30.01.2025

Teaching materials on deepfakes in elections

Background text by Maria Pawelec for the Federal Agency for Civic Education

The German Federal Agency for Civic Education has commissioned a current teaching unit on the topic of deepfakes and elections to sensitise students to the dangers of deepfakes and to impart critical media literacy. Maria Pawelec wrote a background text for this unit, ‘When appearances are deceptive: deepfakes and elections’.

In this text, she explains the topics of deepfakes for election manipulation, the loss of social trust and the liar's dividend, but also how political campaigns, activism and satire can potentially be used to promote democracy with the help of deepfakes, and she explains the upcoming use of softfakes.

Initiatives like this one are designed to empower teachers and students and to increase the resilience of democratic societies against misinformation.

The complete German-language teaching unit, which takes 45-90 minutes and includes worksheets and background information, can be found here: https://www.bpb.de/lernen/bewegtbild-und-politische-bildung/557388/unterrichtsmaterialien/

Read more on Maria Pawelec and her reseach: uni-tuebingen.de/en/73741