Scandals

Do Freeport ao Face Oculta, do Monte Branco ao BES, do escândalo dos vistos dourados à prisão preventiva do ex primeiro-ministro. As últimas semanas confirmam que vivemos na era do escândalo, e não apenas em Portugal. No Brasil, o escândalo da Petrobrás revelou um esquema de corrupção envolvendo grandes empreiteiras e políticos importantes, e em Espanha Mariano Rajoy pediu desculpa pelos escândalos que assolam o seu partido. Mas o que é o escândalo político? Qual é o significado da palavra " escândalo " ? Como se configura no debate público?

What does scandal designate? Is it a narrative of moral outrage, a titillating spectacle of shame, or a violation that simultaneously unsettles and consolidates norms and traditions? Scandal as a phenomenon, event, and analytical category has been the focus of de bates and representations in works by Kant, Heidegger, Rousseau, Sade, and Mme de Sévigné, as well as in The Arabian Nights. These engagements with scandal in philosophy, literature, and media constitute a genealogy if not a tradition that emphasizes the relations between scandal and the body, gender, story-telling, visuality, marginality, and pow er. From the body of Aphrodite that frames scandal in the Greek mythological context to the body of Egyptian activist and nude blogger Alyaa Elmahdi, adulterous affairs and fantasies of debauchery particularly have been used as instruments to critique the rich and powerful but also to oppress women and sexual minorities. What becomes of scandal in the age of the Internet, apps, and social media? The article examines whether the digital is bringing about the demise of scandal as an affective scene that generates outrage and condemnation but also as a model of telling and representing tied to antiquated re portage genres, gossip scenes, and fictional models. Genealogy The word "scandal" comes from the Greek word skandalon, which means moral stumble and trap. 1 One of the most famous scandals in antiquity is the one generated by the adul terous relation between the god of war, Ares (Mars), and the goddess of beauty, Aphrodite (Venus) or Cypris, as she comes from the eastern part of the Greek world (the island of Cyprus). Homer tells us that when Ares stayed in Aphrodite's bed into dawn, Helios, the sun god, making his journey from east to west, saw the lovers in bed. Helios, best known as the gossiper among the gods as he sees everything, told Aphrodite's husband Hephaistos, thereby setting the scene of scandal on Mount Olympus. 2 Following Helios's "seeing" and "gossiping," Hephaistos, the blacksmith who works in the forge all night, laid a "trap" for the lovers: an invisible chain net that would fall and immobilize them when set. A revealer, a whistleblower, and artificer, Helios sets the stage for the scene of scandal.

It is often remarked that politicians’ private lives are becoming feature of political communication in many advanced industrial democracies. However, there have so far been no genuinely comparative studies examining the personalised nature of political communication. Intimate Politics provides for the first time a systematic comparative analysis of such developments in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, and the US. Drawing on a wide range of primary and secondary sources it assesses the extent to which the private lives of politicians have become a feature of political communication in each democracy. The book provides a comprehensive account of the shifting boundaries between the public and private and whether any developments are universal or more advanced in some democracies than others, and seeks to explain why this might be. Intimate Politics will be of great value for students and scholars of communication and media studies and political science and is required reading for anyone who wants a fuller understanding of the transformation of mediated politics in advanced industrial democracies.

Celem artykułu jest opis narracji medialnej skandalu obyczajowego na przykładzie sprawy redaktora „Faktów” Kamila Durczoka, oskarżonego przez „Wprost” o mobbing i molestowanie dziennikarek. Materiał badawczy obejmuje teksty opublikowane w tygodnikach „Wprost” i „Newsweek”, dziennikach „Fakt” i „Super Express” oraz zamieszczone na portalu wpolityce.pl i se.pl. W artykule wskazano różnice znaczeniowe pomiędzy, służącymi do przedstawienia określonej wizji wydarzeń, leksemami sprawa, afera, skandal oraz derywatami sufiksalnymi zawierającymi cząstkę -gate. Wskazane zostały charakterystyczne dla skandalu struktury narracyjne. Przedstawiono także schemat narracyjny skandalu obyczajowego z uwzględnieniem kreacji bohatera, jego działań i intencji oraz przeszkód, jakie napotyka podczas realizacji tych intencji. Analiza materiału pozwoliła na wyodrębnienie dwóch przeciwstawnych strategii retorycznych: agresywnej i defensywnej, których celem jest kolejno: atak i obrona osób zamieszanych w skandal. W oparciu o przedstawiony schemat narracyjny wskazano, w jaki sposób te strategie mogą być wykorzystywane do kreowania odrębnych wizji rzeczywistości.

