Angry People Click More: The Economics of Manufactured Dissent
(Ideas from the book The Economic Policy of Online Media: Manufacture of Dissent, Routledge, 2024)
Abstract
This article examines the formula ‘angry people click more’ as a core logic of contemporary online media and as a structural transformation of propaganda in the digital age. It argues that the defining feature of the current attention economy is not only the circulation of misinformation, but the systematic deployment of openly implausible claims designed to provoke moral outrage and sustain profitable engagement cycles. The analysis links Oxford’s 2025 Word of the Year ‘rage bait’ to earlier lexical markers of epistemic crisis such as ‘truthiness’ and ‘post-truth’, and situates this trajectory against the older ‘manufacture of consent’ model of Herman and Chomsky. While classical propaganda in totalitarian and mass-media systems sought ideological unity through censorship and the Big Lie, the emerging Propaganda 2.0 model, articulated by Peter Ayolov, monetises anger by manufacturing dissent and deliberately populating the public sphere with absurd, polarising narratives. The article interprets this dynamic through the allegories of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ and Václav Havel’s greengrocer, showing how the move from fearful silence to permanent online rage changes both the psychology and political economy of propaganda. Drawing on Evgeny Morozov’s critique of fake-news moral panics, Frances Haugen’s disclosures about Facebook, and the documentary The Social Dilemma, it concludes that anger has become a tradable asset and that blatant lying has shifted from an authoritarian instrument of control to a market mechanism in a global ‘free trade in slogans’.
Comments (6)
Great take as Cathy said. I love cats and sadly have no pets now. I found more safety with cats at home because they “see” things and alert while dogs hear. Where the cat looks, you look. A bug 🪳 or a spirit…. One cat screamed at the window when sometimes was outside.
Great take on the challenge. My cat sometimes gets on the bed but I'm not sure if it's to protect, or if she's just waiting for me to get up. Well done.
I love the idea of a cat guarding me in the night, but ours typically grew bored after an hour or so and would exit the bed to do whatever cats do at night. Loved your Drabble!
I enjoyed your drabble. I love cats.
What a lovely thought having a cat to guard you n your sleep. Great interpretation of the prompt and thanks for you entry. Super fast too
nice work on this one.