Media Studies

INTRODUCTION: SCANDALS IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT

Hendrik Michael — 2024-01-10

BOOK REVIEWS

Filip Trbojević — 2024-01-10

SCANDALS IN THE GLOBAL VILLAGE: AN OUTRAGEOUS HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

Steffen Burkhardt — 2024-01-10

The specific characteristics of political scandals in a global context follow the historical evolution of international communication technologies and media systems. This article examines the development of political scandals through selected cases in a global context. The global scandal evolution took place in three phases: (1) the written duplication of morals created the conditions for international reports on political scandals; (2) the establishment of an international media system transformed political scandals into an integral part of global public spheres; (3) the digitization of scandals on the Internet put moral pressure on global politics – resulting in permanent and omnipresent international scandal discourses. The digitization of political scandals comes, on the one hand, along with the loss of journalistic gatekeepers, post-truth manipulation of public spheres, influence from abroad and the risk of social unrest. On the other hand, it provides the chance to better understand the chances and limits of globalization.

OUTRAGE, SOLIDARITY, COUNTERATTACK: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF TWEETS ON TWO POLITICAL SCANDALS IN GERMANY

Jan Dvorak — 2024-01-10

The prevalence of politicians’ scandals on social media has become an integral part of contemporary political life, presenting a challenge to existing scandal research. The formerly passive audience is given new opportunities for participation that have not yet been comprehensively described either theoretically or empirically. This study contributes to filling this gap by developing a taxonomy to describe offensive and defensive forms of audience participation during scandals. I analyze a sample of 500 influential tweets, taken from a corpus of more than 55.000 tweets related to two scandalizations of German politicians. The proposed taxonomy is shown to be suitable for describing both offensive and defensive forms of audience participation in scandalizations on social media.

FROM QUESTIONABLE INCIDENT TO POLITICAL SCANDAL: THE IBIZA AFFAIR’S SCANDALIZATION ON TWITTER

Maximilian Eder — 2024-01-10

Political scandals have become an everyday phenomenon, among other things, due to the crucial role of social media platforms as they shape how scandals unfold, are reported upon by journalists, and are perceived by the audience. This article examines the process of scandalization and journalistic discourse on Twitter in Germany and Austria against the background of the so-called Ibiza affair. Through a critical discourse analysis of 885 tweets from 149 influential political journalists, this study seeks to add to the understanding of scandalization on Twitter. Building upon the functional phase model by Burkhardt (2015, 2018), the study finds that those previously identified phases of a (political) scandal in print media coverage are shortened on Twitter, indicating a different scandalization dynamic on social media.

‘ACCIDENTAL CELEBRITIES’: MAGAZINE COVERAGE OF WOMEN INVOLVED IN U.S. PRESIDENTIAL SCANDALS

Karine Prémont — 2024-01-10

Using quantitative analysis, we analyzed the coverage of women indirectly involved in four major U.S. presidential scandals (Watergate, Iran-Contra, Clinton-Lewinsky affair, Ukraine quid pro quo) through 258 articles published in six magazines (The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, Time, The New Yorker, Newsweek, Rolling Stone) to assess how they are described by journalists. Three assumptions guided our analysis. First, women are covered in a negative way even if they are not responsible for the scandal. Second, they are covered by the magazines in a stereotypical way to describe their behavior, their character, or their role in the scandal. Finally, the coverage of women involved in more recent scandals is less stereotypical and less negative. While the literature shows that women receive more negative coverage than men when they are responsible for political scandals, our results show that this is also the case for these “accidental celebrities”.

MEMING UP THE SCANDALS: INTERNET MEMES AS AMPLIFIERS OF SCANDALS

Domagoj Bebić — 2024-01-10

This research investigates the amplifying role of memes in political scandals. This study, therefore, begins with the hypothesis that political scandals originating from mainstream media extend to social networks through memes. Consequently, the duration and impact of a specific scandal are extended as it circulates within these online platforms. The case study examines three Croatian news portals – Večernji.hr, Index.hr, and Slobodnadalmacija.hr – and analyzes memes published on the Megatroll Split Facebook page in June 2022. Findings indicate that despite a smaller number of memes generated within a two-day timeframe, the Megatroll Split Facebook page received more user engagement than Večernji. hr, which published sixteen articles over eight days. This research confirms the significant role of memes in political scandals and underscores the need for further exploration in this area.