Rethinking the Aesthetics of Political Action

A postmodern analysis of outrage provoking discourse and power in the American digital age.

RESEARCH THESIS
UCSSCRES32
SUMMER 2017
POLITICAL SCIENCE
SUPERVISOR: FRANCESCO MAIOLO, PHD
WORD COUNT: 13.725

BY WALTER SMET
4280865
Table of Contents

An Introduction to Online (Outrage) Discourse 3-5

Chapter I: Framework of Analysis

Lyotard: Knowledge, Power and Language Games in Postmodernity 6-9

Foucault: Genealogy and Power 10-12

Chapter II: About Power 13-17

Chapter III: Online Outrage Discourse, a Language Game Construct 18-24

Chapter IV: A Genealogical Descent into Postmodern Politics 25-31

Conclusion & Future Research 32-33

References 34-39
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An Introduction to Online (Outrage) Discourse

Over the last three decades, a man-made virtual world has arisen that exists alongside the tangible
physical reality which we have been accustomed to since the start of civilization. This virtual world,
a cyberspace best known as the Internet, has already had a tremendous impact on almost every social
facet of human life, communication and the computer. (Jordan, 1999: 1) As of March 31st 2017, over
three and a half billion people are connected to the Internet, just under half of the global population
(Internet Usage Statistics, 2017). Today, we are technologically able to grant all of these people direct
access to the most recent ideas, a virtual infinity of information and a previously unseen breeding
ground for vast global networks. Most importantly, throughout its evolution, the Internet has
developed to become a great influence on social life and learning. In other words, the ways we
interact as humans, how we discover and understand, how business is conducted and the routines of
our daily lives all involve the Internet. (Leiner, 2009)
One aspect that characterizes social life on the Internet is the ever-proliferating social media,
which is made up of digital platforms that empower large groups of individuals world-wide to
connect and be recognized by many others. The (virtual) discourse on these platforms falls at the
utmost liberal end of freedom of expression, in the sense that all are allowed to speak and all are
heard at once, accessible to anyone, and with whatever content. There is no silencing, nobody has the
loudest voice and there is (with few exceptions) no punishment for online actions. Hence, there is
both possibility for virtual technology to create more politically egalitarian debate, as well as offering
opportunity for abuse. (Jordan, 1999: 2-3) In the real world, there is already a sensitive relationship
between freedom of speech and respect of human dignity. The fiery debate in the United States with
regard to hate speech, racism and the First Amendment illustrate this (Boyle, 2001: 499-501). The
particularly anonymous discursive conditions of the Internet and social media only further
complicate this, in allowing much to be said without retribution. One reason for this, what John Suler
coined as the Online Disinhibition Effect, manifests that the anonymity of the internet, a lack of
authority and sense of invisibility, loosens social inhibitions and as a consequence has people act
with much less restraint online. (2005)
Despite the anonymity of the Internet, many social media platforms such as Twitter,
Facebook and Youtube, are entirely personalized communication technologies, focusing on
individualized experiences and networks. What this reflects, according to scholars W. Lance Bennet
and Alexandra Segerberg, is the contemporary centrality of the individual in Western social, political
and economic life. Hence, they call this the “era of personalization (2012: 21)”, of which a more
‘personalized politics’ is also a logical feature. According to Bennet and Segerberg, personalized
politics is essentially identity politics in more specialized form. It goes beyond issues concerned with

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broad group identity (e.g. rights of women or minorities) and cause issues (e.g. antinuclear and
environmental conservation), like those which became popularized during the 1960s in the United
States. (2012: 21) Whereas these major issues of identity politics do still exist today, Bennet and
Segerburg observe that the number of small groups that politically mobilize for unique and diverse
causes is increasing through the Internet. (2012)
One of the methods or tools of this public political participation, which will later be
explained as ‘individual collectivized action’ (Micheletti, 2003), is through informal ‘online outrage
discourse’, a term coined by Sarah Sobieraj and Jeffrey Berry in their 2011 paper From incivility to
outrage: Political discourse in blogs, talk radio, and cable news. Online outrage discourse is more
commonly known as trolling (to be used interchangeably): a discursive practice in which an agent
attempts to provoke emotional outcry from a target or discord between targets by deliberately
communicating inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic content to an online community, usually
anonymously and for the agent’s amusement. (Sobieraj & Berry, 2011) In recent years, mainstream
media like Time and BBC News have frequently equated the practice to online harassment (Stein
2016; “Internet trolls targeted” 2016). This only exemplifies its poor moral image and social status
outside of its community of perpetrators. However, intricate trolling campaigns have also been used
to further specific political agendas, make political statements and oppose online censorship
(Bakioğlu, 2012). Whereas this thesis will not ignore the surrounding controversies, nor deny a
personal position on its morals, it is not normative in nature and will therefore only deal with such
issues in context, not in their own right.
The focus of this thesis will be how online outrage discourse is becoming increasingly
utilized as a legitimate political tool, namely in the way that its political use-value is explored,
beyond its humor and harassment. This is important to research, because it grants insight into issues
of power and agency in the digital age, which thus far have received little academic attention, but are
likely to play a bigger role in further digitalizing societies. For instance, the 2016 presidential
elections in the United States saw considerably more trolling with a political agenda than during the
previous election cycle. Whereas the influence of trolling in shaping the outcome of the election is
natheless speculative, its powerful capabilities ought to be explored. This is especially because the
popular conception of its users as sadists with solely apolitical motives is misrepresentative in the
least, if not entirely misinformed. (Buckels, 2014) Given that online outrage discourse is most
popularly practiced and researched in the Anglophone United States, of which the latter only
scarcely, I have chosen to limit the scope of this thesis respectively. (Phillips, 2015: 2) What follows
is therefore primarily a conceptual exploration of online outrage discourse that pertains to the
Anglophone United States. This leads to the research question of this thesis: How is online outrage
discourse becoming increasingly utilized as a legitimate political tool in the contemporary United
States?

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The answering of this question will be approached through a predominantly postmodern lens,
meaning that it mostly relies on postmodern ontologies, epistemology, methodology and ultimately
favors postmodern theory. For instance, a postmodern ontology of culture being fundamentally
fragmented (a popularly adapted phrase from Lyotard), partly steers my exploration towards cultural
specificities, besides the necessary abstraction. Hence, in answering the research question, I both
attempt to conceptualize the mechanism, as well as provide several diverse and culturally specific
uses of the practice to show that it is a powerful political tool in the United States today. First,
however, it is required to place the study of this phenomenon within its postmodern framework and
outline the chosen methodological tools of discourse analysis. Having established this framework of
analysis in the first chapter of this thesis, the following chapter attempts to outline a clear and
relevant understanding of power (and knowledge). Throughout the subsequent two chapters, I apply
this understanding to formulate a sound conceptualization of online outrage discourse as a political
tool, with the explicit exercise of the two chosen methods of discourse analysis. Both of these
methods, namely a ‘genealogical’ approach based on Foucault and a ‘language-games’ approach
based on Lyotard, are used within their own respective chapters, or case studies. The former concerns
a contextual vision on trolling within anti-disciplinary activism in the 1960s countercultural period in
the United States. The latter is focused on understanding the intricate dynamics of the discourse
today: its mechanisms in online conversation, its intentions and effects.

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Chapter I: Framework of Analysis

The first chapter of this thesis is separated into two distinct sections that are dedicated to the framing
of online outrage discourse/trolling as a legitimate political tool within the postmodern studies of
(legitimate) power. The reason for conducting this analysis on the basis of postmodern theory is
simple. I suggest a kinship between the online practice and familiar works of postmodern thought,
most obviously a notion of ‘unconventional’ cultural politics, which preconditions a usefulness of
these works in explaining the phenomenon at hand. The focus of analysis in these two sections is on
these familiar works, namely theory by Jean-Francois Lyotard on the status of knowledge and
legitimation in the postmodern era, as well as theory by Michel Foucault on power and knowledge
interplay. Regardless of their roots in the European tradition, I find that their contributions are
essential to the postmodern project - also influencing a variety of American thinkers such as Rorty,
Halperin and Dreyfus. Their believed theoretical significance, in combination with their distinct
methods of discourse analysis, is what motivates their central place in this investigation. It is their
two distinct approaches towards discovery which will be the defining methods of discovery in this
thesis. Namely, a genealogical approach towards outrage discourse as an online, yet contingently
older practice, which arises from Foucault; from the work of Lyotard, an analysis of online outrage
discourse using language-game theorem. Because of the significance of these authors and their
respective works in the methodology of this investigation, this section is structured around, if not
dedicated to, their work.

