La desinformación política integrada: siete propiedades en la era de la IA generativa

Andreu Casero-Ripollés

doi:10.26441/RC25.2-2026-4679

Authors

Andreu Casero-Ripollés Universitat Jaume I de Castellón (Spain) https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6986-4163

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26441/RC25.2-2026-4679

Keywords:

disinformation, political, political communication, elections, post-truth, democracy, generative AI.

Abstract

Digitalization, the erosion of institutional trust, political polarization, and the rise of post-truth politics have amplified the presence and impact of disinformation. This article aims to comprehensively characterize recent transformations in political disinformation and identify their main implications for political communication and democracy. To this end, it draws on data from a quantitative content analysis of 662 pieces of disinformation verified by fact-checking organizations during the 2024 US presidential election and the European Parliament elections. The analysis is complemented by secondary sources on the electoral use of generative artificial intelligence. The results identify seven interrelated properties of contemporary political disinformation. It is permanent, as it transcends electoral periods; extended, due to the diversity of actors involved; participatory, given its decentralized production; emotional, due to the predominance of negative affect; erosive, because it undermines the foundations of democracy; territorialized, as it adapts to different geographical contexts; and generative, due to the possibilities for automation, sophistication, and personalization that artificial intelligence provides. Together, these properties point to the emergence of embedded political disinformation, understood as intentionally misleading communication that has shifted from an episodic conception, conceived mainly as a tactic applied in specific circumstances, to a strategic configuration in which falsehoods are recurrently integrated into the practices, dynamics and actors of political communication, generating adverse effects on the foundations of liberal democracy.

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Author Biography

Andreu Casero-Ripollés, Universitat Jaume I de Castellón (Spain)

Professor of Journalism at the Universitat Jaume I in Castelló. He has served as Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and Head of the Department of Communication Sciences. He is in the top 2% of the world's most cited scientists in his field, according to Stanford University. His research focuses on digital political communication, disinformation, and the transformation of journalism. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6986-4163, casero@uji.es

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