Irony and Outrage: The Polarized Landscape of Rage, Fear, and Laughter in the United States

Product Description For almost a decade, journalists and pundits have been asking why we don't see successful examples of political satire from conservatives or of opinion talk radio from liberals. This book turns that question on its head to argue that opinion talk is the political satire of the right andpolitical satire is the opinion programming of the left. They look and feel like two different animals because their audiences are literally, two different animals. In Irony and Outrage, political and media psychologist Dannagal Goldthwaite Young explores the aesthetics, underlying logics, and histories of these two seemingly distinct genres, making the case that they should be thought of as the logical extensions of the psychology of the left and right,respectively. One genre is guided by ambiguity, play, deliberation, and openness, while the other is guided by certainty, vigilance, instinct, and boundaries. While the audiences for Sean Hannity and John Oliver come from opposing political ideologies, both are high in political interest, knowledge,and engagement, and both lack faith in many of our core democratic institutions. Young argues that the roles that these two genres play for their viewers are strikingly similar: galvanizing the opinion of the left or the right, mobilizing citizens around certain causes, and expressing a frustrationwith traditional news coverage while offering alternative sources of information and meaning. One key way in which they differ, however, concludes Young, is in their capacity to be exploited by special interests and political elites. Drawing on decades of research on political and media psychology and media effects, as well as historical accounts and interviews with comedians and comedy writers, Young unpacks satire's liberal "bias" and juxtaposes it with that of outrage's conservative "bias." She details how traits liketolerance for ambiguity and the motivation to engage with complex ideas shape our preferences for art, music, and literature; and how those same traits correlate with political ideology. In turn, she illustrates how these traits help explain why liberals and conservatives vary in the genres ofpolitical information they prefer to create and consume. Review "[Irony and Outrage] is engaging, funny, and particularly informative about the differences between liberals' and conservatives' political media consumption and its potential effects." -- Perspectives on Politics"Irony & Outrage undoubtedly makes a radical contribution to the fields of political communication and psychology of communication by advancing our understanding of a topic that is both a long-standing academic concern and a central issue in the current national conversation in the United States andbeyond." -- InMedia"[Y]oung's writing style here is quite approachable and should appeal to a wide audience beyond the ivy towers of academia." -- Journal of Communication"Irony and Outrage is already a classic in the field, and it will be read, I hope, by generations of graduate students." -- Journalism"Especially those who teach social policy classes at the undergraduate level should benefit from having [Irony and Outrage] on their mental horizons. Students will find it engaging to read and valuable for sorting out debates on topical issues." -- Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare"If you love political comedy or opinion shows, or if you hate them, or if you're just concerned about the sorry state of our polarized country, you'll enjoy reading this book. Young gives the best explanation I've seen as to why political shows on the left and right are so different-and soimportant as shapers of American politics." -- Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind"Dannagal Young's Irony and Outrage is a scholarly and deep, well-researched, and unique study into the history, politics, and psychology behind how and why we, the people, pick and choose the media we consume. Also, I loved the parts where she intervi