Lyotard: Knowledge, Power and Language Games in Postmodernity

The oeuvre of Jean-Francois Lyotard has played an important role in the shaping of today’s
intellectual postmodern movement, both in Western philosophy as in the political sciences. His most
acclaimed work, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1979), provides a solid
theoretical underpinning for this research, both in terms of its postmodern framework as its
methodological foundation. In essence, The Postmodern Condition is a review of the status (and
problems) of knowledge and information in a contemporary society that is guided by science (&
technology). The postmodern theme, which some understand as a radical break, both from a
“dominant culture and aesthetic (Jameson 1984: VII)” is what directs the subject of the book, in part
by association, towards such matters. In Lyotard’s most parsimonious definition, postmodernity is an
“incredulity towards metanarratives (1984: XXIV)” , which themselves are formulated as the

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totalizing stories concerning human history and goals that both root and legitimise knowledge and
social practice. Lyotard’s disengagement of these great narratives also places his essay in its
historical context of contemporary French revolutionary politics, characterized by the guiding ideals
of a liberated humanity, or the emancipation of the human race through Enlightenment, and
progressivism. Additionally, Lyotard seeks to denaturalize the classically philosophical Germanic or
Hegelian tradition of unity or totality of knowledge. Each of these overarching narratives:
Hegelianism/Marxism, progressivism and Enlightenment emancipation, fall under Lyotard’s
conceptualization of modernity grand narratives, which he identifies as “the alternate justifications
for institutional scientific research (1984: IX)”.
In his critique of status quo scientific research, fundamentally its post-positivist
epistemology, Lyotard is not so much rejecting the modern approach to research, but rather proposes
a higher degree of consciousness with regard to the practicality and purpose of knowledge
production. He argues that research should be focused on more new ideas, reaching beyond the
intricate frameworks that attempt to deal with a contested Cartesian anxiety. By eventually
compromising, arguably not rejecting the status quo but aiming for what seems a revival of aesthetic
(with reference to Kant) high modernism (not unlike Jürgen Habermas), the characterization of The
Postmodern Condition as a postmodern essay is contested (Jameson, 1984). This ambiguity is
illustrative of the fragmentation and pluralism, both between thinkers as between their different
works, within postmodern thought.
The postmodern era that Lyotard describes in The Postmodern Condition is distinguished, if
not dominated, by the scientific discourse that accompanied these immense technological
transformations, such as machine learning, miniaturization and commercialization, that have
infiltrated virtually every society. (1984: 1-12) It must be noted that Lyotard provided this analysis
already at the end of the 1970’s, when computer technologies, particularly private computing, had
only just began to materialize. As a point of reference, the first commercial personal computer was
brought onto the U.S. market in 1975, while the Internet only developed in 1990. (Freiberger, 1999)
Thus, Lyotard’s analysis is perhaps more fitting for today’s matured digital age, not unlike the
computerized world he himself forecasted in this essay. Alternatively, it could also be lacking
because of the major unforeseeable changes, for instance the rise and normalization of the Internet in
both public and private spheres, that we have seen a posteriori. Attentive of these temporal
considerations, I approach his analysis of society with a reserved and varying opinion on the
relevance of its parts.
What problematizes these general and all-encompassing transformations, according to
Lyotard, is that the nature of knowledge has changed (Lyotard, 1984: 4). The hegemony of computers
entails a new legitimation of knowledge that does not originate from said metanarratives. Lyotard
argues that, with knowledge being stored, accessed and created digitally, all translated into what he

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refers to as ‘computer language’ (1984: 4), knowledge itself becomes commodified. No longer is
knowledge a self-cultivation (or Bildung) of the mind or individual. Instead, information can be
bought or sold by anyone regardless of prior knowledge. As such, Lyotard provides an essentially
economic argument, emphasizing that knowledge production now has commodity-value, ceasing “to
be an end in itself (Lyotard, 1984: 5)”. In this form, knowledge also becomes a productive asset, one
that grants its beholder power over those without access. Similarly, Lyotard argues that those with
technological ownership are granted legitimating power in deciding what data is to be stored and
made accessible, therefore deciding what is knowledge. Hence, in the postmodern era, knowledge
and power are two sides of the same coin. (Lyotard, 1984: 8-9)
One of the pertinent problems that arises in Lyotard’s conceptualization of postmodern
society is the identity of the legitimating actor(s). Whereas he urges the State to govern the
legitimating tools, the technology and how they are used, through legislative action, Lyotard seems
wary about an initial redistribution of power away from the State towards those actors (multinational
corporations in particular) whom physically own and control them. (Lyotard, 1984: 5-6) Today the
Internet is recognized as comprising of three different actors, namely “Governments, the private
sector and civil society”, each contributing to the “principles, norms, rules, decision-making
procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.” (Desai, 2005: 4)
However, the scholarly field of Internet Governance is relatively young, with the majority of writing
being published after the first World Summit on the Information Society in 2003. What is
emphasized by its prominent scholars, such as Milton Mueller and Laura DeNardis, is the
increasingly transgovernmental or globalized nature of governance on the Internet. Yet, as a digital
network that transcends any physical boundaries of state or nature, it remains difficult, if not
impossible, for any sovereign in our state system to achieve and enforce desired regulations for its
citizens.
The chosen procedure of investigating these problems of knowledge, power and legitimation
in postmodernity is through language games, which is derived from the work Philosophical
investigations by philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Following Lyotard’s rejection of the legitimating
function of metanarratives, language game theory represents a scaling down to many smaller or
micro-narratives through the study of societal subgroups and the way they regulate their behaviour
through directives of linguistic conduct. Lyotard substantiates this choice by stating that all of these
postmodern problems “have to do with language: phonology and theories of linguistics, problems of
communication and cybernetics, modern theories of algebra and informatics, computers and their
languages, problems of translation and the search for areas of compatibility among computer
languages, problems of information storage and data banks, telematics and the perfection of
intelligent terminals, paradoxology. (1984: 3)”. Importantly, language game theory holds the
assumption that utterances (strings of words or concepts) have no inherent meaning on their own.

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The meaning of an utterance is determined by the limited context in which a clear directive exists for
both behavior and understanding. Any such specific and limited context is an individual language
game, which is characterized by one category of utterance, such as a performative, prescriptive or
denotative utterance, and defines the rules that describe both their properties and appropriate usage.
(Lyotard, 1984: 9-11)
There are a few considerations that stand out in Lyotard’s conceptualization of the language
game. First of all, the rules or directives of a language game are not inherently legitimizing, but
instead are determined through a social contract between interlocutors (or ‘players’). Second, a
language game requires these rules or directives to be evident and any changes will inevitably change
the game. Finally, each individual utterance is considered a ‘move’ within the game, which cannot be
translated into another game. (Lyotard, 1984: 10) One of Lyotard’s most significant arguments is that
scientific discourse is one language game among many others. This entails that science has its own
language directives and rules that only make sense to those versed within this limited context. It also
gives rise to the argument that scientific knowledge is not in fact universal, nor a complete
knowledge, but merely one form of knowledge that happens to be the dominant knowledge of the
modern era. (Lyotard, 1984: 18) To place this in perspective, Lyotard suggests that this dominance of
scientific knowledge in the modern era has marginalized ‘narrative knowledge’, a form of knowledge
that is based on storytelling and relies on different rules of legitimation. Because narrative knowledge
does not require the same legitimating practices as scientific knowledge, it is not recognized by the
scientific regime as legitimate knowledge at all. Lyotard argues that this reasoning is flawed, because
narrative knowledge is just as legitimate as a form of knowledge as scientific knowledge within the
context (and rules) of its own language game. (Lyotard, 1984: 23)
What an exploration of trolling as a legitimate political tool represents in this framework is a
question of what language game it is used in and what (small or micro-)narrative that entails. A
conceptual understanding of the discourse, its mechanisms in conversation, intentions and effects will
provide insight into its game and its relation to both knowledge and power. Illustrating the growing
recognition of this game and its directives through a case study of its practice on the Internet,
illuminates the ways in which its legitimacy as a political tool is growing.