En avril 1314, les trois belles-filles du roi Philippe le Bel ont été accusées d’adultère et condamnées à des emprisonnements impitoyables. Pendant trois années, elles auraient entretenu une liaison avec des chevaliers au service des princes. Pourtant, ce scandale survient après d’autres affaires du règne – la chute du Temple et plusieurs procès en hérésie – qui témoignent d’un climat peu favorable à une cour licencieuse. L’autrice s’est donc interrogée sur le bien-fondé de cette surprenante accusation. Au terme d’une enquête minutieuse, elle démontre non seulement que les princesses n’étaient pas coupables du crime d’adultère, mais que des raisons politiques ont conduit à leur élimination.

In April 1314, the three daughters-in-law of Philippe le Bel, including Marguerite of Burgundy, granddaughter of Saint Louis, were accused of adultery and sentenced to ruthless imprisonment.
For three years, they would have maintained an affair with the brothers of Aulnay, knights in the service of the princes. Yet this scandal comes after other affairs of the reign - the fall of the Temple and several heresy trials - which testify to an unfavorable climate for a licentious court.
The author therefore questioned the merits of this surprising accusation, which history teaches is a means commonly used by men to defame women in power. After a careful investigation, she shows not only that the princesses were not guilty of the crime of adultery, but that political reasons led to their elimination. It offers a new analysis of the end of the reign of Philip the Fair, where women, ignored by historiography, hold an exceptional place.

In the online era, it is easy to direct vitriol, without a second thought of the consequences for the recipient, via the depersonalised screen at strangers, friends and particularly those who do not share our opinions or worldview.  Reminiscent of the two minutes hate from George Orwell(Eric Blair)'s 1984, a public pariah is easy to find and shame in the virtual world.

A recent example would be that of Walter Palmer, the Minnesota dentist who found himself at the centre of a public shaming scandal after he illegally shot 'Cecil The Lion', whom his trackers lured from a game sanctuary, on a big game hunting trip in Zimbabwe. 

This unfortunate man found himself taking the brunt of public outrage, both online via social media, and in person with equivalent angry mobs calling for his extradition and baying for his blood.

If you have a social media account, you could not have escaped this 'scandal'. After witnessing this (quite frankly) repetitive and virulent spectacle,  I found myself  deciding to read this book by Jon Ronson, as its title felt quite poignant, in the hope of understanding further the phenomenon of mob mentality and its effects on its unfortunate victims. ...

http://www.whenthenewsstops.org/2015/08/so-youve-been-publicly-shamed-by-jon.html

We live in scandalous times. Every day some new controversy demands our attention, our emotional investment, and, ultimately, our judgment. Many of these routine transgressions will be understood in ‘revelatory’ terms, as peeling back the multiple layers of artifice and spin to reveal an underlying, and oftentimes disturbing, ‘truth’. Others will be recognized as calculated marketing exercises that simply present the strategic face of contemporary capitalism.

Yet these ‘ordinary’ scandals can themselves be seen to be largely derivative of another, altogether more fundamental—and fundamentally rare—form of disruption. Such is the real scandal that accompanies instances of authentic creation. Building on the philosophy of Alain Badiou, Scandalous Times not only argues the case for such ‘real scandal’, but also shows how it is today being abrogated and substituted through the increasing production of novel forms of state-sanctioned controversy.

From Duchamp to Donald Trump, Scandalous Times explores the ways in which areas from art and advertising to politics and social media have come to actively contribute to this ‘static’ fabrication of controversy, all the while arguing for the need to rethink creativity as a radical exception to the state, and not its proxy.

