Scandology 3: Scandals in New Media 3030850129, 9783030850128

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André Haller · Hendrik Michael · Lucas Seeber Editors

Scandology 3 Scandals in New Media

Scandology 3

André Haller · Hendrik Michael · Lucas Seeber Editors

Scandology 3 Scandals in New Media

Editors André Haller University of Applied Sciences Kufstein Tyrol Kufstein, Tyrol, Austria

Hendrik Michael Institute of Communication Studies University of Bamberg Bamberg, Germany

Lucas Seeber Institute of Communication Studies University of Bamberg Bamberg, Germany

ISBN 978-3-030-85012-8 ISBN 978-3-030-85013-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85013-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . André Haller, Hendrik Michael, and Lucas Seeber

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Scandals and Digital Publics: Transformations of Power and Visibility Social Amplification of Scandals: One Social Media Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . W. Timothy Coombs and Sherry J. Holladay Scandalous Criticism in the Speakers’ Corner: Online and Offline Reactions to Rezo’s “The Destruction of the CDU” and Jan Böhmermann’s #Neustart19 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Martin R. Herbers and Dennis Lichtenstein Are We Living in a Post-scandal Era? High-Choice Media Environments, Political Polarization, and Their Consequences for Political Scandals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christian von Sikorski and Emily Kubin

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Forms, Functions, and Practices of Scandal Reporting in Changing Media Environments Gossip as Journalism and Journalism as Gossip: A Cultural History Investigation of Two Royal Sex Scandals in Sweden 1890 and 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mia-Marie Hammarlin and Lars-Eric Jönsson Italian Newspapers and Corruption Scandals Coverage: The Construction of the “Parallel Trial” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Roberto Mincigrucci and Anna Stanziano

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Contents

Scandals, New Media and the Historical Perspective Early Modern Sermon and Scandalization? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Joachim Werz “Revenge for Caligula!” Ludwig Quidde, Wilhelm II and the Scandal of 1894 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Florian Krüpe Having the Last Laugh: Scandalous Character Assassination in Comedy in Classical Athens and the Current-Day United States . . . . . 135 Martijn Icks and Eric Shiraev New Media, Scandals in Culture, and Public Protest Hips Don’t Lie: Visual Resistance to Discoursal Normalization of Sexual Violence in the Israeli SlutWalk Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Anna Kleiman Scandalogy Meets Field Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Christina Krakovsky “The Voice Kids” Scandal in Russia: How the Voiceless Found Their Voice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 Galina Lukyanova and Arkadii Solovev

Introduction André Haller, Hendrik Michael, and Lucas Seeber

This publication compiles research that was presented at the 3rd International Conference in Scandalogy in March 2021, titled “Scandals in New Media Environments,” at the University of Bamberg. The overarching theme of the book serves a two-fold goal: On the one hand, we want to intensify research on mediatized (or mediated) scandals (Burkhardt, 2018; Entman, 2012) and substantiate our understanding of their various forms and characteristics as well as their impact on society. On the other hand, we strive to connect the study of scandals with a larger scientific community in the broad field of (digital) communication research, be it in organizational communication studies, journalism studies, political communication research, or other disciplines. In this regard this collected volume aims to continue mapping out Scandalogy as an interdisciplinary field (Haller et al., 2018a) and refine our understanding of communicative invariants and (trans-)cultural phenomena, commonly called “scandals” (Haller & Michael, 2020). As it is the custom of publications in Scandalogy, we begin the introduction with examples of recent scandals. However, this is an increasingly difficult feat to accomplish. Undoubtedly, in the past few years there have been high profile cases of political transgressions, such as the Ibiza-affair surrounding the former Austrian vicechancellor and head of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), Heinz-Christian Strache, or the persistent and blatant misconduct of former U.S. President, Donald Trump. In addition, there is no shortage of financial scandals. The scandal of the German FinTech Wirecard, or the so-called CumEx-files are just two examples. Those cases, A. Haller (B) University of Applied Sciences Kufstein Tyrol, Kufstein, Austria e-mail: [email protected] H. Michael (B) · L. Seeber University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] L. Seeber e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Haller et al. (eds.), Scandology 3, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85013-5_1

