Chapter 5: Echo Chambers of the Right: Conservative Media Ecosystems

While the previous chapter discussed how politics gave moral permission for grievance, this chapter shows how specific forms of media made that grievance feel like home. Here, we explore Qimmersion, which we argue is the second condition in the constitutive architecture of radicalisation. We trace how SNCs described conservative outlets as surrounding audiences, that is, their loved ones, with voices, tones, and rhythms that transformed political emotion into daily routines. Through repetition and familiarity, these channels made outrage feel ordinary and moral certainty feel safe. By the time QAnon appeared within the mainstream, viewers were already living inside a moral world built through such media intimacy. Twenty-four-hour news, talk radio, and online spin-offs created a shared emotional climate where trust was not earned through accuracy as much as through recognition. Familiar hosts like Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson came to sound less like commentators and more like companions with their tone blending reassurance with anger and turning moral alignment into emotional connection.