“Alex Ling presents a powerful argument on the nature of scandal and pseudo-scandal today through a concise and lucid account of Alain Badiou’s theory of being and the scandalous event that occasionally irrupts within it, allowing for the possibility of real change. This is a truly striking demonstration of the extraordinary potential of Badiou’s thought for critical theory and cultural studies. It should be studied for its exemplary methodology as much for its original readings and conclusions.” Kenneth Reinhard, Professor of Comparative Literature and English, University of California, Los Angeles, USA

“Alex Ling’s Scandalous Times is a lucid argument that the realm of contemporary scandal is one in which everything changes so everything can stay the same. Against this conservatism, Ling provides a philosophical defence of the real scandal that would overturn our scandalous reality.” Benjamin Noys, Professor of Critical Theory, University of Chichester, UK

“Alex Ling turns a much needed philosophical gaze on scandals, one of those key yet widely misunderstood concepts currently shaping our reactionary political age. Ling’s lucid, challenging and thoroughly engaging analysis forces us to think of our current political moment as one saturated with ‘simulacral scandals’ (or state-sanctioned controversies), both perversely satisfying an inevitable demand for shock and horror in times such as ours, and precluding any real change. Building on Badiouian philosophy, this timely and powerful book is not just a sharp and original account of how to think about scandals and the role they play in our societies, but a guide for how to reimagine them, and explore ways towards new political horizons and ultimately ‘the possibility of real happiness’.” Aurelien Mondon, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Bath, UK

Participation of Adam “Nergal” Darski, the leader of the death metal band Behemoth, in the television talent–show The Voice of Poland in autumn 2011 caused a media storm and fierce public debate in Poland . This story has focused as in a lens Polish social, political and religious life. Here heavy metal intersects with the popular media and culture, controversial stage image with court trials, Nergal’s fight against leukemia with advertising, Satanism and its symbols with Christianity, political struggle during the parliamentary election campaign with religious life, freedom of speech and artistic expression with religious freedom. This paper aims to answer two fundamental questions about those events: (1) How various discourses involved influenced each other?; (2) Which communication mechanisms have been used? Methodologically I use the Critical Discourse Analysis approach of Norman Fairclough (2003, 2005) and the case study method (Gerring, 2007; Stacks, 2005, 2011) to identify three intertwining and interacting processes of communication: (1) Nergal’s shockvertising/publicity in the death metal niche; (2) Nergal’s shockvertising/publicity in TVP when promoting The Voice of Poland to mass audience; (3) political and religious scandalization performed by specific activists (various political, church and religious organizations, bishops etc.)

A number of high-profile corporate scandals were reported in Japan in 2011, and the accounting scandal of the Olympus Company was among them. During 2011, suspicions surfaced that Olympus had been engaging in improper accounting practices for over 20 years. The main aim of this case study is to delineate the scandal narrative while emphasising the performance of its main actors: The Olympus representatives, the main whistleblower (Michael Woodford), and all the media outlets that participated in the scandal (both mainstream, tabloid, and foreign). It was precisely the reluctance of the mainstream media to publish new of the corruption on the one hand, and the vigilance of the foreign and tabloid media to amplify it on the other, that contributed to the outcome of the scandal.

In this paper I would like to point out the role of japanese media while investigating, uncovering and mediating (not only political) scandals. I will mention, how scandal mediations in Japan reflect the japanese mediascape, journalistic norms and also the overall societal value system. While giving numerous examples of scandal mediations in the past, I will emphasize the role of non-elite, semi-mainstream tabloids (shúkanshi), representing the main platform for initiating the process of making (real or imagined) social defects known to japanese public. Finally, I will propose a structural model for scandal mediation process, consisting of transgression leak to media, scandal processing, transgression leak to public and the climax.

This article examines renowned yet controversial American photographer Spencer Tunick, whose work has led to numerous arrests, a high profile court-case and finally, success abroad. Spencer Tunick's photographic works, which he calls installations, have brought him great renown, but his work was and continues to be hazardous, exposing the unstable rules about art and nudity in public space. Masses of naked bodies populate his works, standing up, lying down, painted blue, lifted up, holding hands, in public spaces all over the world. Tunick is not interested in sexualised imagery: the boundaries he wants to push against are political. Ironically, it was his high-profile court-case win in 2000 to photograph a group of nude persons outdoors in New York that led to increased censorship, and –more fortuitously– to international success. Using archival records, interviews (by the author) with Tunick and reflections on the interactions between photography, the law, morality and public ...

