Abstract
Political discourse is frequently acrimonious in nature. But when people engage in political discussion on social media, the acrimony appears to intensify, often resulting in what can best be described as ‘outrage discourse’. This short essay offers some broad reflections on the root causes of outrage discourse on social media. It argues that we can partly understand the phenomenon by paying attention to the particular ways in which political discourse proceeds on social media. But in order to more fully understand the root causes, we must also consider the background social and economic conditions against which social media are used. The essay argues that a major cause of the increasing levels of acrimony in political discourse is the significant physical, social and economic displacement that has occurred in many post-industrialised countries in recent decades. While outrage discourse is a feature of political discussion on social media in many countries, this essay focuses in particular on developments in the USA and the UK.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Precisely because of this ‘emotional dimension’, Sobieraj and Berry (2011, p. 23) emphasise the importance of taking outrage discourse seriously. They argue that ‘[t]here is reason to suggest that emotional appeals – if successful – may have important social and political implications. These implications could be reason for concern; perhaps they fan the flames of intolerance, promote and entrench polarization, or create generalized mistrust of government.’ This warning, delivered in 2011, turned out to be prescient, to say the least.
- 2.
Numerous studies have examined the phenomenon of fragmentation or balkanisation of opinion, especially political opinion on social media. See, for example, Bright (2018), Colleoni et al. (2014) and Sunstein (2017). A recent study has argued that this problem is ‘overstated’ because many users are exposed to diverse sources of information (Dubois and Blank 2018).
- 3.
I borrow the term ‘competitive conformism’ from Berardi (2009, p. 112).
- 4.
In fact, there is evidence that the more extreme the views of members of a group on social media, the less likely they are to interact with groups who have opposing views (Bright 2018, p. 17).
- 5.
We should note, however, that it is difficult to draw comparisons as social media usage is lower in many other post-industrialised countries than it is in the UK and especially in the USA. So, for example, a recent study shows that only 40% of Germans say they use social media compared with 69% of Americans. Pew Research Center Report (2018).
- 6.
My use of the word ‘displacement’ in this essay is inspired by a fascinating paper by Bernt and Holm (2009) on gentrification of the district of Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin. In the paper, the authors draw on the work of Peter Marcuse who had written in the 1980s about the displacement effects of gentrification in New York City.
- 7.
Haidt (2013, p. 364) argues that in the United States ‘counties and towns are becoming increasingly segregated into “lifestyle enclaves”, in which ways of voting, eating, working, and worshipping are increasingly aligned.’
- 8.
In writing about the ‘creation of social distance’, Stiglitz (2013, p. 200) writes: ‘If one group’s economic opportunities leave it much poorer than other groups, then the interactions of the first group with people from other groups will be limited, and it is likely to develop a different culture.’
- 9.
My thoughts in this paragraph build on Emile Durkheim’s (1984) observations about how members of society interact with each other in modern societies.
References
Bakhtin M (1984) Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. The University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis
Bartlett J (2018) The People vs Tech. Ebury Press, London
Berardi F (2009) The soul at work: from alienation to autonomy. Semiotexte, Los Angeles
Bernt M, Holm A (2009) Is it, or is not? The conceptualisation of gentrification and displacement and its political implications in the case of Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg. City 13(2–3):312–324
Bischoff K, Reardon SF (2014) Residential segregation by income, 1970–2009. In: Logan JR (ed) Diversity and disparities. Russell Sage Foundation, New York
Bright J (2018) Explaining the emergence of political fragmentation on social media: the role of ideology and extremism. J Comput Mediat Commun 23(1):17–33
Colleoni E, Rozza A, Arvidsson A (2014) Echo chamber or public sphere? Predicting political orientation and measuring political homophily in Twitter using big data. J Commun 64(2):317–332
Dubois E, Blank G (2018) The echo chamber is overstated: the moderating effect of political interest and diverse media. Inf Commun Soc 21(5):729–745
Durkheim E (1984) The division of labour in society. Macmillan, Basingstoke
Garimella VRK, Weber I (2017) A long-term analysis of polarization on Twitter. In: Proceedings of the eleventh international AAAI conference on web and social media. Available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/1703.02769. Accessed 3 Sep 2019
Haidt J (2013) The righteous mind. Penguin Books, London
Hollingsworth A, Ruhm CJ, Simon K (2017) Macroeconomic conditions and opioid abuse. J Health Econ 56:222–233
Holmes M (2004) The importance of being angry: anger in political life. Eur J Soc Theory 7(2):123–132
McPherson M, Smith-Lovin L, Cook JM (2001) Birds of a feather: homophily in social networks. Annu Rev Sociol 27(1):415–444
Mutz DC, Reeves B (2005) The new video malaise: effects of a televised incivility on political trust. Am Polit Sci Rev 99(1):1–15
Parker RB (2020) An antidote to populism. In: Navin MC, Nunan R (eds) Democracy, populism, and truth. Springer, Berlin and New York, pp 209–218
Pew Research Center (2018) Social media use continues to rise in developing countries, but plateaus across developed ones. Available at: http://www.pewglobal.org/2018/06/19/3-social-network-adoption-varies-widely-by-country/. Accessed 4 Sep 2019
Robison W (2020) #ConstitutionalStability. In: Navin MC, Nunan R (eds) Democracy, populism, and truth. Springer, Berlin and New York, pp 179–191
Ronson J (2015) So you’ve been publicly shamed. Picador, London
Smith N (1996) The new urban frontier: gentrification and the revanchist city. Routledge, London
Sobieraj S, Berry JM (2011) From incivility to outrage: political discourse in blogs, talk radio, and cable news. Polit Commun 28(1):19–41
Stiglitz JE (2013) The price of inequality. Penguin Books, London
Suler J (2004) The online disinhibition effect. Cyberpsychol Behav 7(3):321–326
Sunstein CR (2001). Republic.com. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Sunstein CR (2017) #Republic. Princeton University Press, Princeton
UK Office of National Statistics (2016) Housing summary measures analysis: 2016. Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/housingsummarymeasuresanalysis2016. Accessed 4 Sep 2019
Wasserman D (2017) Purple America has all but disappeared. Available at: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/purple-america-has-all-but-disappeared/. Accessed 4 Sep 2019
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
O’Callaghan, P. (2020). Reflections on the Root Causes of Outrage Discourse on Social Media. In: Navin, M.C., Nunan, R. (eds) Democracy, Populism, and Truth. AMINTAPHIL: The Philosophical Foundations of Law and Justice, vol 9. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43424-3_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43424-3_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-43423-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-43424-3
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)