Author: Camilla Winde Gissel

The recent workshop held by doctoral candidates Camilla Gissel, Heidi Campana-Piva and Violette Mens at the STS-CH conference in Zurich entitled “Holding things together? Change, continuity, critique” (from the 10^th to 12^th of September) began with a provocation: a deepfake video of Kamala Harris circulating online. The clip, shared on Elon Musk’s platform X, had garnered nearly a million likes and tens of thousands of comments. What seemed at first like obvious parody—her voice and image altered to mock her campaign messaging—was, for many viewers, indistinguishable from reality.

This set the stage for a lively discussion not just about deepfakes themselves, but about how technology interacts with political radicalization in an era where truth is increasingly fragile.

When a Joke Stops Being a Joke

One participant raised the question: is a parody video like this really a deepfake, or just satire in digital form? After all, political cartoons have long exaggerated politicians’ flaws for comic effect. Yet others pushed back. Unlike cartoons, which signal their artifice, deepfakes thrive in ambiguity. Some lines in the Harris video were things she had actually said, others were fabrications. That blurring—between critique, parody, and falsehood—creates a puzzle for viewers.

Even when it is “obvious” to some, not everyone has the same interpretive tools. As one participant noted, people already committed to conspiracy thinking (e.g. flat-) can believe almost anything if it confirms their worldview. Deepfakes exploit that cognitive vulnerability.

The Politics of Doubt

The group then shifted to a related danger: once deepfakes exist, politicians can weaponize them to dismiss inconvenient truths. One example shared was of Trump brushing off journalists’ questions about suspicious activity at the White House by declaring “It’s AI. It’s fake.” Whether or not it was fake became irrelevant—what mattered was the ability to cast doubt.

This erosion of shared reality is not accidental. Participants pointed to Trump’s thousands of documented lies in office and the way constant confusion about truth can destabilize citizens. Destabilization breeds fear, and fear drives people to seek stability—often in the arms of authoritarian leaders who promise certainty. In this way, deepfakes are not just tools of deception; they are accelerants in the cycle of radicalization.

Radicalization: More Than a Label

The conversation broadened to the term “radicalization” itself. Too often, the word functions as a blunt political instrument. Governments use it to stigmatize dissent, lumping together jihadists, eco-activists, and radical feminists under the same umbrella. By labeling groups “radicalized,” states can justify surveillance, repression, or even violence.

Several participants argued that radicalization is relational: it doesn’t happen in isolation but through interaction between groups and the state. In France, for example, jihadist violence has fueled harsher policing, which in turn produces resentment and further radicalization. This feedback loop shows radicalization as a dynamic process, not simply a personal pathology.

Others raised the Overton Window: the shifting boundary of what society considers politically acceptable. As mainstream politics drift rightward, advocating for basic human rights can suddenly be branded “radical left.” The term becomes a moving target, often manipulated to discredit opponents rather than to explain genuine extremism.

Beyond Extremes: Who Gets to Define Radical?

An especially striking thread was the comparison between the far right and far left. Media often presents them as mirror images—two extremes equally dangerous. Yet, as some participants noted, the comparison is misleading. The far right frequently undermines democratic norms, while much of the “radical left” remains engaged in democratic processes, calling for rights and reforms rather than authoritarian control.

Academics, too, have tended to study far-right and Islamist extremism while neglecting other forms of radical politics. This selective focus reveals how research agendas themselves are shaped by political pressures, such as the aftermath of terror attacks.

Why This Matters

Deepfakes may seem like a technological novelty, but as the workshop discussion made clear, they are deeply entwined with broader political struggles. They blur the line between fact and fiction, fuel cycles of distrust, and give political actors new tools to label, demonize, and radicalize.

But they also force us to ask hard questions about the words we use. If “radicalization” is applied too broadly, it loses analytical value and becomes little more than a weapon of discourse. And if truth itself becomes negotiable, then the fight is not just about politics, but about the very possibility of shared reality.

The workshop’s starting point—a fake Kamala Harris video—was more than just a gimmick. It was a reminder that in our current moment, what matters is not simply whether something is “true” or “false,” but how technologies of persuasion and doubt are reshaping the terrain of democracy itself.

In moments of global crisis, narratives move faster than facts. As states exchange missiles and accusations, and headlines race to assign blame, a central question often goes unasked: how do we come to understand military violence? For most of it is not through direct experience, but through stories. And those stories are not neutral. 

Narratives are not just matter-of-fact commentaries; they are structuring forces. As Philip Smith argues in “why war?”, narrative forms are essential to the very organization of political (and military) action. They make complex realities easy to understand by reducing them into cause, effect, villains, and heroes. In times of deep conflict, these narrative frames become even more rigid. Simplification is not merely incidental to violence; it is what makes violence possible.

Smith argues that war narratives often adopt an apocalyptic genre, casting large scale (usually military) violence as both unavoidable and cathartic. In the current escalation involving Iran, Israel and the United States this genre is no longer just theoretical abstractions. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently stated that Israel’s airstrikes had eliminated “two immediate existential threats” referring to Iran’s nuclear facilities. This statement exemplifies the genre’s moral coding: Iran becomes more than an adversary – Iran becomes a threat to (Israeli) civilization and violence is framed as necessary. It is either them or us. 

This juxtaposition is not confined to Israeli rhetoric. A month prior to the stacks United States President Trump referred to Iran as “the most destructive force in the Middle East” and warned them against an Iranian continuation of “Chaos and Terror”. The reference to Iran causing terror is most likely not a coincidence but ties in with what we usually refer to as ‘the war on terror’ a powerful reference that has deep emotional memories in western countries in general and the United States in particular. In such a tale, the space for proportionality collapses. Violence is not framed as one policy option among many, but as a moral imperative.

These narratives are not mere stylistic choices; they help shape public tolerance for violence, what leaders justify, and determine how the moral lines are drawn. Peace, in this frame, is not the result of genuine dialogue, but part of a narrative orchestration. Negotiation of peace by and large becomes a symbolic gesture that is not performed to resolve conflict, but to legitimize strategic power already in full and deadly motion. 

We see narrative power operating in real time. Claims of ceasefire violations are made before independent evidence is available. Missile launches are reported and then denied. Harm to civilians is referred to selectively, if at all. (Try counting the (lack of) international articles concerning how the escalation affects Iranian civilians). Meanwhile, terms such as ‘retaliation’, ‘defense’ and ‘response’. These are terms which pre-shapes public understanding in positioning some forms of violence as legitimate and others as deviant. Who is perceived to have started the conflict can depend less on chronology and more on narrative framing. 

The narrative structure of violence often mirrors apocalyptic myth more than reportage. A cycle of threat and safety. A cycle of peace shattered, and order restored. It is exactly this apocalyptic tale that makes continued violence appear not only reasonable but a necessity. Once a narrative becomes dominant it tends to absorb contradictions rather than fall apart: “we are defending ourselves” becomes the interpretive filter. New facts don’t necessarily disprove it instead they get reinterpreted to fit the filtered lens no matter how logically flawed they are. 

This is not to say that all actors are the same, or that truth is unattainable (at least in theory). But truth in escalations like these is always mediated. As someone who studies political violence my focus should not only be on what happened, but how what happened is made meaningful. Which voices are heard loud and clear, which silences are sanctioned, who are demanded to speak when they would rather not, and which scripts are recycled?

The current escalation between Israel, the United States and Iran with its contested ceasefires and choreographed press conferences, offer a painful but important reminder: war is always narrated. In this gap between action and understanding lies the space where power does something of its most enduring work.