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however, are drowned by a cornucopia of minor transgressions which originate in speech acts and which Ekström and Johansson (2008) call “talk scandals.” Talk scandals are perpetuated and emphasized through new media because, for instance, the evolution of the smartphone allows instant recording of behavior or statements that someone may find controversial and also because the flow of information through digital channels creates a public space where de facto everybody can evaluate such speech acts and create a scandal. In this regard, even to the casual observer of media and society, the theme of this publication appears timely because, currently, we seem to be living through an age of permanent scandalization. As hinted above, digital technologies are a catalyst in this respect. On an everyday basis, we can observe how social media offers new means to vent emotional attacks, spark outrage, or voice public discontent and ruin a person’s reputation quickly. Not only politicians, celebrities, and other individuals in the media spotlight are subject to such firestorms. Increasingly, ordinary citizens experience intensifying levels of digital slander and character attacks online as well. In many cases, the causes are simply gaffes or a careless public remark. Typically, talk scandals have had a rather short communicative half-life period, but now may have gained a new quality through the rise of social media and digital technologies. In this respect, participatory digital publics can create a “spill-over”-effect so that the consequences of a public gaffe may incite a more substantiated discourse in the political system and in conventional journalistic mass media. On the other hand, the scandalizing potential of new media requires modified strategies of reputation management by politicians, celebrities, institutions and corporations. This increasingly low threshold by which such incidents become the subject of scandalous media coverage has been a matter of critique. It may be a significant feature of an overall trend in the tabloidization of journalistic media or the rise of infotainment (Otto et al., 2017) and warrants an analysis of how these trends affect public discourse through different (new) media. Some authors even speak of “unleashed scandals” (Pörksen & Detel, 2012), or point to a restructuring of power relations in “hybrid media systems” (Chadwick, 2017). Against this backdrop, we should inquire if we are witnessing a transformation of mediated scandals through digital communication practices. Especially, as postindustrial societies are entering a new phase of “deep mediatization,” in which “all elements of our social world are intricately related to digital media and their underlying infrastructures” (Hepp, 2020, p. 5). The saturation of our lives with digital media has most certainly consequences for the dynamics of scandalization. From a scientific perspective it is important to determine how this already affects social actors and public communication, how societies as a whole are dealing with scandals and cultural affairs in new media environments, and to what end this results in collective acts of signifying and evaluating cultural norms and values. Analyses of scandals in new media also offer a different perspective on journalism and scandalization because technological infrastructure and digital tools give reporters new means to investigate “hard” scandals like substantial financial or political wrongdoings. One example is the work of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and the publication of the Panama Papers or the Paradise Papers, respectively (Haller et al., 2018b). Such reporting can rely on data-driven

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methods and may incite political change, if further actors like online news sites, whistleblower platforms or ordinary users comment on such cases, share information, and contribute to intermedia agenda-setting effects. Paradoxically, however, rather often these exposés do not substantiate a due process of scandalization and fail to bring reform. One should ask why traditional reporting on scandals, despite new means of collaboration and research, may have lost its effectiveness. Reflections on our understanding of “new media” may also broaden the scope of scientific analysis. Arguably, scandals occur in every culture and at all times in human history, thereby constituting a part of our species’ social evolution. Therefore, a historical perspective can help us to understand how new media of the past—ranging from ancient theatre, early modern pamphlets, and bourgeois mass media to cinema, radio, and television—created “opportunity structures” for scandals (Bösch, 2011). Transformations of the media environment have always provided groups with new means to effectively mediate social events, which involve the breaching of certain moral or legal codes and help to determine how to elicit a public response. This volume of collected research is structured around these fundamental observations. Therefore, we grouped studies in four thematic clusters. The first cluster focuses on the transformation of media channels and technology. It includes research on scandals in digital publics and touches on questions of how scandals occur in these new media environments and how this alters power and visibility of social actors and institutions. The second cluster is composed of two studies that analyze how scandals result from changing practices, forms, and functions of journalistic media. The third cluster highlights the historical perspective of scandal research and reflects on scandals and media change in the past. Finally, a fourth cluster includes research that investigates the influence of scandals and new media on public protest, social movements, and cultural hierarchies. 1.

Scandals and Digital Publics: Transformations of Power and Visibility

Public debates about outrage, anger, and scandalization in digital media often take place on social network sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The first study by W. Timothy Coombs and Sherry J. Holladay discusses this significant phenomenon of digital environments: The amplification of scandal discourses by social media users who instrumentalize these digital infrastructures and services. The chapter shows how social network sites can contribute to the creation of a scandal. The case study is about the scandalization of a U.S university after controversial and inappropriate sexist comments were presented during a public event of the college football team. By implementing the social amplification of risk framework (SARF), the authors show how social media posts resulted in a cascading scandal discourse after the incident. The second chapter on social media and scandalization processes is written by Martin R. Herbers and Dennis Lichtenstein. They analyze two German cases of online scandalization: First, the so-called Rezo Affair, in which a famous YouTube influencer attacked the Christian Democractic Union (CDU) in a long video. Second, the case about Jan Böhmermann, a TV satirist, who ran for chair of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and launched a sarcastic campaign on television. Herbers and Lichtenstein reveal how both public figures scandalized German politicians and

