In this episode, we are joined by Professor Michael Serazio, a former journalist, who interviewed political consultants to uncover the nuanced methods that fuel the era of outrage politics. He helps us understand the hidden tactics employed by savvy political consultants. In a world consumed by outrage and polarizing narratives, this thought-provoking conversation lifts the curtain on the strategies used by political consultants to shape public opinion. Prepare to be captivated as we peel back t...
Jun 28, 2023•35 min•Ep. 16
In this thought-provoking Street Outrage BONUS episode of the Outrage Overload Podcast, host David Beckemeyer leads a candid discussion with guests Stephanie and Luz from the Unfiltered Trio Podcast, exploring the challenges of engaging in difficult conversations, the impact of wokeism, and the rise of cancel culture in today's society. Together, they dive into the complexities of navigating sensitive topics, the importance of open dialogue, and the potential consequences of online outrage. Tune...
Jun 21, 2023•51 min
I sit down with Hesha Abrams, an acclaimed author, speaker, and mediator. Abrams has spent decades studying the art of conflict resolution and has developed practical tools for diffusing tension and promoting dialogue. The divisiveness in America has also had a significant impact on our personal lives. Many people have reported feeling isolated and alone because they feel like they cannot talk to their friends and family about their political views. This isolation can lead to depression, anxiety...
Jun 14, 2023•40 min•Ep. 15
How we can try to make sure news enlightens rather than enrages us How do we stay informed without falling into the traps of outrage media and political polarization? With the rise of misinformation, disinformation, and biased news coverage, navigating the media landscape has never been more challenging. Outrage-inducing content, driven by engagement algorithms, dominates our screens and threatens to distort our understanding of the world. It’s no wonder trust in media is declining while voters ...
May 31, 2023•43 min•Ep. 14
The Conservative Political Action Conference, better known as CPAC, started in the 1970s to unify and enforce GOP ideology. It remained a fairly small affair for its first 25 years of existence. As conservative media grew in popularity, CPAC evolved into more of a live conservative entertainment experience. It is perhaps best known for hosting controversial figures and delivering controversial soundbites, and dare I say, outrage. And journalists eat it up, serving up the most outrageous moments ...
May 24, 2023•38 min
There’s been a drum beat, suggesting that social media and information silos, echo chambers, are a driving force behind our divisiveness and polarization. New research suggests this may be overstated. It may have more to do with the very nature of how we come to know or believe things in the political realm. In this episode, I sit down with researcher Ritsaart Reimann who looked at decades of research to propose some hypotheses for what’s going on as well as some ideas for improving the situatio...
May 17, 2023•38 min•Ep. 13
Some scientists have made the analogy that our left / right politics in the United States are like a toxic marriage. In this episode, we lean into that analogy with clinical sexologist and relationship coach, Tiffynee Terry-Thomas. Text me your feedback and leave your contact info if you'd like a reply (this is a one-way text). Thanks, David Support the show Show Notes: https://outrageoverload.net/ Follow me, David Beckemeyer, on Twitter @mrblog or email [email protected] . Follow the sh...
May 03, 2023•34 min•Ep. 12
In this BONUS episode, we speak with researcher (Max) Hui Bai of the Stanford Impact Labs. about his recent recent study looking into the effectiveness of ChatGPT AI at influencing humans’ political attitudes. The researchers write: “Due to the availability of LLMs, anyone can now “write” unlimited amounts of persuasive messages. It is now much easier to create misinformation campaigns targeting voters and legislators, threatening accurate perceptions of politicized events. These can ultimately ...
Apr 26, 2023•33 min
Part two of our two-part series with Dr. Alex Korb, a neuroscientist, researcher, professor, and best-selling author of “The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time.” In part one, focused on some of the brain systems involved in outrage porn and political polarization. In this episode, part two, we take a look at what we can do to be less stressed out and achieve better outcomes. Text me your feedback and leave your contact info if you'd ...
Apr 19, 2023•32 min•Ep. 11
On this episode of the Outrage Overload podcast, we’re going to learn what’s going on in our brain when we’re confronted with outrage porn and ways to better handle the resulting emotions with Dr. Alex Korb, a neuroscientist, researcher, professor, and best-selling author of “The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time.” We will cover this in two parts. First, in this episode, we’ll focus on some of the brain systems involved and resultin...
Apr 05, 2023•31 min•Ep. 10
I speak with Kevin Bass, an M.D./Ph.D. student, who recently wrote an opinion piece for Newsweek titled It’s Time for the Scientific Community to Admit We Were Wrong About COVID and It Cost Lives that has stirred up quite a bit of controversy. We discuss the issue of trust between the scientific community and the public, that the temperature needs to be lowered, and that perhaps the scientific community should be more open to criticism in order to rebuild trust. Listen and you decide. We explore...
Mar 29, 2023•36 min
This is part-two of a two-part series with Dr. Steven Rathje discussing research that found that social media creates incentives for out-group animosity, which can be a factor in increasing polarization. It is also harmful for mental health and society. In this episode, we also talk about the increasing problem of transparency of social media platforms and how independent researchers are being shut out. This makes it impossible for researchers to examine the impacts of these platforms on society...
Mar 22, 2023•27 min•Ep. 9
In this episode we talk to Dr. Steven Rathje, building on research from prior episodes, we look at how out-group animosity drives engagement on social media. Part one of a two-part series. In this episode you will learn about negative affect language, moral language, negativity bias, social identity theory, and much more. Text me your feedback and leave your contact info if you'd like a reply (this is a one-way text). Thanks, David Support the show Show Notes: https://outrageoverload.net/ Follow...
