Dannagal Goldthwaite Young

@dannagal

Professor of Communication & Political Science. NH to PHL. Improv comedian. Author: “Irony and Outrage” (OUP 2020), “Wrong” (JHU 2023). My views and mine alone. WEBSITE:

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Website Bluesky

comedy education politics

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Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· Jul 4

Gravestone:
Near here were buried:

Samuel Cook Jr
George Southwick Jr
Benjamin Daland Jr
Ebenezer Goldthwait
Minutemen of Danvers

Killed at the Battle at Lexington
April 19, 1775

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· Jul 1

NEW PUB ALERT! Congrats to former MA student (now Rutgers PhD student) Kayla Wentzel on publication of her thesis! "Roses and Roles: Unveiling gender dynamics in The Bachelor and The Bachelorette" investigating whether female contestants are more likely to be punished for sexual intimacy than men...

Popular Communication:
Roses and Roles: Unveiling gender dynamics in The Bachelor and The Bachelorette—a content analysis
Television proves to be an influential force that shapes (or even reproduces) hegemonic societal norms. Specifically, television often reflects a patriarchal cultural logic, where sexually active women are punished and sexually active men are rewarded; in feminist literature, this is known as the Madonna/Whore dichotomy. Through a content analysis of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, this study sought to examine whether sexually intimate female contestants receive fewer roses than sexually intimate men. The findings suggest that female contestants on The Bachelor are more frequently punished for physically intimate behaviors, such as sex or kissing, than male contestants on The Bachelorette. In this way, these results demonstrate support for the Madonna/Whore dichotomy, as well as reinforce the televisual narrative that women are sex objects.

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· Jun 22

Happy Hydrangeas to you!

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· Jun 20

UNSUBSCRIBE www.cnn.com/2026/06/20/w...

CNN::
Iran says it’s closing Strait of Hormuz, accusing Israel and US of violating truce

Washington and Tehran will attend talks in Switzerland as renewed fighting between Israel and Hezbollah tests the diplomatic process.

Updated 12:25 PM EDT, Sat June 20, 2026

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· Jun 19

This is almost as good as their old slogan: “Septa: we’re getting there.” Literally. Like… sure we suck right now but give us a minute. We’re getting there.

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· Jun 14

Happy 23rd wedding anniversary to us, Mike Young. Love you and miss you always.

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· Jun 11

Huddleston was huge - sat hundreds of students in a giant open room. Here is pic from 1922... It still looked like this in 1995...

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· Jun 8

Responding aloud to the title of this 1991 banger: “Apparently not, Shanto. Apparently not.”

Book with the title: “is anyone responsible? how television frames political issues” by Shanto Iyengar

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· Jun 6

Omg it’s real the entire south lawn is covered in Porta potties.

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· Jun 4

30th street station really looks amazing. Renovations took forever but …wow!

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· May 28

This little doodle was SO CONFUSED! (Note there is glass between them)

Squirrel standing up and looking a mini labradoodle square in the face from 5 inches away through glass

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· May 27

Bringing some social psych to unpack why Trump’s sycophantic cabinet meetings are bad, actually. www.huffpost.com/entry/suckin...

Dannagal Young, a professor of communication and political science at the University of Delaware, told HuffPost that a likely implication of this kind of group homogeneity and praise could be an impact on a leader's ability to carefully process information.
"Positive emotions tell us that everything is great, so we don't need to think too hard," Young said. "Some scholars have suggested that this is, in part, why heterogeneous groups - in which people have differing opinions - generate higher quality ideas, innovations and solutions. They are literally thinking more and more creatively because the mild negative emotion that comes from disagreement is actually good for cognitive Activity

"Generally, what you heard was a competition for who could tell President Trump that he had saved the country more, and they started trying to one-up each other," Haberman said. "The lead point was to praise him."
According to Young, constant praise actually can reduce a person's motivation to solve problems.

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· May 21

I’m posting a lot about Colbert, but it’s because I am much sadder about his tenure ending than I imagined. It just says something so sad about the nature of this political moment. Yet, I’m also so thrilled for him to have the freedom to do whatever his heart desires.

While journalists often ask me about the “partisan” nature of Colbert’s show, I suggest that this frame is a misunderstanding of Colbert and his project. It is not that Colbert is partisan. It is that the version of the party that currently controls all three branches of government is anti-democratic, illiberal, and homogeneous. MAGA is a movement that embraces illiberalism over pluralism, greed over generosity, and individualism over collectivism.
If Stephen has become a foil, it is not to a political party but to an entire value set.

The challenge that Colbert encountered in being dubbed a partisan — for being pro-democracy and anti-authoritarian — is the same challenge that scholars like me are struggling with in this moment of illiberalism. Scholars and scientists and lawyers and journalists — all being told that speaking up for liberalism, pluralism, and freedom of expression are signs of political bias.

