument: the ever-expanding toolkit that turns passive consumers into active users, and increasingly, into full-fledged media producers.

Recent developments suggest the entry barrier to content production is collapsing in real time. Right now, a typical user can generate a 15-second video by feeding a few prompts to an app. Soon, producing polished, high-concept video content could be as easy as sending a voice memo. The range of tools and outputs available to the average person is growing exponentially. The question is no longer who gets to produce political content—but rather, who doesn’t.

Beyond disinformation

Disinformation is a serious problem but there’s nothing new about it. Witch trials, for instance, were fueled by what we would today label fake news. What has changed is not the existence of deception, but the scale: technological shifts have turned the possibilities of disinformation into an industrial operation.

The algorithmic logic of social media – designed to reward sensation and outrage – not only provides space for falsehoods to circulate but also actively accelerates their spread. Research suggests that false news travels roughly 70% faster and farther than truthful information. But this is not an AI problem – it is a consequence of human attention.

Troll armies are no longer required; what matters now are narratives that can scale.

What is truly new, then, is not intent but the toolkit. Generative artificial intelligence – especially large language models and text‑to‑video systems – has revolutionized automated content production. Troll armies are no longer required; what matters now are narratives that can scale.

While authoritarian regimes tightly control closed information environments and exploit open platforms for influence operations, liberal democracies’ commitment to freedom puts them at a disadvantage. Regulation is cumbersome, labeling mechanisms are slow, and the decentralized operation of AI models routinely bypasses traditional security protocols.

We are witnessing a rewriting of the structure of reality – the transformation of the arena in which information is consumed and the process through which reality is constructed. Jean Baudrillard and Anthony Giddens warned decades ago that the boundary between “reality” and “non‑reality” was steadily dissolving. The combination of generative AI and social media has not merely fulfilled these predictions – it has detonated them, accelerating the process at explosive speed.

It is not truth that dies, but the expectation that truth should exist at all. When everything is possible and nothing is verifiable, not only does meaningful talk about truth collapse, but political discourse itself is radically transformed.

The circle closes when millions of people no longer believe what they see, but instead see what they want to believe. When tens of millions of Americans, watching videos of Alex Pretti’s killing, conclude that an aggressive provocateur attacked law enforcement, they are no longer responding to facts. They are projecting their prior assumptions onto reality itself. 

This is possible only within a post‑truth knowledge regime that is being constructed before our very eyes – one that AI does not create, but relentlessly accelerates and drives to its extremes.

Living in the noise: New logics of political impact

Back in 1999, the average person in the EU spent roughly 210 minutes a day watching television. Today, average time spent on social media hovers around 108 minutes. But among Gen Z, it regularly climbs to five hours or more. The real transformation, however, lies not only in how much time is spent, but in what that time is spent doing – and who is doing it.

Because in today’s digital ecosystem, the user is no longer just a passive viewer – they are a “prosumer” (producer + consumer). According to data from PetaPixel, 65% of Gen Z consider themselves video content creators. A 2023–24 Morning Consult study goes even further: 57% of 13–26 year-olds say they would like to become influencers.

In other words: the audience doesn’t just want to watch – it wants to shape what’s being watched. AI is lowering the barriers to entry with astonishing speed. Roles blur. Boundaries dissolve. The media landscape no longer feels like something you tune into but something you can co-create.

It is no longer enough to say something important – you have to say it in a format that can be seen, felt, and shared.

This, in turn, redefines the playing field for political communication. Messages must now contend with a crowd that does not merely consume – but competes. The public space is now flooded with remix, reaction, parody, satire, and short-form spectacle. It is no longer enough to say something important – you have to say it in a format that can be seen, felt, and shared.

Do you speak TikTok?

This doubling of roles reshapes how political actors can reach an audience. The logic of impact has shifted: it’s no longer just about what is said, but how and in what form, with what pacing, and on which platform.

TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts aren’t just distribution channels; they speak entirely new languages, each with its own syntax, rhythm, and emotional grammar. Those who are fluent in these dialects – whether influencers, activists, or tech-savvy politicians – have a strong advantage, regardless of the substance of the message, since they have mastered how to deliver them.

Of course, not every politician needs to dance or dive into the ocean in a suit. But the carefully choreographed, pathos-laden, official tone inherited from an earlier media era is rapidly losing its grip. Today’s public discourse demands a different rhythm and aesthetic. The logic of attention now feeds on immediacy, impulse, and the illusion of intimacy.

This is a shift that demands new instincts and new reflexes. Form no longer merely carries content; it governs whether content is even legible. A tightly timed, visually striking 12-second clip now carries more communicative weight than a meticulously worded policy position on a printed page. Those who don’t speak this language, don’t just fall behind – they vanish from view.

This isn’t a moral verdict. It’s a map. Platform-speak is not an alternative to political language – it has become its habitat. And in this new habitat, “relevant form” isn’t garnish. It’s entry-level infrastructure.

This shift also makes disinformation more effective. Not because it’s well disguised, but because the audience no longer seeks truth and credibility but experience. Does the content engage and resonate? AI-generated or AI-modified material has become the norm; whether it’s a ChatGPT-written post or a deepfake montage, it no longer surprises anyone. Content today is not a source – it’s a tool. A tool for constructing a sense of reality. What spreads is what feels true, regardless of whether it’s factually accurate.

In this environment, it’s not statistics that matter, but myth. Not factual weight, but narrative allure. When, for example, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi appear in a Hungarian-language AI-generated TikTok video joking about how the Fidesz party buys votes with a sack of potatoes, the video's success doesn't depend on anyone thinking it's real. It works because it's funny, entertaining, and shareable. The deepfake fills the same cultural role as a “real” George Clooney denouncing Trump. Both are speech acts designed to activate a feeling, while rational analysis falls by the wayside.

In political communication, adaptation is not optional

Political and civil society actors now operate in an ecosystem where credibility hasn’t disappeared, but it’s built differently. Adapting technologically and aesthetically to a transformed public sphere is essential. Attention follows new rules, and those who recognize and master them are the ones who win.

The danger isn’t that AI lies. It’s that it can say anything, in any way. It stretches content production to its limits and expands the possibilities for disinformation along with it. When anyone can become a producer, and when anything can be turned into a high-quality media product, we’re no longer facing a quantitative shift. For bad-faith actors, this opens up a new dimension: not just messages, but entire senses of reality can now be manufactured.

The consequences go far beyond political polarization or fragmented information.

Attention follows new rules, and those who recognize and master them are the ones who win.

Something more radical is happening: reality is losing its contours. We now inhabit a media space where nothing feels certain because everything feels plausible. While videos of Tralalero Tralala, the three-legged blue shark in Nike sneakers, rack up millions of views, footage of bombed-out cities, refugees, and the victims of war are forced to compete – and usually lose. Policy initiatives, legislative efforts, and public statements all find themselves battling in the same arena – and often in vain.

What we need now is not moral panic but clarity. The structure of the discursive field has changed. So too have the conditions for political presence and visibility. The way reality becomes speakable no longer follows the rules it did even a few years ago. Those who grasp this may still find a voice in this new public space. Those who don’t will end up echoing into silence.

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Featured image generated with AI.

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