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has recently undergone the most comprehensive review of its organizational culture since federation. Western militaries across the USA, Canada and the UK are similarly engaged. Military misconduct, including rape, assault and the long traditions of hazing and bastardization, have been increasingly exposed, engaging civil society, agitating government and undermining military integrity. The Skype Affair is described as a particularly important military misconduct scandal that brought these relations, and ruling relations more specifically, into focus. The article describes the contest over democratic control of the armed forces initiated when the jurisdictions and authority of the Defence Minister, the Chief of Defence and the Commandant of the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) converged over the management of this military scandal. This article looks at how relations between Australian civil society, the military and the state are affected by the varying engagements of these sectors with the question of violence in the military and, subsequently, military modernization. The news-mediated discourse is one that highlights the structural split of civil– military relations, between two white masculinized institutions in a context of distinct cultural divergence over the rule of nation.

Pourquoi Freud, mort depuis 1939, fait-il encore régulièrement scandale dans les grands médias ? Plus encore que la psychanalyse, c’est sa personne qui est régulièrement attaquée. Dernier éclat en date : la parution en 2010 du Crépuscule d’une idole, de Michel Onfray, qui affirmait que Freud n’était qu’un simple affabulateur. Le siècle écoulé compte ainsi une série de scandales qui, au lieu d’atteindre Freud, l’ont édifié en mythe. Car dénigrer Freud, c’est le populariser. Mieux : c’est accomplir une prophétie qu’il n’a lui-même cessé de prédire.

Samuel Lézé enseigne à l’École normale supérieure de Lyon, au sein de laquelle il est également responsable de l’équipe DSM (Dire la santé mentale) à l’Institut d’histoire des représentations et des idées dans les modernités (IHRIM). Il est l’auteur de L’Autorité des psychanalystes (Puf, 2010) et codirecteur de La Question morale (Puf, 2013).

Skandale gehören zum journalistischen Alltagsgeschäft. Fast keine Woche vergeht ohne eine neue Enthüllung oder die Anprangerung skandalösen Verhaltens von Prominenten. Doch manchmal erscheinen Skandale beabsichtigt, beispielsweise wenn Politiker umstrittene Äußerungen tätigen.
Es handelt sich dann um eine Sonderform des Skandals, der von den Skandalisierten angestoßen wird, um bestimmte Ziele zu erreichen. Diese als intendierte Selbstskandalisierung bezeichnete Erscheinung des Skandals wird in diesem Buch theoretisch dargestellt und anhand zweier Wahlkämpfe in Deutschland und der Schweiz veranschaulicht.
Die Theorie der intendierten Selbstskandalisierung stellt erstmals eine ausführliche Grundlage für die Analyse absichtlich provozierter Skandale in der Politik dar. Sie ist außerdem für die kommunikationswissenschaftliche Erforschung weiterer Skandalfelder wie der Literatur oder der Populärkultur anwendbar.

Oversupply of information, irrelevance, and repetition in political and administrative text and talk have received considerable scholarly attention, but the tendency to date has been to analyse these phenomena separately. In this article, I argue that it would be fruitful to explore these aspects in combination, as constitutive dimensions of calculated overcommunicative behaviour in public administration.

Based on a multidisciplinary review of literature on cognitive manipulation, prolixity, (ir)relevance, discourse repetition, and administrative behaviour, I propose an original ‘overcommunication framework’ for explicating certain discursive macro-strategies of positive self-presentation used by public officeholders. In particular, I discuss how governments may use calculated overcommunication to avoid or deflect blame, to signal democratic openness, and to perform swiftness.

By problematising the notion of ‘overcommunication’ and introducing it into discourse studies, I seek to open up new avenues of understanding and investigating political and organisational communication.

Los estudios sobre escándalos públicos han constituido un campo organizado de trabajo, primordialmente descriptivo. La proliferación de los escándalos en el siglo XXI introduce la necesidad de profundizar en su comprensión desde perspectivas teóricas más amplias, como la antropología cultural de René Girard. En este trabajo se ofrece un análisis de las crisis miméticas resueltas por la inmolación de un chivo expiatorio como un marco fecundo para analizar los escándalos mediáticos contemporáneos. Desde la perspectiva de Girard, se propone una tipología de gestión de la crisis que incluye cuatro posibilidades: a) gestión del conflicto simbólico controlado, b) desgaste del adversario desafiando la escalada de unanimidad crítica, c) contraataque en el escándalo, y d) respuesta ritual. Cada uno de los “tipos” se ejemplifica con sucesos de la realidad argentina vinculados con la gestión de la política. Finalmente se destaca la importancia de afrontar la gestión del disenso desde la intelección de los rituales sociales de tal manera que la comunicación emerge como criterio, ámbito y herramienta fundamental de la gestión de crisis y los escándalos públicos.

