Wrong: How Media, Politics, and Identity Drive Our Appetite for Misinformation

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young

Oct 2023 · Highbridge Audio · Narrated by Rachel Perry

About this audiobook

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. By understanding the dynamics that encourage identity distillation, Wrong explains how to reverse this dangerous trend and strengthen American democracy in the process.

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.

Rachel Perry narrates audiobooks from her home studio in Los Angeles, California. With a background in fine arts, she has been a TV host, performed comedy, acted in TV shows and commercials, and worked in radio.