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show how both cases were discussed on social media and how the discourse “spilled over” to legacy media coverage. The results of the empirical study suggest that journalists did not follow scandal frames, which were articulated on social media, but established their own logic on how to frame the performances of Böhmermann and Rezo as scandalous. The third study of this thematic cluster is a contribution by Christian von Sikorski and Emily Kubin. The authors aim to answer the somewhat perplexing question of whether a post-scandal era has arrived. Politicians like Donald Trump or political campaigns like “Brexit” show that political scandals or scandalization in general are no longer causally linked to negative outcomes such as the resignation of a political player or permanent political damage of his or her image. The authors argue that the media environment and political polarization play a key role. In using the hypothesis of diminishing effects, they describe the likelihood of a scandal, depending on various factors such as norm violations caused by a political actor, the context of the respective media environments, voter turnout, and the current polarization of the overall social situation. In addition, they examine whether certain types of scandal coverage can reinforce the views of recipients. 2.

Forms, Functions, and Practices of Scandal Reporting in changing Media Environments

A study by Mia-Marie Hammarlin and Lars-Eric Jönsson examines the modern media scandal in relation to historical scandals. To exemplify the argument the authors draw on vast source material and illuminate Swedish sex scandals with kings at their center, namely nineteenth century’s Oscar II and twenty-first century’s Carl XVI Gustav. Their analysis shows how journalists rely on gossip and street talk as sources of information and fodder for scandals. While rumors were picked up “on the street” in the nineteenth century, today’s journalists browse the new public forums of digital media to “overhear” conversations. Thus, by comparing and contrasting scandal coverage in media of the past and present, Hammarlin and Jönsson pick up an understudied phenomenon and illustrate how gossip is an important means of probing controversial issues and possible transgressions. Further, their study highlights the role that popular journalism plays at an intersection of several communication technologies where practices of written and spoken discourses blend. This strategy, in turn, they argue, always was and still is effective to hold the elites accountable. The relationship between court proceedings on political corruption and media coverage is the topic of Roberto Mincigrucci’s and Anna Stanziano’s paper. The study explores scandals in regard to a different kind of media environment, namely intersections of the media system and the judiciary system. Their study analyzes corruption cases in Italy and the function of judicial investigations for mediatized scandalization processes. They argue that the media mostly produce a “parallel trial” in public, instead of reporting on the judicial ramifications of a case. A longitudinal content analysis reveals that journalists lay out the technicalities of a trial and promote messages of legal agents only in the beginning of corruption cases, but then shift the attention to the public conflict and outrage. Mincigrucci’s and Stanziano’s study

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offers fruitful insights into the mechanisms of Litigation PR, court reporting, and mediatized scandals. 3.

Scandals, New Media and the Historical Perspective

As mentioned above, “new” media must not only be seen as digital media. Each major media innovation was disruptive, affected public communication, and thus created new means for scandalization. Joachim Werz exemplifies this argument with an analysis of mechanisms of scandalization in early modern Catholic sermons. Following Gutenberg’s revolution of printing technology, the printed sermon was an outstanding form of publication and was widely distributed in the early modern period. As a source of scandal research, the sermon is a medium that is far more than a mere way of conveying biblical content and church teachings because this genre deals to a large degree also with current events and sensational incidents, mostly associated with violations of moral and legal norms. Werz illustrates how the printed sermon became a new means of scandalization by analyzing the sermons of the Jesuit Georg Scherer, who lived and worked in Vienna and the Habsburg Empire in the second half of the sixteenth century. Florian Krüpe’s study jumps 300 years to the end of the nineteenth century, the take-off period of modern media systems. The author focuses on mechanisms of scandalization in the heterogeneous media environment of the German Empire. This is done by way of example. Krüpe analyzes the dynamics of media discourse around a controversial publication by historian Ludwig Quidde whose study on notorious Roman emperor Caligula insinuated that German emperor Wilhelm II suffered from “Caesarenwahn,” or “imperial madness.” The study describes the public outrage that was created by the publication. However, the author also reconstructs the case around Quidde and takes into account different forums of public discourse that escalated the scandal. This is done especially in the context of growing competition between newspapers, their strategies to win over audiences’ attention, and the polarized debates that ensued while determining a prerogative of interpretation about the case. A study by Eric Shiraev und Martijn Icks explores the links between political comedy, character assassination and scandal. The authors discuss two clusters of case studies. The first concerns comedic drama in Classical Athens, in particular the play Knights by Aristophanes. The second concerns political comedy in contemporary U.S. late-night shows. An analysis compares these two clusters in regard to communicative strategies, roles, and media settings in order to highlight similarities but also show differences in the function fulfilled by political comedy. A main finding of the study is that Classical comedy in the vein of Aristophanes used its platform to (sometimes) criticize the political choices of the demos, while late-night comedians in the US tend to employ humor to confirm the political beliefs of their spectators and set them up against “the other side.” 4.