Nachdem die Süddeutsche Zeitung  am 16. Februar 2011 als erster medialer Akteur über den  Plagiatsvorwurf  eines  Bremer  Jura-Professors  gegenüber  Karl-Theodor  zu Guttenberg im Kontext seiner Dissertation berichtete und dies den Anfang eines knapp zwei  Wochen  andauernden „deutschen  Psychodramas“  markierte, trat  der  ehemalige
Bundesminister der Verteidigung schließlich am 01. März 2011 von seinen politischen Ämtern zurück. 
Die Prämisse meiner Arbeit ist, dass sämtliche Normverstöße  - unabhängig davon, in welchem  Bereich sie stattfinden  -  auf eine  (massen)-mediale  Verbreitung angewiesen sind, um sich im Zusammenspiel mit weiteren Faktoren, wie der kollektiven Empörung, als Skandal innerhalb einer breiten Öffentlichkeit entfalten zu können. Demnach spielt die spezifische, mediale Vermittlung von skandalträchtigen Ereignissen eine entschei-
dende  Rolle  für  die  Inszenierung und  Entfaltung  von  Skandalen  selbst.  Dies  führt mich  zu  der  Frage,  auf  welche  Art  und  Weise  Skandale  in  den  Medien  geformt  und produziert  werden?  Welche  spezifischen Inszenierungsmuster  spielen  innerhalb  der medialen Berichterstattung für die Skandalisierung eine Rolle? Diese Fragen sollen am  gewählten Fallbeispiel anhand einer vergleichenden  Analyse  der  Berichterstattung  zweier  medialer  Akteure  beantwortet werden.

In 1891, a moral reformer named Alzire Chevaillier launched an aggressive crusade to destroy Fountaingrove, a spiritualist utopian colony in Northern California with white and Japanese members. Chevaillier accused the colony's leader, Thomas Lake Harris, of promoting “disorderly doctrines” with sexual practices “worse than those of Mormonism.” This essay uses the little-known Fountaingrove scandal to examine the interrelationship of religion, race, and sexuality in California. As a mixed-race new religious movement accused of sexual immorality, Fountaingrove transgressed prevailing norms in multiple ways. The colony became Orientalized in the public imagination, showing how new religions and non-normative sexual practices were coded as racially other. Yet media representations of Fountaingrove reflected more than straightforward “yellow peril.” The Japanese members of Fountaingrove inhabited several unstable categories at once, viewed as neither “heathen” nor Christian, neither adults nor children, neither white nor Chinese, shedding light on the uncertain religio-racial status of early Japanese immigrants to the United States. The scandal also reveals the racist dimensions of white female reformers' attacks on male dominance. The wide range of public response to Chevaillier's campaign, from moral disgust to amusement to apathy, gives evidence of the cultural fissures beginning to break open in fin de siècle America.

A lo largo de estas páginas hemos analizado las formas cambiantes de significación de uno de los “casos célebres” con mayor repercusión pública desde el nacimiento de la prensa moderna en Chile. La significación del crimen de Sara Bell por la prensa y por otros medios impresos fue un proceso, un itinerario que implicó la adopción sucesiva de distintos modelos de comprensión, cada uno de ellos con sus respectivos arquetipos protagónicos, caracterizados por configuraciones emocionales específicas que otorgaban sentido al drama ocurrido.
La “fortuna” mediática de este caso célebre reconstruyó una y otra vez la historia de vida de Sara, presentándose ante nuestros ojos un proceso cultural dinámico que dialogaba con arquetipos literarios, nociones de género, así como como con el contexto político y social del momento.

How do applications of emergent technologies contribute to the social legitimacy of finance? To address this question, we examine a set of technologies that have received increasing industry, media, and scholarly attention over the past decade: blockchains. Harnessing the concepts of ‘moral economy’ and ‘scandal’, we identify both possibilities and limits for blockchain applications to legitimate a range of monetary and investment activities. However, we also find that a persistent individualisation of responsibility for failures and shortcomings with ‘live’ blockchain experimentation has undermined the potentially legitimating aspects of this technology. Combining a reliance on technological fixes with a persistent individualist moral economy, we conclude, works against efforts to confront head-on the tensions underpinning the on-going legitimacy crises facing finance.

