The public’s distrust of politics and government is at its highest level in decades. It is fueled by the erosion of norms that began with harmful Supreme Court decisions and accelerated with the Trump administration’s hostility to checks and balances. This article explores the role of political scandal in this context.
While some scandals are blatantly corrupt—like the sex scandals that made headlines in the 1920s, or the bribery allegations that brought down former Secretary of Interior Herbert Hoover—others involve mere misunderstandings of social norms. The infamous hubris of politicians—thinking they are above the law or immutable to corruption—often leads to self-destructive behavior, like indiscretions and embezzlements that can ruin careers.
In the current media environment, where public officials are often slurred by the false claims of their adversaries and where scandal narratives can be highly polarized and personalized, it is important to understand how misbehavior becomes a scandal. This is why this Special Issue examines the role of the media in scandal mediation.
A core element of this work is the idea that the way in which a political scandal is framed and mediated differs across countries with different democratic institutions and media systems. A major goal of this special section is to discuss how these differences affect scandal discourses and the nature of scandal discussion. Another aim is to explore the extent to which journalistic representations of scandals meaningfully engage the audience and shape how they perceive what’s scandalous.