New Media, Scandals in Culture, and Public Protest

In her chapter, Anna Kleiman empirically investigates the Israeli feminist SlutWalk movement (“Tze’adat HaSharmutot \ HaMufkarot”). Theoretically, her article analyzes visual resistance tactics against panoptic perceptions of sexual violence

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and rape logic. Exemplary for the Israeli feminist SlutWalk movement, Kleiman focuses her case study on the online confrontation between “HaTsel”—a right-wing rapper—his likeminded followers, and feminist activists on Facebook. In doing so, she details how the activists’ appearance is portrayed and commented upon on Facebook. Building on this, a three-part model of “patriarchal reactions” between “denial of value through denial of beauty,” “commercialization of sexuality,” and “evocation of racist social hierarchies” is proposed. Kleiman thus offers a framework to investigate how advocacy of cultural change through social movements explores new strategies of public protest that intertwine self-scandalization and social media discourse. By fusing Bourdieusian field theory and scandal theory, Christina Krakovsky finds an innovative approach to scandal research. In her contribution, she proposes to broaden the classical perspective of scandal research from political scandals to include journalistic practices in relation to media change. Krakovsky’s contribution proposes a theoretical framework for the (long-term) analysis of journalists’ social practices. Krakovsky’s study takes into account how the conceptual terms of field theory, namely habitus, doxa, and illusio, can be applied to the analysis of scandals to systematically interpret changes in value concepts in media and society, shifts in journalistic reporting and commenting practices for different subfields, and effects on these subfields’ respective social rules, especially with regard to dependencies and hierarchies in journalistic institutions. Galina Lukyanova and Arkady Solovyov focus on one of the most sensational scandals in recent Russian media history in the context of the talent show “The Voice Kids.” Their study provides insights into scandalization in Russian media and highlights the role of social media discourse. The authors demonstrate how the alleged fraud in determining the winner of the show mobilized people to display their reactions on social network sites toward corrupt, elite practices outside the political sphere. By means of an elaborate methodological design, the study shows how public concern about the dishonesty of the voting process can become a fullblown scandal and how the latter allows insights into the political guidelines and behavioral patterns of Russian society. In doing so, Lukyanova and Solovyov argue that the role of social network sites are a means for scandalization in media systems with authoritarian tendencies and function to voice transgressions of certain cultural values, a fundamental distrust of electoral procedures, or a generally negative image of wealthy and privileged people. We hope that Scandalogy III provides deep and interdisciplinary insights into the role of new media and scandalization processes in the present and in the past. With an international perspective, this volume extends scandal research not only by providing new theoretical models, but also by supporting these with empirical data and case studies that illustrate how scandals function within specific media environments that exist in different social and historical settings. Here, the editors want to thank the Ludwig Delp Foundation which has supported the International Conferences in Scandalogy since their beginning in 2016. The Foundation’s commitment to the conferences is crucial for worldwide scandal communication research and deserves an outstanding recognition. The support of Ludwig

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Delp Foundation and the positive feedback that revolves around exciting and meaningful conversations with colleagues from all around the globe motivate us every time anew to continue our biennial gatherings as Scandalogists.

References Bösch, F. (2011). Kampf um Normen: Skandale in historischer Perspektive. In K. Bulkow & C. Petersen (Eds.), Skandale: Strukturen und Strategien öffentlicher Aufmerksamkeitserzeugung (pp. 29–48). Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Burkhardt, S. (2018). Scandals in the network society. In A. Haller, H. Michael & M. Kraus (Eds.), Scandalogy (pp. 18–44). Herbert von Halem Verlag. Chadwick, A. (2017). The hybrid media system: Politics and power (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. Ekström, M., & Johansson, B. (2008). Talk Scandals. Media, Culture & Society, 30(1), 61–79. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443707084350 Entman, R. M. (2012). Scandal and silence. Polity Press. Haller, A., Michael, H., & Kraus, M. (Eds.). (2018a). Scandalogy. Herbert von Halem Verlag. Haller, A., Michael, H., & Obermaier, F. (2018b). An interview with Frederik Obermaier on the state of investigative journalism in the age of global scandals. In A. Haller, H. Michael, & M. Kraus (Eds.), Scandalogy (pp. 207–225). Herbert von Halem Verlag. Haller, A., & Michael, H. (2020). Scandalogy 2: Cultures of scandals—scandals in culture. Herbert von Halem Verlag. Hepp, A. (2020). Deep mediatization. Routledge. Otto, L., Glogger, I., & Boukes, M. (2017). The softening of journalistic political communication: A comprehensive framework model of sensationalism, soft news, infotainment, and tabloidization. Communication Theory, 27(2), 136–155. https://doi.org/10.1111/comt.12102 Pörksen, B., & Detel, H. (2012). Der entfesselte Skandal: Das Ende der Kontrolle im digitalen Zeitalter. Herbert von Halem Verlag.

