UROP Project

AI Memes and Political Bias

AI memes, memes, political bias

Research Mentor: Minhyung Jo,
Department, College, Affiliation: School of Information, Communication and Information
Contact Email: mj20bh@fsu.edu
Research Assistant Supervisor (if different from mentor): Dr. Seul Lee
Research Assistant Supervisor Email: seul.lee@fsu.edu
Faculty Collaborators: Dr. Don Latham
Faculty Collaborators Email: Don.Latham@cci.fsu.edu

Looking for Research Assistants: Yes
Number of Research Assistants: 2
Relevant Majors: Open to all majors
Project Location: On FSU Main Campus
Research Assistant Transportation Required:
Remote or In-person: Partially Remote
Approximate Weekly Hours: 10, Flexible schedule (Combination of business and outside of business. TBD between student and research mentor.)
Roundtable Times and Zoom Link:

• Day: Tuesday, September 2
  Start Time: 12:00
  End Time: 12:30
  Zoom Link: https://fsu.zoom.us/my/minhyungjo?omn=91227092518
• Day: Thursday, September 4
  Start Time: 12:00
  End Time: 12:30
  Zoom Link: https://fsu.zoom.us/my/minhyungjo?omn=91227092518
• Day: Friday, September 5
  Start Time: 12:00
  End Time: 12:30
  Zoom Link: (Recording) https://fsu.zoom.us/rec/share/MIPA6yFw0bSdJ0FGP447p-SuwefVDkuScqzXiWm37mIxTij0IzPWeUpvUxAAV5_i.vBaG1kpQBapue0Ro

Project Description

As AI has rapidly diffused across everyday applications, it is increasingly being used to generate memes. Compared to manual production, AI can create memes much faster and with less effort by drawing on vast online corpora; as a result, AI‑generated memes have grown in popularity. However, AI meme generation can also yield outcomes that users do not anticipate. This risk is especially salient for political memes: generators may produce content that conflicts with a user’s own ideological leanings, and persistent exposure to one‑sided or biased outputs could shape users’ political attitudes and values. Although algorithmic bias in AI has been widely discussed, it remains underexamined in the specific context of meme production. To address this gap, this study will repeatedly generate political memes using four AI meme generators and analyze whether—and in what ways—their outputs exhibit systematic political or ideological bias.

Research Objectives
1) Compare outputs across AI meme generators given the same political prompts: Do the resulting memes skew toward a particular ideological position, or do they reflect a plurality of perspectives?
2) Identify the content elements and formal features (e.g., themes, framings, templates, caption–image pairings) the generators use to express or cue political orientation.

Research Tasks: 1) Data collection: Collecting data from AI meme generators
2) Qualitative content analysis: Open coding and analyzing the outcomes

Skills that research assistant(s) may need: 1) Having an interest in the research and scholarly publication process.
2) Reliable, timely communication and consistent attendance at scheduled meetings.
3) This project does not require specialized technical skills for data collection or analysis: Training on the open‑coding procedures will be provided in preliminary meetings using several examples.