Irony and Outrage: The Polarized Landscape of Rage, Fear, and Laughter in the U.S.
Dannagal G. Young is an associate professor of Communication at the University of Delaware, where she studies the content, audience, and effects of political humor. She has authored over 40 articles and book chapters exploring themes related to political entertainment, media psychology, public opinion, and misinformation, including her latest book, Irony and Outrage. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School and is an APPC distinguished research fellow.
Abstract: 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. We turn that question on its head to argue that opinion talk is the political satire of the right and political satire is the opinion programming of the left. We explore 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, while they play strikingly similar roles for their viewers.