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Foucault: Genealogy and Power

Like Lyotard, Michel Foucault is often credited to have played an instrumental part in the
development of postmodern thought. His writing on issues of power and its influence on knowledge
production and truth, as well as his creation of a discourse analysis, are particularly relevant for this
thesis and can shine a light on its academic relevance. Foucault is often credited to either have been a
post-structuralist or postmodernist in thought, both of which were labels he explicitly refuted in his
work. (Foucault, 1984: 38-39) Instead, he claimed a ‘modernist attitude’ that “stands in constant
critique of the assumptions which come from our socio-historical heritage” (Moore, 1995), and is
therefore different from the consideration of modernism as an era. This reflects his belief that society
is not progressing in our pursuit of truth, but merely moving along dominant world-views. (Foucault,
2002: 183) Importantly, while Foucault did refute the postmodern label, his attitude embraced many
of the perspectives that would fall under the postmodern label. Namely, as Lyotard writes about the
rejection of Enlightenment rationality in his concept of the postmodern condition, Foucault’s
condition, although conceptually different, shares largely the same consequence. The manner in
which I employ postmodern theory, as a box of tools for understanding social reality, highlights that
these conceptual differences between Foucault and Lyotard provide insightful diversity rather than
complication.
Foucault developed the methodological approach of discourse analysis that he referred to as
‘genealogy’ in his 1975 work Discipline and Punish. Foucault defined genealogy as “a form of
history which can account for the constitution of knowledges, discourses, domains of objects, etc.,
without having to make reference to a subject which is either transcendental in relation to the field of
events or runs in its empty sameness throughout the course of history.” (2003: 59) The most
important philosophical antecedent to its theory is that social reality is created through discourse.
Hence, I understand genealogy as a mode of discovery that requires the knowledge and analysis of
discourse, yet seeks in those places that we take for granted or “in what we tend to feel is without
history- in sentiments, love, conscience, instincts; it must be sensitive to their recurrence, not in order
to trace the gradual curve of their evolution, but to isolate the different scenes where they engaged in
different roles.” (Foucault, 1977: 76) In this reconstruction of relative beginnings and development,
or rather the descending back into time, the genealogical approach focuses on the discursive details
that lay bare the contradictory and pluralist evolution of things that have value to us and how we
value them, denaturalizing social reality and placing question marks behind well-established truths.
(Foucault, 1977: 76-82)
Most importantly, from which the approach draws its main purpose, these contradictories and
pluralisms that the genealogical method lays bare, can reveal the influence that power has on the
establishment of truth. Referring to the formation of a body of knowledge, techniques of discovery

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and assigned terminology or discourse, Foucault argues that a ‘regime of truth’ is established.
(Foucault, 1977: 30; 23) As such, some argue that he links the establishment of knowledge to the
agency of a political ‘regime’, suggesting that this ‘regime’ has the authority or power to distinguish
between truth and error. (Foucault, 1977: 145; 164) Nevertheless, this definition might be arriving
from a different conceptual standing of ‘regime’ than Foucault intended. Where I now take it to be of
political nature, one in which a particular agent could be identified, he might have considered it in the
structural sense in which things merely occur. The problem is that Foucault is not explicit in this
agency, as he does not clearly differentiate between concepts as authority and power. This is one
popular point of criticism coined by Hans-Ulrich Wehler that could undermine Foucault’s concept of
power. (1998: 81)
Power, to Foucault, is not instrumentalized by an agent, nor imposed by some structure in
which the agent operates. “Power is everywhere” (Foucault, 1998: 63), diffused among all actors,
identities, practices and discourse. As John Gaventa described it in his 2003 work Power after Lukes:
“Power is diffuse rather than concentrated, embodied and enacted rather than possessed, discursive
rather than purely coercive, and constitutes agents rather than being deployed by them” (1) The
power in the regime of truth is therefore not one that is constituted by agency or structure, but one
that overarches and pervades society, in eternal flux and rearranging. Whatever the regime of truth
might be at one point in time in one particular society, is logically different from another society, or
the same, at another point in time. According to Foucault, the search for truth cannot be accepted as
the search for absolute truth, even if the hegemonic discourse suggests so. Where the distinction lies
between truth and falseness of knowledge is also determined by this regime; a differing regime could
therefore always rightfully change the line of demarcation and alter what is true and false. (Foucault,
1977)
What Foucault focused on in his work particularly pertained to the mechanisms that
promoted certain societal norms. Examples include the effect of prison surveillance on the normative
conduct of prisoners or school discipline on the normative bodily conduct of students. In the effects
that he observed, Foucault concluded that the human body, in its physical and social behavior, is
subjugated and conforms to the norms that are established and become embedded through the
discursive practice of the regime of truth. Nevertheless, with regimes and their discursive practices
being in constant flux and negotiation, norms are also ultimately fluid and ever evolving. (Rabinow,
1991)
The genealogical approach is much different from Lyotard’s language games, because it is
not merely focused on the current state and development of its game. Instead, it also contextualizes
its practice in a commonly overlooked history of political activism that intended to provoke through
explicitly diverting from normative political discourse. With scientific discourse as the regime of
truth in modernity, the study of online outrage discourse as a powerful or legitimating political tool

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that defies such discourse has two consequences. Firstly, this relation is essential in illuminating the
power of the tool, and secondly, it denaturalizes the universalism of these forms of knowledge that
we take for granted. The mere recognition of the practice as a political tool is also significant,
because the practice has only recently been discovered in academic research, and what is published
rarely relates to the field of political science. What follows this particular section, however
inconsecutively, is therefore a comparative case study concerning today’s online trolling and the
(past) offline practices of outrage discourse. Because of the chosen genealogical approach, the
respective case study must reach beyond strictly political science considerations. In the least, the
study of these phenomena involve some anthropological, sociological and psychological overlap,
which must be accounted for in specific instances. Hence, regardless of the unavoidable ontological
and epistemological differences between these disciplines and fields, I allow for a conscious
flexibility in methodology because of its necessity in answering my research question.

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Chapter II: About Power

The following chapter provides an outline of the different understandings of power that inform this
research project. This theoretical development is necessary in order to fully grasp what is meant by
my classification of outrage discourse as a political practice. In the previous chapter I placed the
study of trolling in a political framework by linking it to the study of power, but have yet to provide a
coherent understanding of what power exactly is. This is required because, despite its common usage
and understanding, power is a complex and elusive concept, which has been given many different
definitions by a considerable number of respectable theorists. My formulation of power is therefore
not a direct exploration of the concept, an assignment that has already demanded many books of
theorizing, but rather outlines a number of notable theories that I relate to the foundational theory of
power (as a possession) by Max Weber (1952; 1958). Notably, all of the following theorists agree and
disagree with each other over their assessment of major and minor puzzles and contest each other’s
considerations of what the puzzles ought to be. Yet, no matter their differences, all of these theorists
provide frameworks through which power is analyzed and all can provide valuable theoretical
foundations from which online outrage discourse can be studied.

German sociologist Max Weber has provided an inspiring definition of power in which he
distinguishes between power (Macht) and leadership or rule (Herrschaft), a threefold of legitimating
sources of power: the charismatic, the traditional and the rational-legal, as well as reproducing the
traditional distinction between legal, factual and conventional power. In its most parsimonious or
factual definition, with the translator’s discretion, Weber wrote: ‘In general, we understand by
“power” the chance of a man or of a number of men to realize their own will in a communal action
even against the resistance of others who are participating in the action.’ (1952:180; 1986:29) Prior
to this simple definition, Weber assumes power to be a factor of domination, which is founded on
economic and authoritarian interests. (Sadan, 1997: 35) Hence, an exercise of power equates to an
attempt to dominate. Weber argues that the domination over a subject can be achieved through either
authoritative (charismatic; traditional; rational-legal) or coercive power. Solely the former is an
exercise of legitimate power, according to Weber. This legitimacy of authoritative power has the
implication that its receival by the subject is without formal objection, despite its exercise opposing
the subject’s interests. For instance, he suggests that rational-legal authority entails that a hierarchical
power relation exists between parties on the basis of an established and (if not abused) accepted
organizational structure. (Weber, 1958: 3) Placing this in a hypothetical real life scenario, a
policeman is bureaucratically provided with certain authoritative powers over citizens in order to

