Images and Imagineries in Politics and the use of AI
Start date:End date:
Call:
- Computational Images, Trust and Public Opinion
AI-generated visuals in digital political communication
Principal investigators: Alessandra Micalizzi (Pegaso University) and Massimiliano Panarari (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia)
Images have always been central to political language, but today they are more than a vehicle for a message. On social media platforms, political communication works more and more as a visual performance: an image produces meaning, engagement and credibility simply by being seen and shared, often regardless of whether it refers to anything real. Generative artificial intelligence pushes this further. It lets political actors produce content that is fast, visually striking, polarising, tied to real-time events and quickly disposable, which suits a media ecosystem that demands constant engagement, personalisation and immediate response.
Our research looks at how this change affects the relationship between political actors and citizens. We see AI as a kind of “third actor” in that relationship, which is becoming more personalised, more hyperbolic and more driven by real time. We ask how parties use AI-generated imagery, how audiences perceive and judge it, and what it means for trust in political information online.
Research design
The project started from the Italian constitutional referendum of March 2026 on separating the career paths of judges and prosecutors. During the campaign, a technical question turned into a strongly political contest, and AI-generated images were used to an unusual degree. The study has two phases:
- Content analysis: a corpus of images posted on Instagram by the five parties most active in the referendum debate, analysed for how they were built visually and what they were about.
- Audience survey: a structured questionnaire given to 227 citizens. It covered how they form political opinions, how much they trust digital political information and AI-generated visual language, and how they rated four campaign images from four different parties on aesthetic and informative criteria.
By setting the parties’ communication strategies next to how voters perceived them, the research offers a way to understand AI’s growing role in political communication.
The research is carried out in partnership with the Digital Humanities research centre of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Unimore)
Download here the pre-report here (link to ppt).
2)Politics, Democracy and Emerging Technologies (PoldEM)
PI: Prof. Domenico Trezza
How do we imagine the future of politics in the age of artificial intelligence?
New technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, are transforming many aspects of our lives. But what role might they play in politics and democratic processes? Would we be willing to entrust artificial intelligence with collective decision-making? And what consequences might this have for political representation, trust, and accountability?
These questions are at the heart of the research project “Politics, Democracy and Emerging Technologies”, developed as part of the joint activities of the Digital Humanities Research Centre at Pegaso University and the IRS Campania Research Centre.
Through a questionnaire addressed to citizens [LINK TO https://forms.gle/C4qgtnXnNdL4rGzH8], the study explores attitudes towards politics, democratic institutions, and emerging technologies, with particular attention to the potential role of artificial intelligence in public decision-making processes.
The aim is to understand how people envision the relationship between technology and political power, what opportunities and risks they perceive, and under what conditions they would be willing to accept a role for artificial intelligence in decisions affecting society as a whole.
The study invites us to reflect not only on how technologies are changing politics, but, more importantly, on what kind of democracy we want to build in the future.
Fill in the questionnaire here: https://forms.gle/C4qgtnXnNdL4rGzH8