Beyond fake vs real: An ethical framework for synthetic images

This article examines the ethical implications of synthetic images beyond binary frameworks such as fake versus real.Drawing on media theory and critical approaches to visual culture, it argues that current debates remain constrained by an authenticity paradigm that reduces the problem to issues of verification and detection.Instead, the paper proposes an analytical framework based on two overlapping regimes, the symbolic and the concrete, to understand how AI-generated images operate as instruments of political and cultural communication.Empirically, the analysis combines a structured corpus of synthetic images from the 2024 Rio Grande do Sul floods with selected cases of AI-generated personas on Instagram.The findings suggest that synthetic imagery intensifies existing dynamics of visual authority, shifting the ethical focus from truth claims to the ways images organise perception, mobilise affect and redistribute symbolic power in digital environments.