If you've ever wondered how the right-wing media ecosystem operates and why it's effective, try viewing it as a form of improvisational theater or improv.
Authors
- Danielle Lee Tomson
Research Manager, Center for an Informed Public, University of Washington
- Kate Starbird
Professor of Human Centered Design & Engineering, University of Washington
In the wake of the 2024 U.S. elections, everyday people and political pundits alike have been trying to make sense of the results and the related observation that many Americans seem to be experiencing very different realities. These realities are shaped by very different media ecosystems .
Democrats tend to trust institutional media and network news more than Republicans . In contrast, Republicans have developed what they see as a more trustworthy and explicitly partisan alternative media ecosystem that has rapidly evolved and flourished in the internet era.
Cultivating robust alternative media has been a political strategy of the right for decades . Given the interactive nature of social media and ongoing investments by the right in digital media, the right-wing media ecosystem has become a highly participatory space filled with influencers, political elites and audiences.
These players engage in year-round conversations that inspire and adapt political messaging. The collaborations are not tightly scripted but improvised, facilitated by the interactivity of digital media.
For all these reasons, we, as researchers of information ecosystems and influencer culture, find it useful to think of right-wing media as a kind of improv theater. This metaphor helps us understand the social and digital structure, culture and persuasive power of right-wing influence, which is reshaping politics in the U.S. and around the world .
Elements of improv in right-wing media
Influencers are the performers in this real-life improv show that plays out on a stage of social media newsfeeds, podcasts, cable newsrooms and partisan online media outlets. The performers include political pundits and media personalities as well as a dynamic group of online opinion leaders who often ascend from the audience to the stage, in part by recognizing and exploiting the dynamics of digital media.
These influencers work together, performing a variety of roles based on a set of informal rules and performance conventions: sharing vague but emotionally resonant memes, " just asking questions " to each other, trolling a journalist, "evidencing" claims with data or photos - sometimes taken out of context - all the while engaging each other's content.
Just as in improv, performers work daily to find a game from their audience, internet forums and each other. The " game " in improv is a concept or story with a novel element around which a performance revolves. Once a compelling game is found, performers "raise the stakes," another improv concept where the plot intensifies and expands.
Performers follow a loose script, collaborating toward a shared goal. Digital media environments provide additional infrastructure - the platform features, networks and algorithms - that shapes the performances.
Their performances, both individual and in interaction with each other, help influencers attract and curate an audience they are highly in tune with. As in improv shows, the political performers may use a technique called a callback : referencing a previous line, exchange or game that the audience is familiar with. Or performers might react to calls from an engaged audience that cheers, jeers and steers the actors as the show unfolds. The audience may also prompt an entire skit by bringing a story to the attention of influencers or politicians.
From this perspective, influence doesn't just flow from influencers on stage and out to the audience, but also flows from the audience to the influencers. These dynamics make the right-wing media ecosystem extremely reactive. Feedback is instant, and the right "bits" get laughs and likes. Influencers - and political leaders - can quickly adapt their messaging to their audiences' tastes, preferences and grievances, as well as to the events and trends of the day, unencumbered by the lag of traditional news media.
Actors and audiences in right-wing media also engage in transgressive, controversial or even offensive bits, as they test the boundaries of their shared tastes, expectations and - for the political performers - ideologies.
Like a lot of improv shows, these performances feel intimate and authentic. Audience members can talk to the performers after and sometimes during the show. They can also be invited "on stage" when an influencer elevates their content.
It may be just for a single scene, but there is also opportunity for lucky, savvy or persistent contributors to become part of the theater of influencers. This increases the motivation to participate, the excitement and the sense among audience members that they are truly part of the show.
'They're eating the pets'
One example of right-wing media as improv came in fall 2024 when then-candidate Donald Trump baselessly claimed from a debate stage that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing and eating pets.
Prior to Trump referencing them, rumors of pet-eating had been circulating in local Springfield Facebook groups. These claims were amplified when a local neo-Nazi leader discussed the issue in a recorded town hall meeting, which circulated in apps like Telegram and Gab. Influencers who monitor these channels elevated the story , finding a new game with a novel element.
A Reddit post of a photo of a man holding a bird walking down the street was taken out of context by influencers and falsely used as "evidence" of immigrants eating pets. Memes, particularly those made by artificial intelligence, started spreading rapidly, catching the attention of politicians including Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene , who shared them. This raised the stakes of the improv game by tying these smaller memes to a larger political narrative about needing to stop migration at the southern border.
The improv act reached its zenith when Trump and then vice presidential candidate JD Vance elevated the claims during the week of the September debate. They presented the claims with both seriousness and a bit of a tongue-in-cheek awareness that the point of the story was not necessarily about immigrants but about the attention the narrative garnered. Vance even acknowledged the whole thing could " turn out to be false ." Veracity was not the point of this improvisation.
Growing body of research
The metaphor of right-wing media as improv emerged through research, conversation and collaboration facilitated by the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public , where we work.
One of us, Kate Starbird, and colleagues studied the role of political influencers in election-denying rumors after the 2020 election, finding right-wing political campaigns to be participatory efforts that were largely improvised . In related work, media researcher Anna Beers described how a " theater of influencers " on the right could be identified through their interactions with a shared audience.
Doctoral student Stephen Prochaska and colleagues built on sociologist Arlie Hochschild 's work to characterize the production of election fraud narratives in 2020 as "deep storytelling" - telling stories with strong emotional resonance - between right-wing influencers and their online audiences.
In her study of right-wing influencers, one of us, Danielle Lee Tomson, described the performative collaboration between influencers as kayfabe , a performance convention in professional wrestling of wrestlers agreeing on a story arc before a seemingly real wrestling match.
These studies all draw on different theories and apply different methods, but they converge on the ideas of improvisation, style and participatory audiences as integral to the success of right-wing media ecosystems.
A persuasive performance
In political improv, factuality is less important than the compelling nature of the performance, the actors, the big story arc and the aesthetic. The storylines can be riveting, engaging and participatory, allowing audiences to play their own role in a grand epic of American activism.
When considered this way, the persuasive power of right-wing media to everyday Americans comes into fuller focus. When there is a 24/7 chorus of collaborative internet influencers engaging their audiences directly, institutional media begins to feel too far removed and disengaged to have a comparable effect.
Danielle Lee Tomson receives funding from Craig Newmark Philanthropies and the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation for her work at CIP.
Kate Starbird receives funding from the National Science Foundation, Knight Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, and Craig Newmark Philanthropies.
