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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#19 (Updated): Political Humor as Persuasion with Danna Young