Scandals and Digital Publics: Transformations of Power and Visibility

Social Amplification of Scandals: One Social Media Effect W. Timothy Coombs and Sherry J. Holladay

Digital communication has proven to be an influential force in a variety of strategic communication settings (Plowman & Wilson, 2018). It follows that we should consider the effects of digital communication on scandals and the scandalization process. From a social construction perspective, behaviors become scandals when people begin to define them as such and share that definition—there is a scandalization process. Two very similar events can result in one becoming a scandal and the other not reaching the level of scandal. One of the key factors in scandalization is having other people becoming aware or and sharing the definition of the situation as a scandal. Entman (2012) has documented the role of media in helping to scandalize political behaviors and others have concurred with this perspective (e.g., Clemente & Gabbionetta, 2017). Usually, the media in scandalization has been the traditional media. However, there is reason to expand the term media to include digital communication including social media platforms. Research in character assassination, for instance, has recognized the potentially important role of digital communication for scandalization (e.g., SeiffertBrockmann, 2020). We can distill the connection between digital communication and scandalization to one critical point—shared consciousness. Digital communication provides a mechanism for individuals to identify and to share the scandalizing nature of a situation. We argue that the idea of social amplification of risk (SARF) provides a framework for explaining one mechanism by which digital communication facilitates scandalization. We begin by explicating SARF then integrating it into the scandalization process. That integrated model is then applied to a case study where social media (one form of digital communication) was used to identify and to amplify a situation into a scandal. The paper unfolds in four sections. The first section provides detail about SARF with an emphasis on recent efforts to integrate social media platforms into the W. T. Coombs (B) · S. J. Holladay Texas A&M University, College Station, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Haller et al. (eds.), Scandology 3, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85013-5_2

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approach. The second section details the scandalization process and offers one way to integrate SARF into that process. The third section applies the integrated framework to the analysis of a scandal “manufactured” through social media. The fourth and final section considers the implications for treating scandalization via social media through the SARF lens.

1 The Social Amplification of Risk: One Perspective on Risk Communication Risk communicators learned from harsh experiences that risk is subjective, not objective, for people. When people hear that a substance has a one in a million chance of causing cancer they do not focus on the probability (objective aspect) but on the possibility (subjective aspect) of the risk. SARF recognizes that a hazard event (a risk) interacts with cultural, social, and psychological factors such that perceptions of risk (individual and collective) can be increased or attenuated (Kasperson, 1988; Renn et al., 1992). Perceptions of risk are a mix of objective assessments of hazard and social constructions of risk. Moreover, a risk will be mainly irrelevant unless people observe it and communicate about it (Renn et al., 1992). This elaborates on the conceptualization of SARF including the basics of the approach, critiques, and integration of social media platforms into SARF.

1.1 Social Amplification of Risk: The Basics Amplification is a process that begins with awareness of a risk. People become aware of a risk through a physical event or the recognition of an adverse effect. The release of a hazardous chemical at an industrial facility would be a physical event and data indicating a potential cancer cluster would be recognition of an adverse effect. After people become aware of a risk, they may choose to communicate about that risk. The risk messages will reflect how people are interpreting the risk. “Individuals or groups collect and respond to information about risks, and act as ‘amplification stations’ through behavioral responses of communication. Amplification stations can be individuals, groups, or institutions” (Renn et al., 1992, p. 140). Amplification stations can serve to either intensify or attenuate perceptions of risk. This means the risk messages from amplification stations can make people either more concerned or less concerned about a risk. There can even be cases when there are conflicting amplification stations because of the multi-vocal nature of risk communication. Typically, multiple voices will be communicating about a risk. There can be multiple amplification stations for the same risks. Some amplification stations might work in concert to amplify or attenuate a risk while other amplification stations will find themselves at cross purposes. That means some amplification stations frame the risk as serious

