Synthetic Authoritarian Nostalgia: Media Depiction of Authoritarian Legacies in South Korea
With the advent of generative Artificial Intelligence, the creation and dissemination of visual disinformation has posed a threat to democracy. Deepfake technologies are the root of this trend, and recent studies have focused on their political and societal impacts when featuring current politicians or living public figures. This study shifts attention to deepfakes of deceased former dictators, or ``synthetic resurrection’’, and how they shape voter attitudes today. We examine behavioral implications of synthetic resurrection in comparison to other types of deepfakes, across different subgroups, and across different political contexts. We argue that synthetic resurrection can be effective in mobilizing voter support by evoking nostalgia and conferring political legitimacy. Our study focuses on South Korea as a case, as it is one of the consolidated democracies with higher AI literacy but also with persistent authoritarian nostalgia for former dictatorships. The current study suggests that deepfakes are not merely false information but intentional tools for reconstructing public opinion, which poses a significant challenge to the consolidation of democracy and public trust, especially in post-authoritarian societies.