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protect the rights and safety of these citizens. If this policeman would instruct a citizen to move away
from a public place, the normative citizen would comply without objection, because this is expected
of them. Thus, in the Weberian notion, power is an individual possession that is conceived in terms of
a party’s capability to exercise its will, either legitimately through authority or illegitimately through
coercion.
In its methodologically pluralist view, Robert Dahl (1961) continues Weber’s approach to
power. Following their basic definitions as a guide for my research would perhaps lead to an attempt
to register the actual successes of the tool in allowing one actor to provoke an intended response from
another actor, regardless of opposition. However, in order to achieve internal consistency with either
theory, the principle of power as a possession presents a puzzle. If power may be something that is
possessed by a party, how does outrage discourse affect the level of this power and how can this be
measured? Or, alternatively, can an object or practice possess power in itself? The way in which Dahl
conceptualized the analysis of power (or ‘influence’) in social life is through analyzing observable
conflict between two or more actors, ideally in decision-making scenarios. (1961: 336) Outrage
discourse might not concern decision-making in the sense that Dahl described, specifically where
two parties disagree over a decision and the one with the most power ultimately decides. However, it
is a discourse of conflict, which to Dahl is the most important feature in the operation of power.
Conflict in Who Governs? is in fact the only manner in which power can be observed, according to
Dahl. (1961: 66)
Steven Lukes, author of several books and articles related to power (Lukes 1974; Lukes
1986), argues why this is problematic in Power: A Radical View (1974). Lukes confidently disputes
the specificity of the assumptions that Dahl makes in its framework of power. Particularly, he argues
that Dahl’s view of power is one-dimensional, based on his assumptions that there is no power
without conflict, and that conflict occurs only when there are explicitly expressed differences in
opinion. (1974: 19) Dahl, like other named pluralists Polsby (1963) and Wolfinger (1960), would
therefore lack analysis on unarticulated or more subtle interests in conflict; these are exactly the
subjects which pertain most to outrage discourse. This is because, according to my working
definition of trolling, it does not require the agent to be genuine or truthful in communication, as long
as the end-goal is satisfied. In fact, evidence suggests that a target’s misunderstanding of the agent’s
intentions is one of the elements that makes its use humorous to the agent and its community. (Brône,
2008) The one-dimensional understanding of power is therefore unsatisfactory for this project.
Lukes also refers to a ‘Two-Dimensional’ account of power, which extends beyond Dahl’s
restrictive conception of consciously exercised power. (1974: 20) Important in this account is the
article Two Faces of Power (1962) by Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz, which concisely explains
the differing ways in which sociologists and political scientists view power. Where sociologists
would argue that “power is highly centralized”, political scientists believe that it is “widely

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diffused” (Bachrach and Baratz, 1962: 947). The authors posit “two faces of power, neither of which
the sociologists see, and only one of which the political scientists see” (1962: 947). The first face is
essentially the concept of power that Dahl brought forward, a view which they considered to be
depicting of political scientists at this time. This is unlike the second face, which they argue was not
recognized in the field at the time. What this second face represents is a restrictive form of power.
(Bachrach and Baratz, 1962: 952) Restrictive power entails the “extent that a person or group …
creates or reinforces barriers to the public airing of policy conflicts” (Bachrach and Baratz, 1970: 8).
In other words, it is the ability to restrict the scope of discussion or forestall conflict from ever
occurring, explicitly limiting the choices of other parties. Lukes also criticizes this account of power,
primarily because Bachrach and Baratz do not specify the boundaries of what is ‘power’ and, for
instance, where lies coercion. In fact, Lukes even states that “their typology of ‘power’... embraces
coercion, influence, authority, force and manipulation” (1974: 21). This is significant, because their
second face argument relies on the assumption that power is present in nondecision-making:
situations in which notions of compliance are subtle, if not empirical non-events. In comparison with
coercion, when there is compliance by the threat of deprivation, these are distinctly different
typologies. (Lukes 1974: 21-22). Thus, a two-dimensional analysis of the power of online outrage
discourse should include distinct examinations of decision-making and nondecision-making between
the actors involved, of which the latter is not recognized by Bachrach and Baratz as empirically
different.
Where the one- and two-dimensional accounts lack, Lukes attempts to contribute through his
own conceptualization of power: the ‘Three-Dimensional View’. Most notably, in this account, Lukes
attempts to deal with the lack of recognition of collective and systemic forces, the flawed insistence
on actual conflict as being necessary for power to exist, as well as the flawed insistence that
nondecision-making power only exists when a party’s political limitations are made explicit. (1974:
26-28) In dealing with these limitations, the three-dimensional account is ultimately a critique of the
behavioural focus of the first two views, which is not all-encompassing of power relations, according
to Lukes. He conceives power to be both relative and value-dependent. The basic notion of power
that he identifies in most other work is that “A in some way affects B” (1974: 30), more or less
simplifying the commonsense definition by Weber. The manner in which this basic consequence
between party A and B occurs in the real world can be framed along the lines of these popular
dimensional theories. However, Lukes is convinced that alternative conceptualizations, even those
which use entirely different methodological criteria of significance (e.g. Talcott Parsons (1957, 1967)
and Hannah Arendt (1970)) are equally legitimate and contestable. This is because they ultimately all
follow this same parsimonious Weberian notion of power.
Lukes attempts to improve on this basic notion by defining power as: “A exercises power
over B when A affects B in a manner contrary to B’s interests” (1974: 37). He explains that interests

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are what legitimates judgements of a moral and political character, and therefore is able to associate
differences in interests with different moral and political positions. (1974: 37-38) This is important
because it allows for an understanding of power as relative and versatile in nature, and to be
interpretable through different political conceptions. For instance, the pluralist understanding that
Dahl provides fits within a broad liberal conception of political participation, where interests receive
equal standing and are without covert motives. Similarly, the two-dimensional account that Bachrach
and Baratz give rise to is reformist in nature. Lukes describes that a reformist, in crude terms, sees
and deplores that not all interests receive equal standing by the political system and therefore may be
covert. (1974: 37-38) Thus, to Lukes, it would be imperative that I assume a self-reflexivist position
and clearly outline how my personal political conception shapes my approach and definition of
power and, in turn, how that affects my analysis of trolling as a political tool. In short, regardless of
my liberal socialized upbringing, I attempt to assume an objectively postmodern position for this
project. Interests with respect to this postmodern position could perhaps be understood as an effect of
power, therefore shying away from a concept of power that is formulated as a possession. The
following outline of Foucault’s theory of power supports this presumption.
Where these previous authors understood the nature of power as a possession, Michel
Foucault (1979, 1980, 1996) rejects the possibility of a systematic and regulating rational agency. As
has been discussed in the theoretical framework, Foucault does not consider power to be something
that is instrumentalized by any particular agent or has an identifiable source, but is rather embodied
and enacted. In Foucault’s world, power is ultimately decentralized, diffused, part of “an infinite
series of practices” (Sadan, 2003: 38) This entails that any one party may not have absolute powerful
domination over another, as the policeman over the citizen, but that power traverses across all people.
(Jordan, 1999: 16) Where power becomes relevant and observable is in unequal relations. Yet, power
relations themselves are only relevant and observable within the socio-cultural and historical context
in which it exists. For instance, Foucault would point out that the power asymmetry between the
policeman and the citizen only exists in a political institutional framework, a known relation between
the state and its citizens and a situational expectation of both policeman and citizen to fulfill their
respective roles and procedures. Hence, without this contextual understanding of power, their
relationship would not be meaningful.
This example also alludes to Foucault’s assumption that the general matrix of power relations
is only applicable to a given society at a given time. (Sadan: 2003: 58) It is a recognition that the
social expectations during any situation are inherently reliant on socially determined norms, which
themselves are not unlike strategies, given their goal-oriented nature. For instance, the policeman has
been given power over the citizen in this hypothetical situation to achieve our ideal level of safety
and protection as dictated in our hypothetical laws. However, because they are socially created, not
absolute facts, there is ‘tactical intention’ (a minor leeway) in power. The policeman and the citizen

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would therefore have their own unique way in acting out the described scene, even though the
strategic course of action would remain the same: the policeman would somehow urge the citizen to
move and the citizen would ultimately have to abide. However, when tactical intentions that contest
the overarching strategy increase in frequency, then eventually the strategy and abiding course of
action will start to shift as well. (Foucault, 1983: 212) Hence, it is the different tactical intentions in
everyday life that construct major strategies that have a direction, but are themselves not directed by
one identifiable source. In summary, power is then not something that is instrumentalized, or
possessed by an agent, but merely circulates among relations through history, as its own agent.
This account of power by Foucault is much more multiple and complex than the
commonsense definition of power by Weber, but both rely on its intuitive nature as being something
that is involved with subjugation. However, where Weber, Dahl, Bachrach and Baratz attempt to
frame this subjugation in universal terms and define power completely in the abstract, Foucault –and
Lukes to a lesser extent– argue power to be a relation, multiple and also productive in nature. It is
this latter understanding that corresponds best with the concept of postmodernity that Lyotard
proposed and Foucault described in his work. In summary, it is these relations, those which make
individual actions possible and likely to occur, that are powerful. Power is part of all the tactical
intentions that constitute our daily lives and the strategies that guide them. Power “subjugates and
makes subject to” (Foucault, 1983: 212).

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Chapter III: Online Outrage Discourse, a Language Game Construct

As observed in the first section of my framework of analysis, a language game discourse analysis of
online outrage discourse, as inspired by Lyotard and in part by Wittgenstein, can help identify the
powerful capabilities of the tool in the postmodern condition. What this requires is a clear
understanding of the (linguistic) mechanisms, norms, intentions and effects that shape the online
practice. This chapter is dedicated to shaping this understanding and, by association, conceptualizing
the relevant language game(s) and outlining the micro-narratives at play. To retain a realistic degree
of concision, the scope of the analysis is mostly restricted to online outrage discourse with regard to
carefully selected online Anglophone communities that are predominantly American and use the tool
for various specific purposes. By demonstrating the powerful (and therefore political) nature of the
tool within these culturally grounded games and narratives, I will illustrate how online outrage
discourse is becoming increasingly utilized as a legitimate political tool in the contemporary United
States.