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and promote the frame (amplify the risk), while others will frame the risk as minor and promote that frame (attenuate the risk). We can use the case of Alar in the United States to illustrate amplification stations. Alar was a chemical used in agriculture that allows fruit to ripen for a longer period of time. Apples were one of the major crops using Alar. Alar simply allowed the fruit to look better. People like to buy pretty apples, not misshapen apples. Research found that when heated, the chemical in Alar could be a carcinogen. The link between Alar and cancer became a risk that arose from recognition, not from a specific event. In 1989, the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) became a social amplification station for the Alar risk. The NRDC worked with Fenton Communications to increase awareness of the link between Alar and cancer. This included convincing “60 min,” a prominent television news magazine at the time, to run a story about Alar and cancer in February of 1989. Other strategic communication efforts followed that raised awareness of the Alar–cancer link. The messaging noted how heated apples are used in apple juice and other apple products consumed by children. It follows that Alar then posed a cancer risk for children. The focus on children heightened the appeal of Alar–cancer risk (Negin, 1996). The Alar–cancer risk messages had a significant, negative effect on apple sales. Apple growers hired their own communication professionals in an attempt to be a social amplification station that attenuated the risk of cancer from Alar. The apple growers failed because the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned the use of Alar in the United States later in 1989. The NRDC was a very successful social amplification station because it created awareness of and concern about the Alar cancer link among a larger segment of the American public. The apple growers were largely unsuccessful as a social amplification station with their attempts to reassure the American public that Alar was safe. Alar demonstrates how a social amplification station can intensify perceptions of a risk and the multi-vocal nature of risk (Herrmann, Warland & Sterngold, 1997; Negin, 1996). SARF analyses have explored the nature of risk conversations revealing two important topics. First, the discussion frequently involves concerns about blame attributions. The various actors discuss who is responsible for the risk. Second, actors discuss perceptions of how specific technologies relate to the risk. Some technologies become stigmatized by being linked to a risk. For instance, the ZIKA virus discussions included concern over using genetically engineered mosquitoes to combat the virus (Wirz et al., 2018). These two topics reflect specific outcomes from the risk discussion. SARF matters because the discussion of risk shapes not only how people perceive risks but also how they respond to those risks (behavioral outcomes). In terms of risk communication, SARF has two stages. Stage one is when entities create risk signals. Each amplification station acts as a filter for interpreting the risk and communicating the view to others. Various entities “generate and mutate risk signals” (Bakir, 2005, p. 686). Stage two in SARF is the ripple effect. The real power of SARF can be found in the ripple effect (Renn et al., 1992). The messages from social amplification stations can spread further and reach more distant locations. The people receiving the information from the social amplification station can spread the risk messages to others. Those messages amplify or attenuate the need to take action

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in response to the risk. In the Alar example, the NRDC amplified the need to take action on the risk by banning Alar while the apple growers promoted the view that Alar was not a serious risk and people should just keep eating apples as they had before the emergence of the Alar risk. To summarize, two interrelated elements are essential in SARF: (1) awareness of a risk and (2) spread of risk information to additional publics. SARF requires an awareness of risk. Awareness can be easy when it involves events that naturally attract attention such as large industrial accidents, food poisonings, or transportation mishaps. Recognition of a risk, such as with the Alar case, can be more challenging for awareness. There is no event to act as a trigger for attention. Social amplification stations must find ways to convey the risk concern to other people. In the past, social amplification would have relied heavily upon attracting traditional media attention. Now social media provides another way to reach other people, a point we will develop more shortly. Some entity must locate a risk then become an amplification station to spread information about that risk to others. There is a ripple effect if other entities recognize the risk and share risk information with others. The ripple effect in SARF is familiar to those who study digital communication such as social media platforms. As someone posts a message to a platform, “followers” become aware of the post and may share that post with their followers and those followers may share the post potentially producing a cascading effect that can spread the post across the Internet. This natural connection is why researchers have begun to integrate social media platforms into SARF (e.g., Fellnor et al., 2018).

1.2 Critiques of SARF The primary critiques of SARF include a static view of communication, a simplistic view of the media, and a failure to consider how key actors use the media for risk communication (Bakir, 2005; Fellenor et al., 2018). It should be noted that SAFR is not a predictive theory but a descriptive theory. SARF is best thought of as a way to integrate various theories and to apply them to risk communication. The additional theories help to overcome the critiques of SARF. As Baskir (2005) noted it is “a useful starting point from which to empirically investigate real world complexity in risk communication” (p. 690). For instance, Baskir (2005) analysis of the Brent Spar oil buoy conflict between Greenpeace and Shell demonstrated a more complex view of both communication and the media coupled with a detailed consideration of how key actors use the media for risk communication.

