An engaging look at how American politics and media reinforce partisan identity and threaten democracy.

Why are so many of us wrong about so much? From COVID-19 to climate change to the results of elections, millions of Americans believe things that are simply not true-and act based on these misperceptions. In Wrong: How Media, Politics, and Identity Drive Our Appetite for Misinformation, expert in media and politics Dannagal Goldthwaite Young offers a comprehensive model that illustrates how political leaders and media organizations capitalize on our social and cultural identities to separate, enrage, and-ultimately-mobilize us. Through a process of identity distillation encouraged by public officials, journalists, political and social media, Americans' political identities-how we think of ourselves as members of our political team-drive our belief in and demand for misinformation. It turns out that if being wrong allows us to comprehend the world, have control over it, or connect with our community, all in ways that serve our political team, then we don't want to be right.

Over the past 40 years, lawmakers in America's two major political parties have become more extreme in their positions on ideological issues. Voters from the two parties have become increasingly distinct and hostile to one another along the lines of race, religion, geography, and culture. In the process, these political identities have transformed into a useful but reductive label tied to what we look like, who we worship, where we live, and what we believe.

Young offers a road map out of this chaotic morass, including demand-side solutions that reduce the bifurcation of American society and increase our information ecosystem's accountability to empirical facts. By understanding the dynamics that encourage identity distillation, Wrong explains how to reverse this dangerous trend and strengthen American democracy in the process.

An engaging look at how American politics and media reinforce partisan identity and threaten democracy.

About the Author

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young is a professor of communication and political science at the University of Delaware. Young is an award-winning scholar and teacher, a TED speaker, an improvisational comedian, and the author of Irony and Outrage: The Polarized Landscape of Rage, Fear, and Laughter in the United States.

Reviews
A compelling exploration of the psychological factors behind misinformation and belief.
-Library Journal
Dannagal Goldthwaite Young's insightful book Wrong investigates the political and philosophical reasons why people rely on information that they know is false.
-Foreword Reviews
An intriguing deep dive into the current American information environment.
-Publishers Weekly
Misinformation has been a topic of increasing concern in recent years, and in Wrong: How Media, Politics, and Identity Drive Our Appetite for Misinformation, Dannagal Goldthwaite Young examines the unique cultural structures in the United States that make its citizens particularly susceptible.[Wrong] offers valuable insight and works to strengthen democracy and the social connectedness still possible in the United States.
-Shelf Awareness
Recognizing how deep this crisis goes leaves us in a difficult place. Getting people to reject demonstrable lies isn't simply a matter of bludgeoning them with facts. As the communications scholar Dannagal Goldthwaite Young writes in 'Wrong: How Media, Politics and Identity Drive Our Appetite for Misinformation' (2023), the impulse to berate and mock people who believe conspiratorial falsehoods will typically backfire....Building trust requires cultivating...social connection instead of torching it. But extending compassionate overtures to people who believe things that are odious and harmful is risky too.
-Jennifer Szalai, New York Times Book Review



Book Information
ISBN 9781421447759
Author Dannagal Goldthwaite Young
Format Hardback
Page Count 312
Imprint Johns Hopkins University Press
Publisher Johns Hopkins University Press
Weight(grams) 567g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 27mm