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· May 21

Has #StephenColbert's push into politics hurt the late-night format?
:
Late-night was never supposed to play to a particular type of audience: #JohnnyCarson made fun of politicians, but mostly their public goofs, not their policies.
#JayLeno rarely became political. And #DavidLetterman feuded with politicians but not over what they did in Washington.
In 2026, late-night shows are a wholly different creation.
"These shows were built to be vaudeville in the box in your living room," says professor Dannagal Young, who studies political satire and the media preferences of liberals and conservatives. "They were a place to watch jugglers and clowns and funny people doing impressions. They were not made for this."

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· May 6

That is perhaps good news. But notice that the bulk of that drop has come from Republicans, who are responding to the partisan cue of Trump as president while also possibly having their perception informed by images of mass deportations on Fox

Chart showing that in 2023 92% of Republicans thought there was more crime than there was a year ago compared to 2024 54% believed that drop among Democrats was from 58 to 46 during that same time.

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· May 6

And yet, year after year people think there is more crime than there used to be. When asked about their local communities, people are a bit less negative and their evaluations, but that’s because they have real world experience to dilute the power of media constructions

Charts showing increasing reports of people believing that crime rates are up here after year, but less so when I asked about their own communities

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· May 6

Pew has tracked actual crime rates across data sources and all show plummeting violent crime since the 1990s

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· May 4

On May 2, 2003, my late husband Mike and I flew to NH for our bridal shower event. On the drive from Manchester up to the lakes region, the temperature dropped a ton. It was nuts. The high had been was 60° and at night it froze. The next morning, we learned the Old Man’s Face had fallen off…

By Governor Kelly ayotte: on this day in 2003, the old man of the mountain fell. 23 years later, he remains a New Hampshire icon and hold wonderful memories for so many granite staters.

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· May 1

Wonderful time in Indianapolis discussing satire with Ryan Ken at Purdue Summit on Information, Technology, and American Democracy. We also heard from scholars and thought leaders including Jamelle Bouie who discussed civic education and prospects for the future.

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· Apr 30

A reminder of the pluralistic democratic vision that VRA was designed to help us work towards. If you’ve seen the data on racial attitudes in this country, you know these protections still have a crucial protective role to play. From: www.voanews.com/a/usa_challe...

Chart: Increase in nonwhite Voters Before and After 1965 Voting Rights Act
As Black registration surged, the gap between registered white and Black voters in former Confederate states, hovering around 30% at the beginning of the 1960s, closed to less than 10% by 1970, according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

The spike in Black voter registration in turn led a larger number of African Americans to run for office, according to Shaw. In 1966, Edward Brooke became the first African American elected to the Senate since Reconstruction.

"By the early 1970s, you had so many African Americans being elected to Congress that you had the formation of the Congressional Black Caucus," Shaw noted.

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· Apr 29

Does amazon know something that us US political scientists have been fearing? (note the dates on the right read like something that accompanies an epitaph.)

Decorative Memorial Day or Fourth of July banners that hang vertically. Left one read America and the right one reads 1776 to 2026

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· Apr 22

Once again, our Eugenicist-in-Chief, ladies and gentlemen...

Post of mine from March 26: "Still looking for a quick n dirty analysis of the race of people & groups to whom Trump refers as Low IQ. Has he literally ever used the term to describe a white person?
Also: people who talk about IQ are (to. a. person.) unserious intellectually-deficient morons." as Trump refers to Somalian immigrants as "low IQ"

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· Apr 20

Being a parent is… so much… and so goddamned cool. My kid co-MCed the huge 5,000 person “air band“ event at UD on Friday where all the fraternities and sororities do these wildly elaborate choreographed lip sync acts… and the pictures he sent us are insane:

Handsome redhead kid taking selfie on stage with throngs of people behind him in giant auditorium

Two young dudes on stage addressing GIANT 5k crowd in auditorium.

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· Apr 18

Ok so they talked about how the plan would change the energy industry and be a burden on these companies but no one-not even once- mentioned the existential threat posed by warming climate and why that may also pose a “burden?” Who speaks for the fucking trees, my friends? Not SCOTUS, apparently.

Over just five days, the justices had decided the issue. Even as they debated the Obama plan’s possible burden on the power industry, in the entire chain of correspondence obtained by The Times, not a single justice, conservative or liberal, mentioned the dangers of a warming planet as one of the possible harms the court should consider.

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· Apr 6

Two doodles you can snuggle while I tell you lies, tell you sweet little lies.

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· Apr 5

Well this frame from NYT is a start. “Trump keeps threatening to commit war crimes in Iran”

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· Mar 28

What a day ❤️ Thank you to all of you who came out today and made your voices heard for democracy. ❤️ to Camden NJ, Philly PA, & 🇺🇸

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· Mar 27

The girls have just been chilling waiting for your return like they do every spring

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· Mar 25

I’m no genius, but I’m going to guess that it… sucks?

NYT headline: what it’s like to stand in the airport security line for hours

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young@dannagal· Mar 15

2007. A year after Mike died. IAMCR in Paris. I recall meeting a cute French waiter & walking the city. Then My best friend met me & we relived our year studying in France. She took me up this terrifying Ferris wheel. I refused to open my eyes. After months of sadness, I finally felt young & alive.