It has all the hallmarks of a vintage Channel 4 controversy: not only does the broadcaster's new drama feature the abduction of a princess bearing a distinct similarity to the Duchess of Cambridge, but the kidnapper's demands involve the prime minister having sex on live TV – with a pig.

Written by Charlie Brooker, the hour-long comic drama The National Anthem, to be broadcast next month, uses the farcical set-piece to examine the way we interact on the internet, and the consequences of the influence of social media.

"Opinion shifts harder and faster it seems to me with Twitter and rolling news. Those two forces combined create a strange situation," said Brooker.

Starring Rory Kinnear as the fictional PM and Lindsay Duncan as his home secretary, the drama follows reaction to the royal kidnapping in Downing Street and among a gleeful public, despite the government's best attempts to stifle the story.

"In my head it was a cross between when Gordon Brown had to go and apologise to Gillian Duffy, and I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. In an odd way it's a combination of those two events," said Brooker.

Channel 4 admit that the show is likely to be controversial. "I think it's quite provocative, but there's a message there as well because it's about how vicarious we are and the public appetite for spectacle," said Shane Allen, C4's head of comedy.

"You've got to credit people with the intelligence that they'll get the echoes and the references. We don't want to spoonfeed people."

According to Brooker, who also writes a column for the Guardian, the concept is more likely to be viewed as outrageous than the programme itself. "I think when [people] watch it, I don't think there will be that much of an outcry," he said. "It's not a massively comfortable piece of television to watch, but it's not designed to just simply outrage people."

The National Anthem is the first of three standalone dramas linked by a theme of technological change – two of which are penned by Brooker, who said he was inspired by watching shows such as The Twilight Zone and Tales of the Unexpected. They will be broadcast in early December as a mini-series called Black Mirror.

The National Anthem's director, Otto Bathurst, said that while the programme might initially be funny, it was important that the audience's reaction followed that of the show's imagined public.

"[The idea was] that was happening inside the telly was the same as was happening at home," he said. "So hopefully the audience are slightly shocked in the same way."

As for the reaction on Twitter, Brooker joked: "I hope no one is on Twitter during the show. Obviously they will be but I hope that they're watching rather than tweeting, generally speaking."