“Cheap Fakes”
In today’s episode, you’ll discover how four types of “cheap fakes” are being used to spread misinformation.
Paul Beckermann
PreK–12 Digital Learning Specialist
Podcast Host
Definitions
- Britt Paris and Joan Donovan, coauthors of Deepfakes and Cheap Fakes: The Manipulation of Audio and Visual Evidence, coined the term cheap fake and define it as “an AV manipulation created with cheaper, more accessible software (or, none at all).”
- Nina Schick, author of Deepfakes: The Coming Infocalypse, describes a cheap fake as “a piece of media that has been crudely manipulated, edited, mislabeled, or improperly contextualized in order to spread disinformation.”
- The News Literacy Project describes cheap fakes as “deepfake’s less polished and more believable cousin, which takes real audio, images or videos and cheaply manipulates or decontextualizes them.”
Types of Cheap Fakes
Features of cheap fakes include:
- Misleading Text, Headlines, and Captions
- Audio and Video Manipulation
- Selective Cropping
- Edited Images
For more information about this topic, explore the following AVID Open Access article collection: Become Information and Media Literate.