This treatise conflates cultural sociology, media theory, and Japanese philology in order to better understand the way media scandals are produced in contemporary Japan. In cultural sociology, scandal is understood as a social performance between ritual and strategy. In my previous research I focused on the ritual aspect, analyzing Japanese scandals as dramatic public performances of confession, exclusion, and reintegration. In this treatise, I focus on the strategy aspect, approaching scandals as symbolic products of media routines and journalistic practices. The former part of this treatise examines how the actor-network of power circles co-defines the way scandals emerge and unfold in Japan. The latter part focuses on the role of Japanese media organizations in the process of transforming leaks into scandals.

Photographer Spencer Tunick has been given a lot of freedom in some of the most conservative places. But in New York, that city shrouded in myths of unlimited artistic possibilities, he has not been able to work for nearly two decades. From police violence to bizarre legal battles, the article chronicles Tunick's charged relationship with the streets of New York.

It is necessary to provide confidence to financial markets, so that they can function and develop in a successful manner. Inaccurate financial statements subject to fraud which initiate accounting scandals make it difficult for financial statements users to make the right decision. In order to assure transparency, reliability, objectively and standardization, financial statements are audited by independent auditors. However, the accounting scandals experienced in the 21st century has shown that, independent auditing firms do not always fulfill their duties completely. For this reason, legislation was introduced in United States of America (USA), Europe and Asian countries, including Japan. Public oversight bodies were also established. But despite the introduced laws, regulations, arrangements and public oversight bodies, the risk of accounting scandals still continues. This is partly due to the fact that laws, regulations, arrangements and introduction of public oversight bodies are delayed and they are not completely meeting the expectations of changing market conditions. Effective pro-active policies and actions are not in order as well. This paper investigates accounting scandals and eye-cathing frauds by making a comparison between USA and Japan, while considering and discussing the role of auditing.

The year 2011 has marked a decade since the Enron collapse, considered the most emblematic corporate scandal worldwide. Despite its importance, few studies provide an integrated analysis of the underlying failures that allowed Enron’s debacle, going beyond the traditional view that reduces the case to a mere "accounting fraud". Few studies also evaluate the main lessons from the Enron scandal in perspective, by comparing its common causes with corporate scandals that emerged during the global financial crisis in 2007-2008. These are the gaps I aim to fill. I conclude that Enron’s accounting manipulations, rather than being the cause of the problems, were the consequence of managerial failures and wishful blindness by its stakeholders. I also show that some lessons from Enron have not been fully internalized by companies worldwide, since most of its underlying causes are similar to those of several corporate scandals that emerged a couple of years later.

Although the primary cause of the emissions scandal at Volkswagen appears to have been misfeasance and malfeasance on a corporate-wide scale, we argue that such a problematic culture existed at Volkswagen because of the composition of the board itself in combination with the unique governance structure known as “co-determination,” that defines many German companies, including VW. There are three major problems from a corporate governance standpoint with the Volkswagen board. First, is the interest-conflicting nature of the dual-class stock held by the dominant shareholding Porsche and Piech families. Second, is the presence of a government as a major shareholder. And third is the organization of its characteristically German “two-tier” board around the principle of co-determination, which mandated significant labor representation. We argue that each of these elements of the VW ownership and governance structure contributed in varying degrees to the board failure of oversight that led to the management decision to evade emissions regulations.

