KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — With the November election nearing, many may start to see local and national political ads, if they have not already.
How true are those ads and can they be trusted?
Dr. Mark O’Gorman said you will see a lot of ads this election cycle, with three main types that will be circulating.
Attack ads, informational ads and contrast ads.
“Social media and the rise of AI is creating a lot of opportunities and danger in terms of what kind of information is coming out there in terms of political ads,” said Dr. O’Gorman, a political science professor at Maryville College.
Dr. O’Gorman said with the rise in social media, political ads are becoming more prevalent, so you’re more likely to see them. However, he said when it comes to the truthfulness of some of those ads, sometimes there can be a gray area between what’s real, and what’s not.
“It might just be taking a phrase out of context or just using part of a phrase,” said O’Gorman. “Say, a candidate gave a 100-word phrase, but you grab those 7 words that candidate said, but out of context, those words seem jarring.”
He also said that the gray area puts a lot of the responsibility on individual American citizens.
“A lot of it will be on the individual voter to take that time to be responsible to try and figure out where the images are coming from," O'Gorman said.
O'Gorman said that means fact-checking political ads you may see to make sure they’re factual and accurate.
“Can you show a reference, a newspaper article where the info came from,” said O’Gorman. “If it’s just images and pieces of data thrown out there, usually you have to have more suspicion.”