1.3 SARF and Social Media Platforms Researchers began integrating social media platforms into SARF around 2011. As Wirz et al. (2018) observed, these scholars (those who developed SARF) could not

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have foreseen how communication would change from advances such Internet access, mobile communication, and social media (p. 2603). Wirz et al. (2018) studied the role of social media platforms in the amplification of the ZIKA virus risk. Fellenor et al. (2018) examined the role of Twitter in the amplification of the ash dieback disease risk discussion in the United Kingdom. In each of these studies, social media platforms provided a means of studying the ripple effect in SARF. Vijaykumar et al. (2015) developed the most extensive theoretical discussion of social media platforms and SARF. They develop the risk amplification through social media spread (RAMS) model for amplification of risk for infectious diseases. RAMS integrated the SARF framework with the social-mediated crisis communication model (SMCC). SMCC explores how people share information before, during, and after a crisis. SMCC considers the use of traditional media, offline word-ofmouth, and online (social media platforms) as channels for sharing crisis information. SMCC keys on the social media platforms and identifies three social media publics: social media creators, social media followers, and social media inactives (Jin et al., 2014). By understanding the social media publics involved in the crisis discussion, crisis managers gain insights to if and how to respond to crisis messages that appear in social media. RAMS integrates the role of social media platforms into understanding how amplification influences risk perceptions and risk outcomes (psychological and behavioral outcomes). This includes understanding how the virality of a risk message is affected by social media publics discussing the risk (Vijaykumar et al., 2015). The primary lesson to be learned from the research is that social media platforms should be integrated in SARF-based analyses.

2 Scandals, Scandalization and Relevance of SARF Our position is that SARF can illuminate the role of digital communication in scandals and scandalization. To integrate SAFR into this discussion, we must first clarify how we are using the terms scandal and scandalization due to the multiple means of these terms. This section begins by clarifying what we mean by scandal and scandalization. From there, we consider the fit with SARF and articulate the integration of SARF into scandalization to highlight a framework for considering the effects of digital communication on scandalization.

2.1 Basic Terms: Scandal and Scandalization Scandal is a term used in a variety of fields of study and holds a variety of meanings. Instead of offering a specific definition, we choose to clarify our conceptualization of scandal by discussing three characteristics of scandals. First, a scandal has a moral focus, there is some violation of accepted moral norms (Nichols, 1997). This can include actions that are illegal, dishonest, unethical, or irresponsible that can be

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considered immoral. It is appropriate to consider the emotion of moral outrage when specifying the moral aspect of a scandal. Cognitive appraisal theory recognizes moral outrage as a distinct emotion. Cognitive appraisal theory argues that specific cues in a situation will evoke similar and predictable emotions from people encountering those situations (Lazarus, 1991). Moral outrage is a specific form of anger. The cues for moral outrage are that the behavior is intentional, it is perceived as unfair (injustice) and is motivated by greed (Antonetti & Maklan, 2016). Finally, a scandal produces an undesirable outcome (Watson & Spence, 2007). We can refine the moral aspect of a scandal to be actions that evoke moral outrage. Second, a scandal evokes a need for punishment for immoral behavior. There is a need for some sanctioning agent to punish the entity that committed the moral violation (Grebe, 2012). Third, the media serve to frame the event as a scandal and raise awareness of the scandal. Entman (2012) identified media coverage of a scandal as essential to establishing that an action is a scandal. His point is that without media coverage, a behavior will not rise to the level of scandal. For Entman (2012), the term media is referring to the traditional news media. The characteristics of a scandal suggest that a scandal is more process than event. The concern with a scandal being an event or a process raises the notion of scandalization—how does an action become a scandal. Scandalization is the process by which an action becomes defined as a scandal. The two dominant views of scandalization are functionalist and social construction. The functionalist view holds that an action either is or is not a scandal. The functionalist view also is normative by claiming the scandal coverage helps to restore values or laws. An example would be defining all accounting fraud as scandal. An action becomes labeled as a scandal when it violates a specific norm such as proper accounting practices. The scandal label is automatically applied whenever the norm is violated (Verbalyte, 2018). Entmans (2012) work reflects the social construction perspective. A behavior does not automatically become a scandal, rather, people need to perceive the behavior as a scandal—become scandalized (Haller, Michael, & Kraus, 2018; Kepplinger, 2020). Verbalyte (2018) called this the discursive-communicative perspective on scandals. A dynamic occurs whereby people must actively define the behavior as a scandal and treat it as such. As Entman (2012) noted, two identical behaviors can occur in politics with one becoming a scandal and the other not. A scandal only emerges when people define the behavior as a moral violation that then evokes moral outrage (Coombs & Holladay, 2019). This is consistent with Sass and Crosbie (2013) who argued that “Scandal is constituted in public outrage” (p. 857). Moral outrage provides motivation for agents to punish (take action against) the entity producing the scandal. Scandalization is a process rather than a simple and automatic classification.