Through an examination of several events dealing with Aids in the 1980’s and 1990’s, the author analyses major transformations which have affected the field of national media during this period. The fact that so much media coverage has been given to Aids shows that events concerning activities within a field as autonomous as that of medecine have a tendency today to become events just like any other.
In the first part, the author shows that the weight of journalistic (and indeed economic and political) consideration is growing in both the selection and the construction of events in the medical domain. These swing between, on the one hand, the regime of « obligatory events » (scientific announcements) and, on the other, the new regime of the « unexpected events » (scandals or polemics).
After demonstrating the slow emergence of media attention to the French « infected blood scandal » cannot be attributed only to the work of a handful of journalists or to the caracteristics of the affair, the author explains in a second part that the specific importance of this affair can be explained by changes in the journalistic field. The « infected blood scandal » enables one to understand the general structure of the field of journalism, which has come to be increasingly dominated by commercial imperatives, as exemplified by the growing role of television in the prioritisation and treatment of events. At a second level, the study of the journalists who covered this affair, analysed, through the changes in recruitment on the one hand and the division of labour in journalism on the other, reveals the effects of professionnal hierarchies on the way the scandal was treated by the press. The form taken by this affair derives substantially from the way in which medical information is treated. Medical information has lost its relatively exceptional status, which is less and less medicalised and more and more competitive. This study shows also that journalistic activity is today less subject to the logic of politics than it is to that of two other logics : those of journalistic value -as recognized by journalists- and of the market, which become ever closer.
The third part shows the growing effect that the journalistic field has on the ordinary working of other relatively autonomous social worlds such as the judicical sphere, when it imposes for example a form of « popular justice ».
A partir de l’étude de plusieurs événements concernant le sida, cette recherche a pour objet l’analyse des grandes transformations qui ont affecté le champ des médias nationaux d’information générale au cours des années 80 et 90. La médiatisation du sida montre que les événements qui portent sur les activités d’un espace aussi autonome que le champ médical tendent aujourd’hui à devenir des événements comme les autres. Dans une première partie, on met en évidence le poids croissant des considérations journalistiques (et par là-même économiques et politiques) dans la sélection et la construction des événements dans le domaine médical. A côté de ce qu’on peut appeler les « événements obligés » (les annonces scientifiques), on voit se multiplier des « événements imprévus » (les « affaires » ou les « polémiques »).
Après avoir montré que la lente émergence médiatique du « scandale du sang contaminé » (1983-199...) ne peut être uniquement rapportée au seul travail de quelques journalistes ou aux propriétés médiatiques de cette affaire, on explique, dans une deuxième partie, que la forme qu’elle a prise en France doit beaucoup aux transformations du champ journalistique. Elle est un révélateur de la structure générale de cet espace qui est de plus en plus dominé par son pôle commercial, incarné par les chaînes de télévision qui ont acquis un poids important dans la hiérarchisation et le traitement des événements. A un second niveau, l’étude des positions des journalistes, analysées à travers les transformations du recrutement d’une part, et la division du travail journalistique d’autre part, fait apparaître les effets des hiérarchies professionnelles sur le traitement du « scandale ». La forme prise par cette affaire doit aussi beaucoup aux transformations de l’information médicale, qui a perdu son relatif statut d’exception, celle-ci étant de plus en plus dé-médicalisée et concurrentielle. Enfin, si l’activité journalistique est toujours fortement dépendante de logiques politiques, elle est de plus en plus soumise à deux logiques, celle des pairs et du marché.
Dans une troisième partie, on met en évidence les effets grandissants que le champ journalistique exerce sur le fonctionnement ordinaire d’autres univers sociaux relativement autonomes comme par exemple le champ judiciaire, dans la mesure où il tend à instaurer une forme de « justice populaire ».

The year 2011 has marked a decade since the Enron collapse, considered the most emblematic corporate scandal worldwide. Despite its importance, few studies provide an integrated analysis of the underlying failures that allowed Enron’s debacle, going beyond the traditional view that reduces the case to a mere "accounting fraud". Few studies also evaluate the main lessons from the Enron scandal in perspective, by comparing its common causes with corporate scandals that emerged during the global financial crisis in 2007-2008. These are the gaps I aim to fill. I conclude that Enron’s accounting manipulations, rather than being the cause of the problems, were the consequence of managerial failures and wishful blindness by its stakeholders. I also show that some lessons from Enron have not been fully internalized by companies worldwide, since most of its underlying causes are similar to those of several corporate scandals that emerged a couple of years later.

This study advances research on scandal through an empirical examination of one of the most extraordinary UK institutional child sexual abuse (CSA) scandals in the post-war period. Sir Jimmy Savile (1926–2011) was a BBC celebrity, showbiz friend of the establishment and philanthropist. In October 2012, one year after his death, an ITV documentary alleged that Savile was also a prolific sexual predator who for decades had exploited his BBC status to abuse teenage girls. As we demonstrate, this incendiary documentary triggered a news media feeding frenzy that in less than one week destroyed Savile’s reputation and thrust the BBC – the institution that made him a star – into a multi-faceted, globally reported CSA scandal. This study has four purposes. First, we propose a model of institutional CSA scandals that can account for critical transitions between key phases in the scandal process. Second, we apply this model to analyse the transition between the ‘latent’ and ‘activated’ phases...