The function of online outrage discourse today is varied and involves many different players. The
most obvious function, that which is placed under a magnifying glass by Western media, is online
harassment for the comedic enjoyment of the author and sometimes their community. How this
particular form of trolling manifests itself is through the online communication of offensive
language, disruptive activities, and “tasteless pranks” (Bakioğlu, 2012: 238-239). Hacker culture and
online activism specialist Gabriella Coleman accurately described these parties as “a class of geek
whose raison d’être is to engage in acts of merciless mockery/flaming or morally dicey pranking.
These acts are .. most spectacular and often in the most ethically offensive terms possible” (2012:
101). Importantly, regardless of their choice of conduct, however dark and painful it may be to its
target, the most important element of the mechanism, or rather guiding principle, is humor.
This fact is immortalized in the unofficial manifesto of the most notorious online outrage
discourse community, called 4chan. Humor to this specific community, or what they call ‘Lulz’, is no
more or less than schadenfreude. (Encyclopedia Dramatica, 2017) To give an example, United States
Senator Ben Sasse became subject to an act of trolling in June 2017 that involved his mail accounts
suddenly being bombarded with news related to the band Nickelback. Apparently, the Senator his
mail accounts were signed up for a variety of Nickelback related newsletters and promotional
material. This was to the annoyance of the Senator and his family, but otherwise entirely reversible
and without serious consequence. (Opam, 2017)

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Other agents do utilize online outrage discourse to achieve serious consequences, like
specific political ends, politicizing the instrument. Interestingly, whereas leaks to the media indicate
that career politicians make anonymous use of the discourse on social media, there is no public
admittance of such. (Kouwenhoven; Bertrand; Anonymous) One could speculate that this is because
of its negative public image, but there is no conclusive evidence to confirm that. Preferred covert use
of online outrage discourse by politicians would however fall in line with the anonymity that
characterizes those users who exercise it in the hope of achieving social justices. When referring to
its users in general, it must be stated that the phenomenon is popular, widespread, even commonplace
among Anglophone internet culture, mostly because of its humorous elements. There are therefore
numerous users who only seek to exploit the tool for its humour, like the Nickelback prank or public
celebrity trolling on Twitter, and gladly associate their real identity with it. (Arceneaux, 2016)
Whether or not the user pursues the practice anonymously or with their real identity might therefore
depend on their motivations for using the tool and its effects on the target. In contrast with users that
are solely motivated by humor, there are online activist communities that predominantly engage
through trolling campaigns and other online hacking activities, which rely on the anonymity and
open conditions of the internet to avoid (legal) personal responsibility and remove possibility of
retributive action. (Palme, 2002)
One prominent example of such online activist communities is the Anonymous movement,
which sprang from the 4chan discussion and message-boards around 2004. The difference between
the two communities lies in their respective preferred priority between humor and earnestness when
it comes to pursuing activist issues and agendas. Specifically, as stated earlier, the 4chan culture
values humor over anything else. (Encyclopedia Dramatica, 2017) While their users do sometimes
commit to elaborate political outrage discourse campaigns, both online as in the real world, there are
no publications of their specific goals or mission statements. Instead, political goals are manufactured
in the moment, without organization and guided principally by a search for laughter. While their
actions often involve some sort of humorous element, the culture of the Anonymous movement
presupposes clearly identifiable social and political goals of which their pursuit is the main interest.
(Schreckinger, 2017) Hence, humor seems to be an important discursive element of online outrage
discourse, but it is not the end goal of all agents that use it. In conceptualizing the language game of
online trolling, it is thus essential to understand the discursive bearings of its humor within United
States trolling culture. In order to capture both humor and politically motivated agents, this analysis
includes content and research related to both the 4chan community and the Anonymous movement.
Importantly, both are Anglophone and American-based.
Reviewing various of the trolling campaigns launched by these two parties over the last
decade or so, like the 4chan ‘Operation: Lollipop’ that parodied feminist activist Twitter hashtags
(Okolosie & Penny, 2014) or the Anonymous ‘Day of Rage’ campaign discrediting ISIS social media

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presence (Hamill, 2015), it is evident that their cultures share a similar conception of what is
humorous. What sets 4chan apart from Anonymous, ever so slightly, is that the principle of ‘Lulz’
that guides the discursive behaviour of the 4chan community also includes a philosophy that
absolutely nothing and nobody should be taken seriously. (Encyclopedia Dramatica) Hence, the
‘Lulz’, “celebrating the anguish of the laughed at victim” (Phillips, 2015: 27), generally entails a
discourse in which a victim is laughed at for seriously engaging with an agent that is deceivingly
expressing parodic opinion as genuine. As the given name of the discursive practice suggests, it is
most humorous and successful when the victim’s engagement is in the form of outrage. The reason it
sometimes takes this form is because the discursive practices of the agent tend to rely on both
offensive content and/or shocking linguistic devices. Whereas Anonymous also engages in outrage
provocation in this same ‘humorous’ fashion, see for instance the successful ‘Oregon Tea Party Raid’
in July 2010 (Chalk, 2010), they ultimately do care about the issues and pursue genuine change.
Hence, they embrace a more serious philosophy than 4chan, despite their similar conduct.
Importantly, the general subject of online outrage discourse, more broadly conceived than
any of the specific parties that have been targeted in the past, draws predominantly from (and is
directed at) American popular culture and media. This characterization has been made by trolling
specialist and researcher Whitney Phillips (2015). In her 2015 book: This is why we can't have nice
things: Mapping the relationship between online trolling and mainstream culture, Phillips provides
the reader with an ethnographic account of the ‘stylized’ troll, drawing a virtual clean line of best fit
among all different types of online trolls. She argues that this stylized troll looks at large developing
cultural phenomena, like an upsurge in feminist hashtags on Twitter, or news stories like the ascent of
Donald Trump in U.S. politics, and cherry-picks the absurd and exploitable details that can lead a
story of their own. The context is then forgotten, the agent’s emotions are dissociated and all that
remains is a myopic and fetish-like fixation on the ‘Lulz’. (Phillips, 2015: 29-35)
The description of what is humorous in the culture of some of these online movements, can
almost directly associate online outrage discourse with the basic Weberian conceptualization of
power. If the rules of the language game at hand entail an agent that somehow tricks the target into
the desired response of outrage, then the deceiving mechanism is an attempt towards subjugation.
This follows Weber’s basic definition because, in parsimony, it is an act by the agent that affects the
target. However, as empirically problematizes the study of the discourse following the Weberian
definition, the deceiving mechanism that is humorous to the agent also implies that there are covert
intentions at play. A target that realizes the intentions of the agent is no longer provoked to seriously
engage with the agent.
This is where a popular saying on social media: “Don’t feed the troll” originates from. It is a
discursive exclamation produced by a bystander that is directed at the target, in attempt to warn the
target of an agent’s trolling intentions and defuse its subjugating power. (March, 2016) Identifying

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the language game at practice is therefore relatively easy, yet only if you are part of the select in-
group of people that recognize an active agent, the cultural reference-point and the discursive shape
in which it is presented. To give an example of scale, given that about one-third of the online
population in Israel (under 31 years old) said they practiced online deceit frequently in 2006,
approximating a few million people, we may presume that there is an abundance of distinct online
trolling communities in Israel alone. (Caspi & Gorsky, 2006: 56) Now, considering that the United
States of America has a much bigger online population than Israel, a positive difference of about 280
million users in 2016 (United States Internet Users, 2016; Israel Internet Stats, 2016), it is only
logical to presume that the United States has considerably more distinct communities that are bigger
in size. Thus, it is notable to indicate that 4chan and Anonymous are only two examples of large
American-dominated online trolling communities among many others (Reddit, 9GAG, even Youtube)
in which cultural sub-factions form their own loosely organized communities. This abundance and
diversity is what makes it such a versatile practice, that in theory can trick anyone.
Even if a practiced eye that is aware of the mechanism at work, such as their described focus
on obscurities, is more likely to pick out a trolling attempt, it is realistically impossible to know every
cultural reference that an agent might objectify. This is complicated by the fact that an agent’s
intentions as a user of the Internet and social media can only be deciphered from the content that the
agent posts. Cues observable in real life, such as body language, tone and inflection, are absent in the
majority of online communication. This is purely because the majority of discourse is written in a
short message-like format or posted as an image. (Caspi, 2006: 54) If the agent is deceitful towards
its target, this might be obvious to such an in-group, but the language game of trolling is
characterized by actively deceiving the majority of other users. As such, it seem to be the online
discursive conditions that largely grant the mechanism its powerful capabilities.
Whether the language game fits the definition of power by Lukes is a more intricate question.
Importantly, a fitting model would have to take into consideration the interests of the targets, of
which there is no empirical data or research as of yet. Nor would they be easy to sample, because the
trolling agents focus on ever-evolving cultural phenomena that may target anyone or anything with
online presence. (Phillips, 2015: 29) For instance, Hillary Clinton saw immense targeting by trolling
agents during the 2016 presidential election cycle, yet so did the CNN, Kanye West and music and
arts festival Burning Man during that same time, for different reasons. (Ozzi, 2015) The only
observable pattern that emerges, preliminarily, is their shared momentary prominence in popular
culture and media in the United States. Hence, this would be interesting to investigate in further
studies, but cannot be significantly explored in the limited scope of this bachelor thesis.
Nonetheless, one could theorize that the mechanism for a successful outrage discourse
implies that the target assumes a certain approach or intention towards the discourse, in order for an
emotional response to arise. As previously stated, the rules of the language game require the target to

