To Örebro University

In recent years, an increasing body of literature has turned its attention towards deepfakes. Deepfakes are AI manipulated images that can, with great sophistication, for example, place one person’s face onto another person’s body, blurring the boundary between the real and the synthetic. This marks deepfakes as potentially powerful tools for “fake news” and propaganda. With the help of open source, these technologies have also undergone a form of technological “democratization” making them available to pretty much anyone. These developments have led scholars to point out the political and ethical threats deepfakes pose to contemporary society.

This paper therefore particularly focuses on analyzing these visual artifacts from a feminist posthumanist and technoscientific perspective to contribute to the understanding of gendered dimensions in AI-generated media content. According to Venema (2020), women are especially exposed to becoming subject to deepfakes. However, previous research does not say much about how gender is constructed in the visual content. This study aims to fill these gaps by addressing the gendered dimension of AI technologies and AI-generated imagery, to contribute to better insights into the gendered dimensions of a technology on the rise. Specifically, the study asks – what visual strategies and discourses are materialized in the series and how is gender constructed in these videos?

The presentation investigates a political satire show – Sassy Justice, released on YouTube on October 26, 2020. The web series uses deepfake technology to portray the world of the fictional television reporter Fred Sassy as he encounters various politicians and celebrities. Behind the series are the creators of South Park – Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Peter Serafinowicz. The study thereby intends to contribute to an understanding of constructions of gender in relation to both AI technology, political satire, and disinformation.