From Feeling to Function: Anger as Infrastructure in Digital Societies

This article develops the concept of 'manufacture of dissent ' and ‘moral outrage networks ’ to examine anger as a central organising force of contemporary digital societies, arguing that anger has shifted from an episodic moral emotion into a programmable, networked social technology. Drawing on psychological, philosophical, religious and sociological perspectives, it shows how digital communication systems transform anger into a circulating signal that structures attention, identity and power. In online environments, anger is no longer primarily triggered by embodied encounters or local injustice, but by symbolic cues delivered through interfaces designed to stimulate arousal, anticipation and reaction. Platforms exploit anger’s cognitive effects – perceptual narrowing, risk distortion, moral certainty and heightened engagement – converting emotional response into behavioural data and economic value. The article analyses how anger reshapes cognition, memory and judgement, producing simplified moral worlds in which blame is personalised, complexity collapses and outrage becomes resistant to correction. It situates contemporary digital anger within longer philosophical and religious debates about the legitimacy, danger and governance of anger, showing how ancient concerns with restraint, proportion and accountability are destabilised by infrastructures that reward immediacy and intensity. Particular attention is given to rage and outrage as engineered conditions: rage as anger intensified through constant stimulation and social reward, and outrage as moral spectacle that translates indignation into public performance, punishment and belonging. The article argues that anger now functions as a form of affective infrastructure, synchronising dispersed publics into moral collectives while eroding deliberation, trust and repair. Understanding anger today therefore requires moving beyond individual psychology toward a sociology of digital systems that manufacture, normalise and monetise anger as the dominant affect of public life.