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seriously and genuinely engage with the agent, not realizing the agent’s intentions and deceiving
nature. (Phillips, 2015) Perhaps, the preferred intention, in its most parsimonious definition, could
then merely be an expectation of engaging in civil discourse with the agent, set to enhance
understanding. Importantly, in the field of psychology, the formation of expectations are said to be
fostered by a whole range of individually socialized factors. We learn that expectations are built upon
the information that is available to us, our previous experiences, but also our personal psychologies.
(Weimer, 1975: 430-431) Whereas the latter could reflect individual agency, the former two are
largely products of the online experience that is created (and continuously transformed) by the
postmodern collective of legitimating actors. Referring back to Lyotard in my framework of analysis,
it is through their practices (the governments, private sectors and civil society) that the discursive and
behavioral norms on these online platforms are formed. (Desai, 2015: 4)
With the popularization of online outrage discourse culture among an increasing number of
users on social media, the overall experiences with the practice can be presumed to grow, as well as
its coverage by writers on the platforms and in the media. Whereas previously it was believed that the
tool was only used by a select antisocial minority of Internet users, a recently published longitudinal
ethnographic study reveals that this popularization is universal among all users of the Internet.
(Cheng & Co., 2017) This can be exemplified by the aforementioned usage of the tool by various
political parties around the world. (Kouwenhoven; Bertrand; Anonymous) Hence we might observe,
with the popularization of trolling culture among the legitimating actors of these online platforms,
online outrage discourse becoming a (bigger) part of their normative discursive practices. In turn, this
normalization would stir the expectations of their users away from a normative sincerity and
genuineness on the Internet. This does not entail a breach of the infamous Poe’s Law, an adage of
Internet culture that any online parody is to be mistaken as fact by someone, unless explicitly
specified. (Aikin, 2013: 301) Rather, following this reasoning, it would suggest that more users are
aware of the mechanism, its consequences, as well as having a practical understanding of Poe’s Law,
and are therefore less inclined to post emotional responses on the Internet. The popularization of the
tool in online culture would then be synonymous with a reduction in its powerful ability to provoke
outrage, regardless of the virtual infinity of cultural references and plethora of discursive shapes that
it could involve.
Thus, if the power of the tool is measured by its ability to provoke outrage against a target’s
interests, yet the interests are conditioned by cultural micro-narratives, then power could not be held
in the three-dimensional way Lukes intended either. Instead, it seems that power arises through the
discursive practices between two or more parties, in a situation that fosters certain behavior and can
be manipulated ever so slightly to achieve desired outcome. This explanation would closely follow
the postmodern account of power that Lyotard and Foucault brought forward.

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To Lyotard, knowledge is power, to be assigned through distributive access and control of

knowledge. (1984) It is, in its most direct observation, the agent that establishes a narrative truth
through their successful deceit of the target, and thus exercises legitimating power. To further
elaborate, successful outrage discourse entails that the actor’s deceiving discourse is identified by the
target as truthful, which grants the actor with legitimating power. If it fails, when the actor’s trolling
intentions are revealed to the target, their knowledge claim is rejected because the parodic nature is
recognized as such. The language game is therefore violent, in the sense that it is a struggle between
these parties and the establishment of narrative knowledge. Nonetheless, this direct observation
places too much emphasis on individual agency and alludes to power as a possession. As previously
argued, whether a target can be deceived is only partially dependent on the skill of the agent. It is the
described postmodern discursive conditions of these social media platforms that allow for it to occur.
The power that is granted to the agent is therefore not so much in its possession as it is temporarily
exercised by the agent within the specific conditions in which the practice occurs. Because of this
specificity, any conceivable changes to these online conditions, such as the popularization and
normalization of the practice explained above, will alter the rules of the game and influence the
power that the tool may have. Hence, indirectly, the legitimating power of the tool is held dispersed
among all relevant socio-cultural conditions and actors.

To conclude this chapter, it is evident that online outrage discourse, like any language game, is
temporal and conditional. As a contemporary tool in the United States today, it may hold power and
legitimacy because the current discursive conditions of the Internet and social networks provide
leeway for one player to manipulate another. I find that these discursive conditions, summarized as
inherent measures to ensure anonymity, personal distantiation from online actions and primarily short
text-based discursive practices are what signify the problems of knowledge legitimation in the digital
postmodern era that Lyotard describes. It is then compelling to argue that the tool, conceptually, does
not hold inherent power, as Weber and his successors might have argued. Instead, the power seems to
be exercised in the specific discursive relationship that is drawn between participating players under
the influence of these postmodern conditions, to whatever degree they apply in the specific situation.
The power of the tool is therefore very much in specificity. The trolling agent may seek to
utilize the tool on a target as you would utilize a hammer on a nail, with clear intent and expectation
of success. However, its successful realization is far more fragile for the troll, due to its reliance on
the unpredictable behavior, knowledge and engagement of the target. It is like a nail that can refuse
the hammer, might move at the last second or is resilient to its force.
In addition, the rules of the game do not require a legitimation similar to our revision of
scientific knowledge. As a form of narrative knowledge, the deceiving claim of truth by an agent is
presented to the few users that visit the web page, who then have the responsibility to accept the

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claim as legitimate (preferably revealed through emotional response), or reject it altogether. Under
the right conditions, fostered by how we have organized the online platforms on which we
communicate today and what social norms are established by the collective of postmodern actors, the
trolling agent can have the opportunity to legitimately create narrative knowledge and subjugate its
target.
Through the expectation-altering popularization and normalization of the practice in
American online culture, opportunities may seize to present themselves as the rules of the game
change. Hence, this particular discursive power, beyond its already fragile nature, could easily be
lost. Alternatively, in the search for humor (and other goals), perhaps changes in the rules can be met
with innovative reformatting of its mechanism, (re)claiming discursive power. Yet, again, only
retaining its fragile potential for powerful capacity in specificity. Regardless, channeling Foucault,
power relations remain to exist within online discursive practices. The shape and its beneficiaries,
however, may and will change in nature over time.

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Chapter IV: A Genealogical Descent into Postmodern Politics

Having established an understanding of the current state and development of the outrage discourse
language game(s), it is important to re-emphasize the following consideration from my analytical
framework: In my attempt to elucidate the political nature of the practice within the relevant social
conditions, it is vital to not take these conditions and the practice for granted as matter of course.
Even a seemingly new practice that has emerged on communicative platforms that are less than two
decades old, has historical antecedents that need to be accounted for. A genealogical approach,
inspired by Foucault, allows for an outlining of some of these antecedents. Their exploration will
demonstrate two important points. Firstly, the practice of outrage discourse, both in its function and
discursive shape, is not restricted to the digital age nor unique to the communicative conditions of
online social platforms today. Secondly, the tool is recognized as being part of the greater
postmodern movement that seeks to challenge the modern conception of scientific knowledge
production as the only legitimate regime. The latter is particularly essential to this research, because
it illustrates the power of the tool on a scale that extends beyond direct agents and targets. Restricting
the scope of research in this chapter, my focus will be on outrage discourse practices, of sorts, that
descend back to one particularly vocal period (or cultural decade) of anti-disciplinary politics in
American history: the 1960s.

