Synthetic Verisimilitude and Epistemic Regimes in Algorithmic Culture: Affective and Sociotechnical Reconfigurations of Truth
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21142/DES-1704-2025-%25pKeywords:
Artificial intelligence, disinformation, electronic media, epistemology, information societyAbstract
The exponential proliferation of AI-generated content has redefined the epistemic architecture of digital culture, eroding traditional boundaries between truth, falsity, and belief. This study aims to construct a critical theoretical framework for understanding the emergent epistemic regimes of algorithmic culture, focusing on how synthetic verisimilitude is produced, validated, and circulated in AI-mediated environments. Employing a qualitative, exploratory-analytical design grounded in an interpretive and constructivist paradigm, the findings reveal that digital belief is not anchored in empirical validation but in the convergence of emotional resonance, cultural familiarity, and algorithmic amplification. The concept of performative real-syntheticism is advanced to capture this condition, arguing that epistemic authority now derives from algorithmic coherence and affective synchronization rather than factual correspondence. Taken together, restoring epistemic integrity in digital environments demands the cultivation of affective literacy, infrastructural transparency, and collective reflexivity as foundational components of responsible knowledge governance.
Downloads
References
Ahern, S. (2024). Affect Theory and Literary Criticism. Emotion Review, 16(2), 96-–106. https://doi.org/10.1177/17540739241231934
Amoore, L. (2020). Cloud Ethics: Algorithms and the Attributes of Ourselves and Others. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478009276
Ayala, J., Arcila, S. and, & Filinich, R. (2023). Tecnopolíticas contemporáneas: Inteligencia artificial, algoritmos y biotecnología. Desde el Sur, 15(2), e0016. https://doi.org/10.21142/DES-1502-2023-0016
Barad, K. (2006). Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822388128
Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and Simulation. University of Michigan Press.
Benamo, M. E. (2023). A.I. don’t care: Aportes de la filosofía feminista de la tecnología para la Bioética cibernética. Desde el Sur, 15(2), 0022. https://doi.org/10.21142/DES-1502-2023-0022
Berger, J. (1980). About Looking. Writers and Readers.
Boellstorff, T. (2015). Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human (rev. ed.). Princeton University Press.
Bucher, T. (2018). If ... Then: Algorithmic Power and Politics. Oxford University Press.
Butler, J. (2011). Bodies That Matter.: On the Discursive Limits of Sex . (1st0 ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203828274
Chalmers, D. J. (2022). Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy. W. W. Norton & Company.
Cheney-Lippold, J. (2020). We Are Data.: Algorithms and the Making of Our Digital Selves. New York University Press. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479888702.001.0001
Chun, W. H. K. (2016). Updating to Remain the Same: Habitual New Media. The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/10483.001.0001
Chun, W. H. K. (2021). Discriminating Data: Correlation, Neighborhoods, and the New Politics of Recognition. MIT Press.
Citton, Y. (2017). The Ecology of Attention. Polity Press.
Corzo-Zavaleta, J., Navarro-Castillo, Y., & and Ugaz-Rivero, M. (2025). Uso de la inteligencia artificial en la educación universitaria: eExploración bibliométrica. Desde el Sur, 17(1), e0010. https://doi.org/10.21142/DES-1701-2025-0010
Deleuze, G. (1994). Difference and Repetition (rev. ed.). Columbia University Press.
Deleuze, G., and& Guattari, F. (1987). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia . (Vol. 2). University of Minnesota Press.
Descola, P. (2022). Beyond Nature and Culture . [(J. Lloyd, Trad.]). University of Chicago Press.
Floridi, L. (2014). The Fourth Revolution: How the Infosphere is Reshaping Human Reality. Oxford University Press.
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Pantheon Books.
Foucault, M. (1988). Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault (L. H. Martin, H. Gutman, & and P. H. Hutton, Eds.). University of Massachusetts Press.
Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing. Oxford University Press.
Gillespie, T. (2018). Custodians of the internet: Platforms, content moderation, and the hidden decisions that shape social media. Yale University Press.
Goldberg, S. C. (Ed.). (2007). Internalism and Externalism in Semantics and Epistemology. OUP Oxford.
