[Air-L] Request for literature on populist exploitation of outrage online

[Peter Hervik]

Dear Yves,

"Populism" comes in different versions and is always embedded in different
ideologies, so it is a little uncertain what your particular take is.
However, I do think the reference below is very helpful. See for instance
Erkan Saha for the different technologies different groups use to promote
their populist views and to counter populists views.

Br, Peter Hervik

Udupa, Sahana, Iginio Garliardone and Peter Hervik (eds.). 2021. *Digital
Hate.* *Global Perspectives on Online Extreme Culture*. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press.

ISBN: 0253059259

Den søn. 6. feb. 2022 kl. 15.08 skrev Yvesmichelet via Air-L <
air-l at listserv.aoir.org>:

> Hi
>
> I have a request for literature about how populists exploit outrage in
> order to spread their message and reach new audiences.
>
> In brief, there is this opinion piece by Ryan Holiday
>
>
> https://observer.com/2017/02/i-helped-create-the-milo-trolling-playbook-you-should-stop-playing-right-into-it/
>
> Which states:
>
> The key tactic of alternative or provocative figures is to leverage the
> size and platform of their “not-audience” (i.e. their haters in the
> mainstream) to attract attention and build an actual audience. Let’s say 9
> out of 10 people who hear something Milo says will find it repulsive and
> juvenile. Because of that response rate, it’s going to be hard for someone
> like Milo to market himself through traditional channels. His potential
> audience is too spread out, and doesn’t have that much in common. He can’t
> advertise, he can’t find them one by one. It’s just not going to scale.
>
> But let’s say he can acquire massive amounts of negative publicity by
> pissing off people in the media? Well now all of a sudden someone is
> absorbing the cost of this inefficient form of marketing for him. If a CNN
> story reaches 100,000 people, that’s 90,000 people all patting themselves
> on the back for how smart and decent they are. They’re just missing the
> fact that the 10,000 new people that just heard about Milo for the first
> time. The same goes for when you angrily share on Facebook some godawful
> thing one of these people has said. The vast majority of your friends rush
> to agree, but your younger cousin has a dark switch in his brain go on for
> the first time.
>
> I wanted to ask - are there any academic studies on this aspect of
> exploiting outrage, e.g. on twitter or facebook? So far I haven`t found
> anything!
>
> Thanks
>
> Yves
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