Certain images that color our collective memory of the 1960s in the United States are that of protest
through cultural radicalism, or counterculture: Free love, outgrown hair, popular slogans “Make
Love, Not War”, or “Free your mind, and the rest will follow”, not to mention psychedelic rock.
(Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008; Braunstein, 2002: 15) This is a falsely reductionist, yet
commonplace, understanding of a volatile period in American history. The playful imagination that
the cultural meltdown receives today is largely antithetic to its contemporary receival. (Stephens,
1998: VIII) Despite its popularity among numerous (mainly young) people at the time, it remained a
violent struggle, in many respects, against prevailing American cultural, political and social norms.
(Braunstein, 2002) It is notable that “only between 2 and 3 percent of US students considered
themselves ‘activist’ at the height of the 1960s, while considerably less than 0.1 percent of the total
American population were part of the hippie counterculture.” (Grunenberg, 2005: 45) This would
suggest that the countercultural activist movement was hardly as impressive as the popularization of
its cultural expression. Notwithstanding, the extensive research by Julie Stephens on the protest
movement indicates exactly the contrary. Stephens argues that there was no such precise and
widespread commitment to a revolution in the orthodox political sense of the word. Instead, her

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narrative of sixties radicalism “boasted no list of demands, no party, no aims and ideology, no leaders
and no followers” (Stephens, 1998: 2). The most prominent shape of political protest was therefore
anti-disciplinary, with a large emphasis on cultural expression. (Stephens, 1998: 5)
Stephens’ narrative of the anti-disciplinary politics of 1960s counterculture is inevitably a
postmodern project, as it expands the political to involve everyday activities, unearthing their
political significance (at a time this was not commonly recognized). What makes this project an
especially valuable source in the study of online trolling is its analysis on the discursive shape and
organization of the countercultural protest movement. I posit that there are sufficient similarities
between the activist discursive practices that Stephens identifies in her work and my outline of
outrage discourse to make the assessment that these are differing instances of one phenomenon. This
is significant, because it allows outrage discourse to break away from its conceptualization as a
practice that is indigenous to the Internet and the digital age. However, in identifying the mechanics
of this countercultural movement, not unlike my conceptualization of online outrage discourse, it
should not be mistaken to be one homogenous and organized body. Rather, it is an exploration of a
diversity of radical political phenomena that may share common characteristics that Stephens
identified to be significant in the United States during the sixties. (1998: 8)
In reviewing the similarities between these two projects, it is important to place emphasis on
the link that Stephens constructs between political activism and these everyday cultural expressions.
This importance arises because these cultural expressions clearly defy the conventional organization
of collective action, which grants them their anti-disciplinary title, yet they are identified as being
just as politically engaging. The specific organization of collective action that Stephens describes,
“no list of demands, no party..” etc., is also how the supposedly ‘innovative’ organization of
collective action on the Internet is formulated. Based on the research by Michele Micheletti (2003),
the format of collective action that arises on the internet tends to lack clear organization, structure,
leadership and collective identity frames (26). Instead, it is an individualized collective action in
which large groups of people are loosely organized, sometimes without official membership, solely
through combined activities that are “centered on more personal emotional identifications and
rationales” (Bennett, 2012: 26).
Especially when considering communities like Anonymous and 4chan and the outrage
campaigns that flourish on their online platforms, this characterization seems accurate. Take, for
instance, the importance that anonymity, unofficial membership and decentralized (or flat) power
structure have as building blocks to their existence. With the controversial moral status of many of
their actions, many of which actively seek to go against the social status quo in search of outrage, I
would argue that these factors do not just safeguard anonymity, but also freedom of expression/hate
speech. In other words, it is conceivable that collective action through trolling campaigns would not
be frequently realized without these factors, because a personal association with the method can

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bring the agent negative consequences. For example, one particular article that has been given
substantial coverage by different American media groups following its publishing in 2014, claimed
that “trolling correlate[s] positively with sadism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism” (Buckels: 97).
The author further concludes that online outrage discourse is no more than a manifestation of
everyday sadism. (Buckels, 2014: 101) A correlation between the vast media coverage of these
results and a negative public perception of the practice is conceivable and could motivate its agents
to act anonymously to avoid becoming socially outcast.
However, the current process of popularization and normalization of the discursive practice
among any common user of social media, as might be exemplified by the aforementioned results of
the Cheng & Co. study, could foreshadow a shift towards social acceptability of the practice. This is
logical because statistically many people share sadistic tendencies (Buckels, 2013), and may adopt or
praise the practice for its laughter-generating capabilities. This would also explain why the practice is
becoming more popular, if not ordinary (according to expert Susan Herring), among individual
mainstream social media users. (Herring, 2004) In turn, if its controversial moral status is what
restricts the usage of the tool to covert operations, then we can assume that its social acceptance will
in time allow it to become a legitimate tool in conventional collective action as well. However, this
remains a hypothetical exercise, seeing as there is no explicit empirical evidence to support or deny
such shifts in social acceptability as of yet. What seems to be the only indication is its growing public
popularity, which has been minimally researched; the research available has not been conclusive, nor
exhaustive.
The importance of individual collective action as a defining characteristic of both sixties anti-
disciplinary protest and online outrage discourse today requires me to clarify an additional aspect of
the concept. Namely, the role of the individual in this collective structure needs to be emphasized. As
previously formulated, individual collective action does not allow for a clearly identifiable
organization to be recognized. This is solely because no such organization is present. To further
expand on that, Dhavan Shah & Co. (2012) demonstrate in their paper that these individualized
collectives are only to be understood as “fine-grained, multilayered networks rather than as
hierarchical coalitions of organizations” (28). Conversely, what arises from a lack of organizational
structuring, can be identified as individuals with their own “personal emotional identifications and
rationales (Bennett, 2012: 26)” that coordinate activities. This is conceptually significant because it
displaces the political power from the conventional collective movement to individual agents.
This theoretical framing that places the individual at the centre of political agency is also
clearly observable within the two case studies. Firstly, Stephens describes the anti-disciplinary
protest of the sixties to primarily have been an individually embodied protest. (1998: 36) Refraining
from going into the actual discursive shape of the protest as of yet, it is imperative to understand that
this individual embodiment was at the very core of sixties radical opposition. In rejecting the

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conventional concept of resistance, particularly the conviction of political demands as ineffective and
“insistence on the freedom to stand around and do nothing” (Stephens, 1998: 40), many people
resorted to their physical being to ‘become’ and ‘live’ the revolution. Protests, at least in part, were
therefore acts of individual (or personal) transformation, which are often considered apolitical.
Arguing against this consideration, in Discipline and Punish, Foucault explains that the body is
especially malleable to the forces of power relations. Inherently, the body offers opportunity for both
the inscription of dominant power as capacity for resistance. However, in spite of the physical
embodiment of this agency, it remains to be exercised rather than possessed. Drawing an analysis of
the body that could find ground in queer and feminist studies, Foucault writes that “one should take
as its model a perpetual battle rather than a contract regulating a transaction or the conquest of a
territory” (1977: 26). The “marked (29)” body of the sixties anti-disciplinary protester, is therefore
what Marriane DeKoven writes to be a “location of particularity (2004: 159)”: inscribed and
embedded in the particular tensions and specificities that delineate this historical period. Perhaps this
is why the stereotypical image of the hippie is so easily placed in sixties countercultural history,
merely because the body was a centerpiece.
In juxtaposition, a physical body is utterly irrelevant to the online outrage-provoking agent
today. However, the individual does share a similar importance in terms of its political agency. First
of all, online outrage discourse may be practiced in congruence with other agents through individual
collective action campaigns, as I have previously demonstrated. The primary reason that these
phenomena are considered instances of collective action, or campaigns, is that the individual
expressions of these online trolls are harmonic in their differences. In the majority of cases, online
trolling does not involve a variety of agents, or a collective. Fundamentally, it is one individual that
attempts to provoke an emotional response from its target. (Coleman, 2012) Hence, in the instances
that a plurality of individual actors collectively give shape to an outrage discourse campaign, it ought
to be considered as a variety of individual expressions that form a whole, regardless of a lack of
organization. The individual therefore plays a central role in the agency of both movements.
Revisiting Stephens’ narrative for another key element that is also relevant to online outrage
discourse is the discursive shape, previously referred to as cultural expression, through which the
agents were active. The following excerpt by Stephens encapsulates this discursive shape of sixties
countercultural protest in her narrative:

The “countercultural sixties, which was highly self-conscious and media-wise, full of self-parodic
gestures, drawing extensively on motifs from popular culture for its language of protest and
distinguished by its spectacular refusals of so-called Enlightenment rationality, none perhaps more
enduring than the conviction that reality amounted to nothing more and nothing less than a series of
mediated images.” (Stephens, 1998: 22)

