Seeing is Believing? A Four Country Comparative Study of Visual Misinformation in Election Campaigns

Abstract

My lecture will present the findings of a multi-method project conducted with Dr Nick Anstead (LSE), examining the role of visual misinformation in four countries in which elections occurred in 2024: Belgium, France, the United Kingdom and the United States. The context of research are the ongoing debates about the threat posed by misinformation generally and visual misinformation more specifically to democratic institutions, and possible responses to that challenge. In our work, we have set up dummy social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X, following prominent accounts on the political right and the political left. The feeds on these social media platforms were monitored and examples of visual misinformation encountered were harvested and analysed. We also interviewed 9 experts on misinformation and factchecking based in the four countries. The findings overall suggest that much of the contemporary policy debate around visual misinformation and disruptive potential of AI is flawed. In particular – except for the United States – most of the visual misinformation is not produced with AI, instead relying on more traditional photo editing techniques. Furthermore, the misinformation images, while obviously fake and unrealistic, are at the same time embedded in narratives associated with certain political positions and discourses. Our findings furthermore show that visual misinformation thrives and circulates mainly on the right of the political spectrum while much of the misinformation content on the left are reactions to rightwing content. As a result of this, anti-migration, Islamophobic and racist discourses are very prevalent in the data, as are jingoistic expressions of nationalism and flagging. The findings call for fundamental rethinking of the challenge of visual misinformation in contemporary democracies. The former should not just be seen as a technological challenge but also one rooted in the form of political institutions. Additionally, we need to reframe the idea of visual misinformation as a direct attack on democratic institutions, and as a symptom of a wider set of disorders, including broader inaccurate narratives and prejudices in circulation.

About the Speaker

Bart Cammaerts is Professor of Politics and Communication at the Media and Communications Department of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). A member of the Academia Europaea, he is the former chair of the Communication and Democracy Section of the European Communication and Research Association (ECREA) and former vice-chair of the Communication, Technology & Policy-section of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). His research focuses on media, communication and resistance with emphasis on media strategies of activists, media representations of protest, alternative countercultures and broader issues of power, participation and public-ness. In his work, he also advocates for maximalist articulations of democracy and passionately critiques the creeping normalisation of neo-fascism. His most recent books include, inter alia: Dichotomies in Media and Communication Theory (Routledge, 2026) or The Circulation of Anti-Austerity Protest (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). More info: https://www.lse.ac.uk/people/bart-cammaerts