Episode description

Dr. Dannagal Young studies political humor. She pulls together psychology, communications, and political science, to understand how political satire works to change minds and expand political knowledge. She also has a new book: Irony and Outrage: The Polarized Landscape of Rage, Fear, and Laughter in the United States, which explores how satire became a tool of political left and outrage media because a tool of the political right.

Update: This episode was replayed on June 5th, 2023 and contains an extra interview at the end about some newer work. Danna's TED talk came out in 2020. She just released a full lecture series on Propaganda and Persuasion through The Great Courses. And later this year, you can read her new book Wrong: How Media, Politics, and Identity Drive our Appetite for Misinformation (out October 17, 2023).

Some things that come up on this episode:

• Daily Show viewers were particularly well-informed about the 2004 election (Young, 2004)
• Jon Stewart defending the Daily Show on Crossfire (2006)
• Jokes lead people to suspend critical thinking about a message (Polk, Young, & Holbert, 2009; Young, 2008)

For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/

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