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There are several valuable connections to be made between this framework of contemporary anti-
disciplinary politics and online outrage discourse today. Firstly, in reference to my conceptualization
of the outrage discourse mechanism, it is valuable to note their mutual reliance on popular culture for
their language of protest. In terms of their actual discursive methods, this commonality is not directly
clear. This is mostly because the sixties anti-disciplinary rhetoric did not lend itself to one coherent
practice. As opposed to the predominantly text-based engagement of online trolling, it was rather a
bricolage of many different cultural expressions. (Stephens, 1998: 22) Interestingly, reading the vast
number of examples by Stephens, it seems that today’s commonsense understanding of sixties
counterculture is not far off in encapsulating some of its protesting practices. Indeed, part of the
discursive protest was through absurd fashion, art and music, as well as sexual and drug
experimentation. (1998) However, this common reliance on popular culture does become visible at
the philosophical level. Specifically, it is the underlying reasons for these discursive choices, both by
sixties movements to communicate through cultural absurdities as for trolls to engage in outrage
discourse, that provide the most important element for comparison.
The philosophical wagers that precipitated part of the protest to engage through
counterculture is partly explained by their view of reality and their rejection of Enlightenment
rationality. Stephens explains how verbal (written and spoken) discourse itself became vilified by
actors convinced of its confining properties. These actors believed it to be inadequate for generating
understanding, exemplified by cultural experiences that were said indescribable or “beyond
explanation“ (1998: 31). This was especially the case for incidents involving psychedelic drugs, such
as LSD, but the philosophy was also demonstrated through other discursive practices that could
convey meaning without the conventional use of words. Among those who did choose verbal
language to communicate many used parody and sarcasm, in an almost Foucauldian sense, to
uncover the subjectivity involved in interpreting linguistic utterances, as well as to critique and
denaturalize norms. (Stephens, 1998: 23; 32-34) To give an example, one prominent Yippie activist
named Jerry Rubin, the Yippies being a group that were vehemently against hierarchy in politics,
protested democratic organization through parody:

I’m in favour of a dictatorship by the Indians. It’s their land. I don’t care how few of them might be
left: if there is only one single Indian left, I’m in favour of making an absolute monarch, even if he is
an idiot. (Rubin, 1970: 6)

Stephens describes that such parodic statements were often attempts at outrage discourse. This
description is strengthened by Nicholas von Hoffman and his analysis of the discursive techniques
used by radicals in the sixties. In its simplest form, he claims, that “it’s a form of communication
designed to get you to react” (1968: 160). These utterances, of which their incoherence and

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outrageous nature also reflected their rejection of Enlightenment rationality, were intelligible enough
for the in-group to recognize as parodic, but also “transparent enough to enrage or alienate others…
and unnerve their opponents” (Stephens, 1998: 33). Non-verbal discursive practices, like the
rebellious LSD trips by the Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers group, followed this same scheme of
“shocking and ridiculing their opponents” (35). The choice of discursive shape, through some
manner of cultural expression or outrage discourse specifically, was evidently motivated by these
prevalent philosophies.
I posit that the essence of these described philosophies, while attentive of the risk of overly
simplifying complex thought, can receive sympathy from online trolling agents today. One of the
previously described guiding philosophies of the 4chan community, for instance, is that everything
online is ultimately a joke. Guided by the ‘Lulz’, nothing and nobody should be taken seriously.
(Encyclopedia Dramatica) The reasoning behind outrage discourse might therefore relate more
directly to a search for laughter, but it is built on a similar understanding of reality and viability of
using verbal discourse in communicating meaning. For the trolling agent to be able to deceive targets
on the Internet, an understanding of language as a flawed mean of communication is necessary. This
element of subjectivity, dealing with the same problem of interpretation as during the sixties, is
indubitably much greater on social media platforms, because their communicative conditions
(primarily anonymous and short text-based) allow for substantially more personal distancing and less
interpretable cues to be observed.
As such, the 4chan philosophy is a recognition that no utterance can, and therefore shall not,
be taken objectively, or “seriously”. (Encyclopedia Dramatica) It is this inherent subjectivity in
interpretation of online discourse that is exploited by the trolling agents today, regardless of their
broader intentions. Perhaps this is where the essential difference lies between the two movements.
The interpretive difficulties that are commonplace with online discursive practices allow for outrage
provoking trolls to not rely on astounding non-verbal expressions. This is because a simple online
text-based message can already have the sought-after effect. The involvement of popular culture in
their practices can therefore be considered a choice, rather than necessity. In comparison, lacking
these easier means and conditions of achieving the same effect through simple verbal discourse, these
sixties protesters were more reliant on said unconventional non-verbal methods of communication.
Hence, whereas both may draw from popular culture in their language of protest, this commonality is
not meaningful as such. Only by examining the underlying motifs for their discursive choices do the
meaningful similarities, principally a rejection of Enlightenment rationality in their approaches,
emerge.

In summary, I have accounted similarities in form and function between online outrage discourse
today and some of the anti-disciplinary practices that characterized the diverse political protest in the

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American countercultural period. These similarities are in addition to the, almost verbatim, examples
of outrage discourse being practiced as part of the sixties protest movement, because the latter
implemented much more diverse practices. Regardless, in the collective instantiation of their
practices, both seem to practice individual collective action. The individual, in whatever shape or
form, is a central element in exercising their political agency. Both also seem to be instantiations of
anti-disciplinary politics, in the sense that they either rely on the non-traditional organization of
individual collective action, or equally non-traditional discursive methods to exercise power.
Regardless of differences in intentions, as neither online outrage discourse as the sixties anti-
disciplinary protest are uniform movements, this mutuality in provoking emotional response as an
exercise of power unites them conceptually. This unity is amplified by some of the mutual underlying
philosophical understandings of reality, which are arguably postmodern in nature.
What underlie the results of this comparative analysis are two important points for this
research thesis. As the genealogical approach by Foucault dictates, the illumination of antecedents is
not in search for origin, and my comparison with the anti-disciplinary politics of the 1960s did not
serve that function either. Firstly, it has shown that online outrage discourse is not without history.
While it may be a product of the social conditions on communicative platforms that are
technologically new to us, the practice itself was already well-established. This does not mean that
these phenomena have any historical or causal connection, but it does mean that the practice of
outrage discourse is not indigenous to the digital age, nor unique to the communicative conditions on
online social platforms today. Secondly, the comparison has also placed trolling, particularly its
philosophical rejection of Enlightenment rationality as a basis for its effective use as a tool, firmly
into a postmodern framework.

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Conclusion & Future Research

Online outrage discourse proves to be an insightful phenomenon in the study of power in the digital
age. While it may be a violent tool that largely enjoys illegitimate social status today, its increasing
popularization among Internet users and its past use in anti-disciplinary protest suggest that this
status is short-sighted. Today its use is becoming increasingly less restricted to covert operations,
anonymously, or within individual collective action schemes. In the future, we may posit that its
normalization in online discourse could allow for it to become a conventional political activist tool,
but its violent nature would remain the same. It might therefore become legitimate in the sense that
its political use-value is becoming more recognized, but I would argue that its social status will
remain controversial.
Directly addressing the research question that has guided this investigation, how online
outrage discourse is becoming an increasingly legitimate tool in the United States, largely boils down
to a practical recognition of postmodern philosophy in online reality. The legitimacy of outrage
discourse as a political tool relies on its powerful capabilities: allowing for the subjugation of a target
through deceit and achieving desired effect. Whether that effect is laughter, political change, or
something entirely different is irrelevant, because the practical mechanism seems fundamentally
uniform. Recognizing these powerful capabilities and being able to act on them entails a shared
(postmodern) understanding of language, particularly on the Internet today, as flawed and
exploitable. One could then also argue that it is the online discursive conditions that exist today,
which provide the precondition for its understanding. This is especially convincing, as I posit that
these characteristically postmodern online discursive conditions (most reminiscent of the condition
described by Lyotard,) are a major source for its power. The instantiations of humor that are
quintessential to many of these online trolls are each confirmations of this understanding and rely on
these conditions, simply because a successful attempt at outrage discourse entails an exploit of their
flaws in communicating meaning. Hence, even though the appeal of the tool could be seemingly
positive, seeking laughter, and could therefore motivate it to reach a legitimate social status, its
mechanism seems inherently violent and rooted in postmodern philosophy.
This final section includes a reference to future research, because there were some
investigative roadblocks that arose during my investigation, inviting additional research. Given the
young existence of the online practice and a limited amount of conceptual writing available, the
research in this thesis classifies first and foremost as explorative or descriptive of the phenomenon at
hand. In my attempt to provide a sound conceptualization of online outrage discourse, there was a
pressure to limit the scope of investigation to the United States because of a scarcity of academic

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research and data. While there are just over a dozen of academic authors that have written
conceptually about the discursive practice, Herring, Phillips, Sobieraj & Berry, to name a few, the
majority of research pertains to the United States. For future research, in order to assess the
usefulness of my conceptualizations beyond the Anglophone United States, it is important to map the
use of outrage discourse in other countries and cultures. In addition, ethnographic, real, data on the
intentions of the agents, as well as the discursive conditions and evidence of real effects, or political
influence (as in the 2016 presidential elections) are lacking.

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