Goriunova, O. (2019). The Digital Subject: People as Data as Persons. Theory, Culture & Society, 36(6), 125-–145. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276419840409
Gunkel, D. J. (2020). An Introduction to Communication and Artificial Intelligence. Polity Press.
Han, B.-C. (2015). The Transparency Society. Stanford University Press.
Han, B.-C. (2024). The Crisis of Narration (D. Steuer, Trad.). Polity Press.
Harari, Y. N. (2018). 21 Lessons for the 21st Century: “«Truly Mind-Expanding... Ultra-Topical”» Guardian. Random House.
Hayles, N. K. (2017). Unthought: The Power of the Cognitive Nonconscious. University of Chicago Press.
Helanski, J. C. (2024). Digital images generated by Artificial Intelligence as ethnographic experimentation. Desde el Sur, 16(2), e0023. https://doi.org/10.21142/DES-1602-2024-0023
Infinite Unreality. (2025, mayo 25). Video showing a woman attempting to board a plane with a baby kangaroo as an emotional support animal, created with AI. https://www.instagram.com/infiniteunreality/reel/DKFkqenMph3/
James, W. (2008). Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. Cosimo, Inc.
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. OUP Oxford.
Marcus, G., & and Davis, E. (2019). Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust. Pantheon Books.
Massumi, B. (2002). Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822383574
Mayring, P. (2014). Qualitative Content Analysis: Theoretical Foundation, Basic Procedures and Software Solution.
Medina, J. (2013). The epistemology of resistance. Oxford University Press.
Meyer, R. (2025). “«Platform Realism”». AI Image Synthesis and the Rise of Generic Visual Content. Transbordeur, 9. https://doi.org/10.4000/13dwq
Miller, D., Costa, E., Haynes, N., McDonald, T., Nicolescu, R., Sinanan, J., Spyer, J., Venkatraman, S., & and Wang, X. (2016). How the World Changed Social Media. (Vol. 1). UCL Press.
Murillo, A. (2020). Desconfianza, regímenes de verdad, conspiraciones y montajes en el contexto de la covid-19 en México. Desde el Sur, 12(2). https://doi.org/10.21142/DES-1202-2020-0030
Papacharissi, Z. (2015). Affective Publics: Sentiment, Technology, and Politics. Oxford University Press.
Parikka, J. (2010). Insect Media: An Archaeology of Animals and Technology. (Vol. 11). U of Minnesota Press.
Pink, S., Horst, H., Postill, J., Hjorth, L., Lewis, T., & and Tacchi, J. (2015). Digital Ethnography: Principles and Practice. SAGE.
Rancière, J. (2009). The Emancipated Spectator. [(G. Elliott, Trad.]). Verso.
Rouvroy, A., and& Berns, T. (2013). Gouvernementalité algorithmique et perspectives d’émancipation: Le disparate comme condition d’individuation par la relation ? Réseaux, n° 177(1), 163-–196. https://doi.org/10.3917/res.177.0163
Senft, T. M. (2013). Microcelebrity and the Branded Self. En J. Hartley, J. Burgess, and& A. Bruns (Eds.), A Companion to New Media Dynamics . (1sta ed., pp. 346-–354). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118321607.ch22
Steyerl, H. (2017). Duty Free Art: Art in the Age of Planetary Civil War. Verso Books.
Stiegler, B. (2010). Taking Care of Youth and the Generations. Stanford University Press.
Stiegler, B. (2018). The Neganthropocene. (D. Ross, Ed. y Trad.). Open Humanities Press.
Sunstein, C. R. (2018). #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media. Princeton University Press.
Tarski, A. (1944). The Semantic Conception of Truth: And the Foundations of Semantics. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 4(3), 341. https://doi.org/10.2307/2102968
Taylor, C. (2004). Modern Social Imaginaries. Duke University Press.
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1973). Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability. Cognitive Psychology, 5(2), 207-–232. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(73)90033-9
van Dijck, J. (2013). The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. Oxford University Press, USA.
ŽižekZizek, S. (1989). The Sublime Object of Ideology. Verso.
ŽižekZizek, S. (1999). The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology. Verso.
ŽižekZizek, S. (2016). Organs without Bodies: Deleuze and Consequences. (1sta ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203699874
Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. PublicAffairs.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License

Esta obra está bajo una licencia http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/















