How the outrage industrial complex profits from stoking Americans' anger at each other

This year, four out of five Americans agreed that America is falling apart. Given the polarized state of the nation, it might be the only thing on which 80% of us can agree.

How did we get so polarized? There are tremendous costs to believing that roughly half the country is, as Northwestern University's Cynthia Wang says, "not just wrong, but also evil."

Still, polarization exists because, in the short term, dividing us is just too profitable.

We have the power to reject negative polarization and restart the national conversation. It starts when we expose malice and misleading information lurking within the media we consume, stoking outrage, and being funded by people like me — marketers.

Hate and polarization were never the starting place. They are the natural side effects of the outrage industrial complex.

Optimized by social media algorithms and strategic programming, we've stumbled on anger and indignation as the cocktail of choice to grab attention and force engagement. As Ezra Klein writes in "Why We're Polarized," "for political reporting, the principle is 'if it outrages, it leads.'"

Creators on the right and the left saw that to build a following it paid to operate at the edges. Frame all news and opinion as an existential fight against evil, triggering an adrenal fight-or-flight reaction accompanied by a flood of dopamine. Such emotion-hijacking content is enough to carve out a passionate, niche audience perfectly primed to take action.

I should know — as the CEO and founder of Oxford Road, an ad agency specializing in brokering personality-driven content. We measure ad response levels, and there's a clear correlation between loud, polarizing content and successful ad performance.

For advertisers looking to get bang for their buck, spending money to reach these passionate audiences boosts the return on investment but may inadvertently undermine the democracy they purport to protect.

Journalist and Vox co-founder Matthew Yglesias was correct when he said, "It is the advertising business fundamentally that decides what kinds of media are worth creating."

Divisiveness takes long-term toll

But playing chicken with the demise of our union is bad for business over the long term.

As evidenced by The Business Roundtable's shift from "Shareholder" primacy to "Stakeholder Capitalism," Corporate America is now increasingly focusing on the notion of "doing well by doing good."

Efforts toward Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Social Governance are now widespread. According to a recent Edelman Trust Barometer, businesses are seen as both ethical and competent. The institutions of government and media are viewed as neither.

Any ethical approach to business operations that doesn't include the societal impact of the media content they own or promote is fundamentally flawed. How can a company grow and serve its stakeholders' needs while funding a media ecosystem that breeds hatred and mistrust and pits citizen against citizen?

We have launched The Media Roundtable to address this head-on. We have a plan, but it requires shifting the incentive structure away from rewarding attention gained by exploiting our differences.

Executing our strategy requires data-driven insights to understand which media opportunities reach consumers in a way that aligns with bipartisan journalistic principles and invests in the building blocks of healthy discourse, like fairness and respect.

The Media Roundtable was formed in partnership with The National Institute for Civil Discourse and Ad Fontes Media, creators of a Media Bias Chart that rates media content based on criteria such as political bias, reliability and civility-focused metrics. We're giving away free resources for anyone who wants to take action.

Our agency is already using these resources to redirect millions of ad dollars away from polarizing content and toward content that supports their business and the country —and you can too.

Advertisers can take different approach

It's easy to look at the disintegrating state of goodwill in this country and feel powerless. But, luckily, ads are so inextricably wrapped up in our lives that everyone can change the incentives around them.

To my fellow marketers: It starts with paying attention to where your money is going and not letting your own biases imagine that one fringe of the political spectrum is more righteous than the other.

As you focus your pursuit on brand safety and suitability, avoid the temptation to withdraw support for all news and opinion content. Our nation depends on healthy debate and a strong fourth estate. Instead, use third-party resources to evaluate content qualitatively and raise the bar for what content you support.

For consumers, encourage the companies you care most to support media content that advances truth and civility, not just voices with whom you agree.

Finally, for the media you're consuming — read the headlines. If it feels like your attention is moving toward content that affirms what you already believe or positions an issue as "us versus them," perhaps it's time to re-customize your feeds.

Sources like The Flip Side and Ground News are doing an excellent job at providing diverse perspectives to reduce our blind spots.

Finally, to media creators, promotors and distributors, this is a warning: Ad revenue from reputable brands will be moving away from the extremes. This is your chance to preserve revenue streams and to help heal our nation while you do it. Ask yourself, am I fairly representing perspectives different from my own? Am I attacking problems or people?

We've just survived a string of crises. Whatever the next challenge to this country will be, we want to meet it with both hands. We can't do that while we're still holding a knife to our own throats.

It's time to transform our united alarm over the state of the country into constructive action. By shifting attention and ad dollars away from the edges of the media world, we can walk ourselves back from the brink and back into conversation with each other.

Dan Granger is founder and CEO of Oxford Road and a founding partner of Media Roundtable.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How marketers profit from manipulating Americans' outrage