Outrage porn
{{short description|Media designed to evoke outrage for online attention}}
{{use mdy dates|date=May 2019}}
Outrage porn (also called outrage discourse,{{sfn|Sobieraj|Berry|2011}} outrage media and outrage journalism){{cite book |last=Austin |first=Michael |title=We Must Not Be Enemies: Restoring America's Civic Tradition |date=2019 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1538121269 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HMCIDwAAQBAJ |accessdate=15 May 2019 |pages=65–66 |archive-date=January 25, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200125045656/https://books.google.com/books?id=HMCIDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=en |url-status=live }} 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.{{cite news |last=Kreider |first=Tim |url=http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/isnt-it-outrageous/ |title=Isn't It Outrageous? |work=The New York Times |access-date=23 May 2019 |date=14 July 2009 |quote=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. |archive-date=July 31, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190731152612/https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/isnt-it-outrageous/ |url-status=live }}{{cite web |last=Sauls |first=Scott |url=http://www.relevantmagazine.com/culture/internet-outrage-public-shaming-and-modern-day-pharisees |title=Internet Outrage, Public Shaming and Modern-Day Pharisees |work=Relevant |access-date=September 6, 2015 |date=June 10, 2015 |archive-date=August 16, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190816233745/https://relevantmagazine.com/culture/internet-outrage-public-shaming-and-modern-day-pharisees/ |url-status=live }}{{cite web|url=https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/specialreports/have-we-become-addicted-to-pseudo-outrage-in-an-image-obsessed-world-872217.html|title=Have we become addicted to 'pseudo-outrage' in an image obsessed world?|date=28 September 2018|accessdate=23 May 2019|quote=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.'|first=Paula|last=Kenny|work=Irish Examiner|archive-date=July 2, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190702012745/https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/specialreports/have-we-become-addicted-to-pseudo-outrage-in-an-image-obsessed-world-872217.html|url-status=live}}
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.{{cite web|url=https://washingtonspectator.org/roberts-miller-aoc/|title=Ocasio-Cortez Exploited as Clickbait and Outrage Porn Magnet|date=2 April 2019|accessdate=23 May 2019|work=Washington Spectator|author=Patricia Roberts-Miller|quote=outrage porn, in which the participant takes pleasure in being outraged at the idiocy of 'them' (some out-group)|archive-date=May 29, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190529031010/https://washingtonspectator.org/roberts-miller-aoc/|url-status=live}} It is characterized by insincere rage, umbrage and indignation without personal accountability or commitment.{{cite news |last=Leibovich |first=Mark |authorlink=Mark Leibovich |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/magazine/fake-outrage-in-the-kentucky-senate-race.html |title=Fake Outrage in Kentucky |work=New York Times |date=March 4, 2014 |access-date=September 6, 2015 |archive-date=October 2, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151002012928/http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/magazine/fake-outrage-in-the-kentucky-senate-race.html |url-status=live }}{{cite book |last=Sauls |first=Scott |title=Befriend: Create Belonging in an Age of Judgment, Isolation, and Fear |year=2016 |publisher=NavPress |isbn=978-1496418333 |pages=44–45 |quote=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 }} 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.{{cite news |authorlink=Ryan Holiday |first=Ryan |last=Holiday |url=http://observer.com/2014/10/rage-profiteers-how-blogs-harness-our-anger-for-their-own-gain/ |title=Rage Profiteers: How Bloggers Harness Our Anger For Their Own Gain |work=New York Observer |access-date=September 6, 2015 |archive-date=September 22, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150922085858/http://observer.com/2014/10/rage-profiteers-how-blogs-harness-our-anger-for-their-own-gain/ |url-status=live }} Salon, Gawker, and affiliated websites Valleywag and Jezebel have been noted for abusing the tactic.{{cite news |last=Daum |first=Meghan |url=http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-daum-jezebel-effect-feminism-college-assault-20150601-story.html |title='Jezebel Effect' poisons conversations on gender and sexual violence |work=Los Angeles Times |accessdate=September 13, 2015 |archive-date=September 26, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150926084458/http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-daum-jezebel-effect-feminism-college-assault-20150601-story.html |url-status=live }} Traditional media outlets, including television news and talk radio outlets have also been characterised as being engaged in outrage media.{{cite book |last1=Berry |first1=Jeffrey M. |last2=Sobieraj |first2=Sarah |title=The Outrage Industry: Political Opinion Media and the New Incivility (Studies in Postwar American Political Development) |year=2016 |publisher=OUP US |isbn=978-0190498467 }}{{rp|12–13}}
The term was first attributed to Tim Kreider in a New York Times article in July 2009, 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," 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."
