Outrage porn

Outrage porn (also called outrage discourse,[1] outrage media and outrage journalism)[2] is any type of media or narrative designed to use outrage to provoke strong emotional reactions for the purpose of expanding audiences or increasing engagement. The term outrage porn was coined in 2009 by The New York Times political cartoonist and essayist Tim Kreider.[3][4][5][6]

Overview

Outrage porn is a term used to explain media that is created specifically to provoke anger or outrage among its consumers as a tool of the outrage industrial complex.[7] It is characterized by insincere rage, umbrage and indignation without personal accountability or commitment.[8][9][6] Media outlets are often incentivized to feign or foster outrage as it leads to increased page views, sharing, and comments, which are all lucrative online behaviors.[10] Salon, Gawker, and affiliated websites Valleywag and Jezebel have been noted for abusing the tactic.[11][8] Traditional media outlets, including television news and talk radio outlets have also been characterised as being engaged in outrage media.[12]: 12–13 

The term was first attributed to Tim Kreider in a New York Times article in July 2009,[6][2] where Kreider said: "It sometimes seems as if most of the news consists of outrage porn, selected specifically to pander to our impulses to judge and punish and get us all riled up with righteous indignation,"[3] though he also made a distinction between authentic outrage and outrage porn: "I'm not saying that all outrage is inherently irrational...outrage is healthy to the extent that it causes us to act against injustice."[3]

The term has also been frequently used by Observer media critic Ryan Holiday.[8][13][14] In his 2012 book Trust Me, I'm Lying, Holiday described outrage porn as a "better term" for a "manufactured online controversy," because "people like getting pissed off almost as much as they like actual porn."[15]

Research

Tufts University professors Jeffrey Berry and Sarah Sobieraj characterised outrage media as both a genre and a style of discourse, both of which attempt to provoke emotional responses such as anger, fear, and moral indignation through tactics such as overgeneralisation, sensationalism, misleading or false information, and ad hominem attacks.[16][2][17] They also characterised it as being personality-centered and reactive (responding to already-reported news rather than breaking stories of its own).[12]: 7–8  In their 2009 study of political media in the United States, they found outrage journalism to be widespread, with 90 percent of all content analyzed including at least one example of it; and concluded that "the aggregate audience for outrage media is immense."[2]

In 2014, Jonah Berger, a professor of marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, conducted a study on the spread of emotions via social media and concluded that "anger is a high-arousal emotion, which drives people to take action... It makes you feel fired up, which makes you more likely to pass things on."[18] Additionally, online audiences may be susceptible to outrage porn in part because of their feeling of powerlessness to managers, politicians, creditors, and celebrities.[19]

Criticism as counterproductive

According to Howard Kurtz, outrage porn draws attention from more important issues, which become lost in the noise.[20]

See also

Notes

References

  1. ^ Sobieraj & Berry 2011.
  2. ^ a b c d Austin, Michael (2019). We Must Not Be Enemies: Restoring America's Civic Tradition. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 65–66. ISBN 978-1538121269. Archived from the original on January 25, 2020. Retrieved May 15, 2019.
  3. ^ a b c Kreider, Tim (July 14, 2009). "Isn't It Outrageous?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on July 31, 2019. Retrieved May 23, 2019. It sometimes seems as if most of the news consists of outrage porn, selected specifically to pander to our impulses to judge and punish and get us all riled up with righteous indignation.
  4. ^ Sauls, Scott (June 10, 2015). "Internet Outrage, Public Shaming and Modern-Day Pharisees". Relevant. Archived from the original on August 16, 2019. Retrieved September 6, 2015.
  5. ^ Kenny, Paula (September 28, 2018). "Have we become addicted to 'pseudo-outrage' in an image obsessed world?". Irish Examiner. Archived from the original on July 2, 2019. Retrieved May 23, 2019. Tim Krieder of The New York Times was the first to coin the phrase 'outrage porn', and perhaps still has the best explanation for why it is so addictive. 'Like most drugs, it is not so much what it gives us, as what it helps us to escape.' 'It spares us the impotent pain of empathy, and the harder, messier work of understanding.'
  6. ^ a b c Sauls, Scott (2016). Befriend: Create Belonging in an Age of Judgment, Isolation, and Fear. NavPress. pp. 44–45. ISBN 978-1496418333. New York Times writer Tim Kreider coined the term outrage porn to describe what he sees as our insatible search for things to be offended by
  7. ^ Patricia Roberts-Miller (April 2, 2019). "Ocasio-Cortez Exploited as Clickbait and Outrage Porn Magnet". Washington Spectator. Archived from the original on May 29, 2019. Retrieved May 23, 2019. outrage porn, in which the participant takes pleasure in being outraged at the idiocy of 'them' (some out-group)
  8. ^ a b c Holiday, Ryan. "Outrage Porn: How the Need For 'Perpetual Indignation' Manufactures Phony Offense". New York Observer. Archived from the original on August 16, 2019. Retrieved September 6, 2015.
  9. ^ Leibovich, Mark (March 4, 2014). "Fake Outrage in Kentucky". New York Times. Archived from the original on October 2, 2015. Retrieved September 6, 2015.
  10. ^ Holiday, Ryan. "Rage Profiteers: How Bloggers Harness Our Anger For Their Own Gain". New York Observer. Archived from the original on September 22, 2015. Retrieved September 6, 2015.
  11. ^ Daum, Meghan. "'Jezebel Effect' poisons conversations on gender and sexual violence". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on September 26, 2015. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
  12. ^ a b Berry, Jeffrey M.; Sobieraj, Sarah (2016). The Outrage Industry: Political Opinion Media and the New Incivility (Studies in Postwar American Political Development). OUP US. ISBN 978-0190498467.
  13. ^ Brendan, Michael (March 14, 2014). "Why we're addicted to online outrage". The Week. Archived from the original on July 17, 2019. Retrieved May 23, 2019. Over at Beta Beat Ryan Holiday writes about 'outrage porn', the steady stream of insincerely performed umbrage and gulping hysteria that seeps like superconcentrated vinegar out of the web's pores every moment of every day.
  14. ^ Lukianoff, Greg. "Curing Social Media of Its Outrage Addiction May Start on Campus". Huffington Post. Archived from the original on September 3, 2017. Retrieved September 6, 2015.
  15. ^ Holiday, Ryan (2012). Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator. Portfolio. p. 28. ISBN 978-1591845539.
  16. ^ Berry & Sobieraj 2014, p. 7.
  17. ^ Stedman, Ian (June 1, 2017). "The 'Outrage Porn' Problem: How our Never-Ending Fury is leading to Hollowed-out Discussions about Government Ethics and Accountability" (PDF). Canadian Political Science Association. Archived (PDF) from the original on May 23, 2019. Retrieved May 23, 2019.
  18. ^ Shaer, Matthew. "What Emotion Goes Viral the Fastest?". Smithsonian Magazine. Archived from the original on September 7, 2015. Retrieved September 14, 2015.
  19. ^ Herbert, Geoff. "Rooney Mara to play Tiger Lily in new 'Pan' movie? Outrage is all the rage nowadays". Syracuse Post-Standard. Archived from the original on December 8, 2015. Retrieved September 14, 2015.
  20. ^ Kurtz, Howard (December 6, 2016). Kurtz: Are anti-Trump pundits guilty of 'outrage porn'?. Retrieved June 23, 2024 – via YouTube.

Bibliography