Deepfakes, Real Wars: Synthetic Media and the Next Propaganda Order

From the first forged radio broadcasts of the twentieth century to today's hyper-realistic deepfakes, the struggle over what counts as evidence has always shaped war and politics. Deepfakes, Real Wars shows how cheap, accessible synthetic media tools have tipped that struggle into a new phase, where doubt itself becomes a weapon. Rather than treating each viral video as an isolated scandal, Farah Qudsi traces the emergence of a propaganda order built on engineered confusion, algorithmic amplification, and the deliberate erosion of shared facts.

Across case-driven chapters, the book explains how synthetic media interacts with platform design, crisis decision-making, and long-standing grievances. It dissects digital propaganda campaigns run by troll farms and state-linked operators, explores how crisis rumours hijack platform algorithms, and follows investigators as they use verification systems and open-source intelligence to reconstruct what really happened. Along the way, Qudsi shows who benefits when every uncomfortable image can be dismissed as a deepfake, and why democracies struggle to respond without undermining their own commitments to openness and debate.

Written for students, journalists, policy analysts, and engaged citizens, Deepfakes, Real Wars offers more than technical explanation. It provides a clear framework for understanding information warfare in which images, audio, and text can be fabricated at scale, yet publics must still choose how to mobilise, vote, and manage risk. Readers come away with a grounded sense of how public trust erosion unfolds, what forms of democratic resilience are realistically available, and how to live with contested media without retreating into either credulity or cynicism. This is not a book about panic; it is a guide to thinking clearly in an environment where seeing is no longer believing, but disbelief can also be weaponised.