Mar 08, 2023•38 min•Ep. 8
I got a chance to sit down with professor Jeffrey M. Berry to catch up on what has changed (and what hasn’t changed) with the outrage industry since the publishing of his book “The Outrage Industry: Political Opinion Media and the New Incivility.” Text me your feedback and leave your contact info if you'd like a reply (this is a one-way text). Thanks, David Support the show Show Notes: https://outrageoverload.net/ Follow me, David Beckemeyer, on Twitter @mrblog or email [email protected]...
Feb 22, 2023•28 min•Ep. 7
The unsettling story of a small-town mom whose life takes a shocking turn after an ATM robbery. What begins as a simple warning to her neighbors on Nextdoor—a platform meant to foster community—spirals into a chaotic blend of victim blaming, political division, and social media-fueled outrage. We explore how engagement-driven algorithms and the tendency to distort events for partisan purposes amplify anger and division, even in what should be supportive spaces. This episode sheds light on the br...
Feb 15, 2023•23 min
Moral panics are not uncommon. Back in the 1980’s there was a moral panic over the game Dungeons and Dragons. Some parents believed D&D was the work of the devil, a gateway to joining a Satanic cult. It wasn’t “but this didn’t stop people from worrying about it,” says my guest on this episode, Dr. Kurt Gray, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I got a chance to speak to Dr. Gray about new research from he and his postdoc, Curtis Puryea...
Feb 08, 2023•33 min•Ep. 6
In this bonus episode, I geek out with an old friend, David Troy. We talk about Twitter and the Twitter-alternative, Mastodon, along with some geopolitics and other things. This episode was record February 2, 2023 and is being released nearly unedited for timeliness. Text me your feedback and leave your contact info if you'd like a reply (this is a one-way text). Thanks, David Support the show Show Notes: https://outrageoverload.net/ Follow me, David Beckemeyer, on Twitter @mrblog or email outra...
Feb 03, 2023•46 min
I speak with Luke Berryman, the founder of The Ninth Candle, to discuss holocaust denial and bothsidesism. I discovered Luke Berryman from an article in Education Week titled “How Holocaust Denial and Other Bogus Claims Are Poisoning Schools” with the sub-title “Don’t be fooled by bothsidesism.” Episode 005 Text me your feedback and leave your contact info if you'd like a reply (this is a one-way text). Thanks, David Support the show Show Notes: https://outrageoverload.net/ Follow me, David Beck...
Jan 25, 2023•35 min•Ep. 5
I sit down with Sean Evans, Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Union University, to nerd-out on outrage and political science. We talk about how the parties have changed over the past fifty years, third parties and ranked-choice voting, accountability of our elected officials, and, yes, even some optimism. Episode 004 Text me your feedback and leave your contact info if you'd like a reply (this is a one-way text). Thanks, David Support the show Sho...
Jan 11, 2023•32 min•Ep. 4
I’m almost certain that you’ve heard of ChatGPT by now. It’s a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) chat bot that is taking the internet by storm, as they say. It’s free to use during a test period. Within days of launching, it soared to over one million users and now has several million - I don’t know how many at this point. People are posting all kinds of things produced by the bot, from answers to basic factual questions to entire schoolwork essays, and even poetry. I couldn’t resist interviewing...
Dec 28, 2022•31 min
Episode 003 In this episode, we speak with Russ Charvonia, author of the book The Civility Mosaic and President of the Worldwide Civility Council. Civility is not just about being nice. It’s about mutual respect and more. Civility is also not an end in itself but rather we need to look at it as a means through which we can have the discourse we need to have. Text me your feedback and leave your contact info if you'd like a reply (this is a one-way text). Thanks, David Support the show Show Notes...
Dec 21, 2022•39 min•Ep. 3
In this episode, we catch up with political scientist Sean Evans to discuss what role "outrage porn" and "angertainment" played in the 2022 midterms. Text me your feedback and leave your contact info if you'd like a reply (this is a one-way text). Thanks, David Support the show Show Notes: https://outrageoverload.net/ Follow me, David Beckemeyer, on Twitter @mrblog or email [email protected] . Follow the show on Twitter @OutrageOverload or Instagram @OutrageOverload . We are also on Face...
Dec 08, 2022•35 min
How democracy runs counter to almost all of our evolutionary tendencies In this episode we conclude our interview with Professor Peter H. Ditto, where we continue our discussion of political polarization and "outrage porn" including how we overestimate the extremism of the other side and their hatred of us and various other distortions that get in the way of productive dialogue, as well as things like the Big Sort and loyalty tests. Text me your feedback and leave your contact info if you'd like...
Dec 08, 2022•33 min•Ep. 2
How liberals and conservatives behave more like Sunnis and Shias than they do political parties and why that’s a problem We speak with Peter H. Ditto , Professor of Psychological Science at UC Irvine, whose research sheds light on the forces driving political bias and the rise of media-driven outrage . Professor Ditto has been at the forefront of studying motivated reasoning , especially how it fuels moral disagreements and deepens the political divides that dominate today's headlines. We dive i...
Dec 08, 2022•30 min•Ep. 1
Do you feel like outrage is everywhere? Do you ever feel like everything is designed to make you angry? The news, political campaigns, social media feeds — outrage is everywhere. I’m David Beckemeyer, and this is Outrage Overload — a podcast about our unhealthy relationship with the outrage industry. We go beyond the noise to unpack how outrage is used to manipulate us — and what it’s doing to our politics, our relationships, and our mental health. Text me your feedback and leave your contact in...
Oct 08, 2022•2 min
