Critical discourse analysis reveals how synthetic media and algorithmic targeting shape electoral messaging in presidential campaigns, highlighting emerging threats to democratic trust.
The expanding use of artificial intelligence (AI) in electoral communication has generated growing concern regarding the relationship between platform infrastructures, political persuasion, and democratic governance. This article examines how AI-mediated communication systems intersect with contemporary electoral politics through a critical discourse analysis of Donald Trump’s 2016 and 2024 campaign environments. The study analyses a defined corpus consisting of a raw archive of 68 tweets posted between 15 and 18 October 2016, and a purposive set of publicly documented generative-AI image exemplars circulated within the pro-Trump campaign ecosystem during August 2024. The analysis explores how delegitimation, in-group/out-group boundary construction, mythic heroization, and synthetic political imagery function within digitally mediated environments. The findings suggest that computational political communication increasingly combines data-driven targeting, platform amplification, and generative synthetic media in ways that may reshape conditions of informational trust, political visibility, and democratic participation.
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Samane Vazife Herris (2026) studied this question.
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