The term has also been frequently used by Observer media critic Ryan Holiday.{{cite news |authorlink=Ryan Holiday |first=Ryan |last=Holiday |url=http://observer.com/2014/02/outrage-porn-how-the-need-for-perpetual-indignation-manufactures-phony-offense/ |title=Outrage Porn: How the Need For 'Perpetual Indignation' Manufactures Phony Offense |work=New York Observer |access-date=September 6, 2015 |archive-date=August 16, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190816230745/https://observer.com/2014/02/outrage-porn-how-the-need-for-perpetual-indignation-manufactures-phony-offense/ |url-status=live }}{{cite news |last=Brendan |first=Michael |date=14 March 2014 |url=https://theweek.com/articles/449473/why-addicted-online-outrage |title=Why we're addicted to online outrage |work=The Week |accessdate=23 May 2019 |quote=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. |archive-date=July 17, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190717141556/https://theweek.com/articles/449473/why-addicted-online-outrage |url-status=live }}{{cite news |last=Lukianoff |first=Greg |url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-lukianoff/curing-social-media-of-it_b_7027448.html |title=Curing Social Media of Its Outrage Addiction May Start on Campus |work=Huffington Post |access-date=September 6, 2015 |archive-date=September 3, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170903091203/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-lukianoff/curing-social-media-of-it_b_7027448.html |url-status=live }} 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."{{cite book|last=Holiday|first=Ryan|authorlink=Ryan Holiday|title=Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator|year=2012|publisher=Portfolio|isbn=978-1591845539|page=28 }}
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.{{sfn|Berry|Sobieraj|2014|p=7}}{{cite web |last=Stedman |first=Ian |date=1 June 2017 |title=The 'Outrage Porn' Problem: How our Never-Ending Fury is leading to Hollowed-out Discussions about Government Ethics and Accountability |url=https://cpsa-acsp.ca/documents/conference/2017/Stedman.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190523164633/https://cpsa-acsp.ca/documents/conference/2017/Stedman.pdf |archive-date=May 23, 2019 |accessdate=23 May 2019 |work=Canadian Political Science Association}} They also characterised it as being personality-centered and reactive (responding to already-reported news rather than breaking stories of its own).{{rp|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."
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."{{cite magazine |last=Shaer |first=Matthew |url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-emotion-goes-viral-fastest-180950182/ |title=What Emotion Goes Viral the Fastest? |magazine=Smithsonian Magazine |access-date=September 14, 2015 |archive-date=September 7, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150907004633/http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-emotion-goes-viral-fastest-180950182/ |url-status=live }} Additionally, online audiences may be susceptible to outrage porn in part because of their feeling of powerlessness to managers, politicians, creditors, and celebrities.{{cite news |last=Herbert |first=Geoff |url=http://www.syracuse.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2014/03/rooney_mara_pan_tiger_lily_outrage_native_americans.html |title=Rooney Mara to play Tiger Lily in new 'Pan' movie? Outrage is all the rage nowadays |work=Syracuse Post-Standard |access-date=September 14, 2015 |archive-date=December 8, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151208120232/http://www.syracuse.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2014/03/rooney_mara_pan_tiger_lily_outrage_native_americans.html |url-status=live }}
Criticism as counterproductive
According to Howard Kurtz, outrage porn draws attention from more important issues, which become lost in the noise.{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HolGv46KiM |title=Kurtz: Are anti-Trump pundits guilty of 'outrage porn'? |date=2016-12-06 |last=Kurtz|first=Howard |authorlink=Howard Kurtz|access-date=2024-06-23 |via=YouTube}}
See also
Notes
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References
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Bibliography
- {{cite book |last1=Berry|first1= Jeffrey M. |last2=Sobieraj |first2=Sarah |title=The Outrage Industry: Political Opinion Media and the New Incivility |date=2014 |publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0199928972|location=New York, NY|edition=e-book }}
- {{cite journal | last = Davis| first=Michael | title = The role of the amygdala in fear and anxiety | journal = Annual Review of Neuroscience | volume = 15 | pages = 353–375 | year = 1992 | pmid = 1575447 | doi = 10.1146/annurev.ne.15.030192.002033 }}
- {{cite journal |last1=Hendricks| first1=LaVelle |title= The Effects of Anger on the Brain and Body |journal= National Forum Journal of Counseling and Addiction |volume=2 |issue=1 |date=2013 }}
- {{cite web |last=Scott |first=Manda |url=https://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/sites/default/files/dissertations/Manda-Scott_Whispering.pdf |title=Whispering to the Amygdala – The Role of Language, Frame and Narrative in the Process of Transition |date=2017 |work=Schumacher College Dissertations |publisher=Schumacher College, University of Plymouth |access-date=February 11, 2021 |archive-date=January 16, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210116151909/https://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/sites/default/files/dissertations/Manda-Scott_Whispering.pdf |url-status=dead }}
- {{cite book |last1=Smith|first1=Tobin |title= Foxocracy: Inside the Network's Playbook of Tribal Warfare
|date=2019 |publisher=Diversion Books |isbn=978-1635766622|edition=e-book}} (Page numbers cited correspond to the ePub edition.)
- {{cite journal |last1=Sobieraj |first1=Sarah |last2=Berry|first2= Jeffrey M. |date=2011 |title= From Incivility to Outrage: Political Discourse in Blogs, Talk Radio, and Cable News |journal= Political Communication |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=19–41|doi=10.1080/10584609.2010.542360 |s2cid=143739086 }}