Course Description: Traditional conceptions of binary genders and related gender roles have evolved into more fluid understandings of femininity, masculinity, and the complex imbrications of gender and sexuality over the last forty years. Prescriptions dictating the gender roles behaviors equated with normative masculinity and femininity have become increasingly malleable as a result of social, cultural, and ideological changes catalyzed by the feminist and gay rights movements. The last several decades have seen the cultural debut of hard bodied, ass-kicking, fire power toting women; metrosexuals; lesbians until graduation, emo indie rock boys; tranny "fags" and a pregnant man who was once a woman. Despite these seemingly radical shifts in cultural perceptions of gender roles and polymorphous sexualities, men and women are still largely held to different moral and ethical standards with regard to gender roles, sexuality and parenting. Gender biased media treatment of celebrity scandals reflect the ways in which men and women are held to distinctively gendered codes of moral, ethical, and behavioral accountability. Celebrity news reportage, often inflected with such biases, acts as a cultural/social barometer of the extent to which institutional sexism continues to thrive as well as the ways in which gender role expectations continue to evolve over time. Media coverage of sex scandals involving male celebrities and politicians demonstrate a "boys will be boys" attitude to male adultery, promiscuity, and/or patronage of sex workers. Press conferences featuring an apologetic and humbled "fallen" man accompanied by his wronged wife have become a crucial ingredient in media narratives of political sex scandals. While feminism and the gay rights movement have undeniably led to a sea change in gender role expectations, in many ways, political sex scandals suggest that, as a society, we still seem to expect women to stand by their men. Female celebrities, unlike male politicians and celebrities, are judged harshly for perceived sexual promiscuity, adultery, and the effect their "bad" behaviors may have on their families. Culturally, men's sexual behavior tends to be compartmentalized as separate from their work and family lives. Women's sexuality is still profoundly imbricated with their work and familial lives. Mainstream film, television, magazines and advertising bombard us with images of "ideal" masculinity, femininity and gendered bodies.

We argue that there are four ways we both understand and misunderstand fake news as a research concept. This includes seeing fake news as text rather than visual content ; as either "true" or "false" information rather than as facts embedded within narratives; as surface level content rather than being produced within institutional processes; and from a "Western-centric" lens rather than from a comparative context. As we will argue in our conclusion, these foci make connecting empirical work on fake news to larger media theories of visibility and surveillance more difficult. In particular, they make it harder to connect questions of fake news to sociologies of scandal and the public sphere.

Corporate failure refers to companies’ operations following its inability to make profit or bring in enough revenue to cover its expenses. This can occur as a result of poor management skills, inability to compete or even insufficient marketing. Corporate failure is of very important interest to economic, financial and corporate managers. A lot of factors, internal and external, to the firm could be responsible for corporate failure. Corporate failure exerts negative impact on both local and international economic environments. The incidence of corporate failure in Nigeria is not well researched into except as it concerns the banking industry. However, the country has experienced a high incidence of micro, small and medium business failure which has exerted disastrous negative impact on the local environment. However, researches concerning this category of business have not been widely published. An effective way of averting corporate failure is to consider the relative influence of management, board of directors, employees, external auditors, regulatory bodies, government etc. on the operating performance of a firm and see how they can contribute positively to maintain a firm as a going concern. Corporate bodies that are quoted on the Nigerian stock exchange are effectively supervise by both the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) to avert and minimize corporate failure. It is recommended that Supervisory Agencies (SAs) should be established in each state of Nigeria to effectively supervise the operations of the micro, small and medium enterprises to adequately comply with the provisions of the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) 2004, as amended. This is to ensure that the operations of these companies are not at variance with the provisions of the Act.

There are many definitions of Corporate Governance, as a structure, as process, as policies , as mechanisms, but despite their differences of focus, they mainly addressed the sustainable economic growth and protection of shareholders and other stakeholder's rights. The purpose here is to present the evolution of the main principles and frameworks as corporate and financial environment changes and set new challenges. Some important scandals that revealed the weaknesses of corporate governance frameworks are described to complement the comprehension of the object of it. It is detached the aspects simulated or ignored and the subsequent enforcement and monitoring response. Discussion about the new challenges, what corporate governance is supposed to provide and what it can promote, closes this chapter.