2.2 Scandalization and SARF If we accept the social construction view of scandalization, we begin to appreciate the links between SARF and the scandalization process. Scandalization begins with a

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behavior that is perceived as a moral violation by some entity—the behavior becomes framed as a scandal. The media are then leveraged to share that interpretation with others. When others receive the messages, they react with moral outrage when they accept the behavior as a scandal (Coombs & Holladay, 2020). A behavior is framed as a scandal, others are made aware of the potential scandal, and moral outrage indicates others have accepted the scandal frame thereby scandalizing the behavior. The key actions are (1) someone defines a behavior as a scandal, (2) someone attempts to share that frame with others, (3) others become aware of the behavior and choose to accept the scandal, and (4) others react negatively to the entity involved in the scandal. The process reflects a movement from finding a scandal to sharing the scandal with others. We should not assume people automatically accept the scandal frame presented by the media or other actors. People will process the information to develop their own frame for the behavior. If people accept the scandal frame, that affects how people relate to the entity embroiled in the scandal. We find a similar communication dynamic with SARF. There is an event that triggers a consideration of risk. Some entity then frames the risk and becomes an amplification station (shares the risk with others) creating a ripple effect. People who are influenced by those risk messages may then change their behaviors, knowledge, or attitude based upon those risk messages (Renn et al., 1992). SARF and the scandalization process can be integrated into the following four step process. First, scandal detection where a scandal sensor identifies a behavior or action as a scandal. A scandal sensor can be an individual or a group. Second, scandal frames where the behavior or action is framed as a scandal. This involves creating a message or messages about the scandal. Third, scandal amplification where the scandal sensor disseminates the scandal message to others. The scandal sensor leverages social media platforms and traditional media to share the scandal frame with others. At this point other voices can appear that will either support or contradict framing the behavior or action as a scandal. Fourth, scandal reaction whereby the other people received the scandal message either recognize the behavior or action as a crisis or reject the scandal frame. Scandalization occurs when others accept the scandal frame and react to the behavior or action as a scandal. People become outraged and move to punish the offender. Figure 1 is a visual depiction of the social amplification of scandal (SAS) model. SAS allows researchers to focus on how a scandal sensor is utilizing various media to promote scandalization (acceptance of a scandal frame). Something becoming a scandal no longer depends on the traditional media advancing the scandal frame. Now, we can examine the scandal sensor as an active message dissemination through the utilization of social media platforms. Moreover, the scandal frames on social media platforms can attract traditional media coverage further amplifying the message, what has been called crossover (Coombs & Holladay, 2015). The next section applies SAS to a case study to illustrate how an individual can use a social media platform to scandalize a behavior.

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Detecon: Scandal sensor idenfies behavior Framing: behavior defined as scandal Scandal Amplificaon: sensor disseminates the frame Reacons: others react negave if they accept the frame Fig. 1 Social amplification of scandal model

3 The Texas A&M University Chalk Talk: Tweeting a Scandal American football is an integral part of university life in the United States. It is the primary revenue generated in collegiate sports. Not only do sports teams generate revenue but they attract funding from donors. At Texas A&M University, the sports teams (primarily football) generate over $200 million a year in revenue and far more than that in donations. Any scandal related to the football program is a concern because it not only taints the university but also can have ramifications for revenue generation and donations (Rooney & Smith, 2019). Moreover, football programs impact student applications and selection (Huges & Shank, 2008). The case provides a summary of the Chalk Talk scandal and an application of the SAS process to the scandal.

3.1 Chalk Talk: The Basics In the summer 2016, A&M offered a women-only football seminar as a fundraiser for a local homeless mission. People paid a fee to attend the event. About 700 women attended this “Chalk Talk” that featured the opportunity to interact and get photographs with the head coach and learn about football and drills from assistant coaches. It was the presentation by two assistant football coaches (Jim Turner and Jeff Banks) that created controversy and quickly caused Facebook and Twitter posts to go viral. Later, their presentation slides and discussion of blocking drill do’s and don’ts featured sexual innuendos and crude suggestions likely to be interpreted as sexist statements (e.g., “spread your legs,” “enter-front/not-behind,” “push hard,” and “finish on top.” Photographs of the slide content featuring the re-worked song lyrics

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and the rules for blocking were posted to Facebook and Twitter that night with hashtags including #mortified, #furious, #Icanteven, #chalktalk, and #tamu. Twitter lit up, with the Chalk Talk post garnering 100 then over 240 tweets. The images were posted by one of the attendees of this private event. Anwar Richardson, a reporter for the online sports publication Rivals was one of those on social media sharing the Tweets (Tsuji, 2016). An event designed to help charity and build relationships with fans quickly became a scandal for Texas A&M University because the university was being linked to sexist behavior that was demeaning toward women (morally offensive behavior). People were reacting negatively to the information they were seeing that was attributable to Texas A&M University. The head coach, Kevin Sumlin, learned about the uproar on social media the morning after the presentation. He offered an apology and said “There is absolutely no place in our program or in our University community for inappropriate conduct or degrading comments towards women, or anyone, regardless of intent” (Tsuji, 2016, para 3). The two assistant coaches apologized for their “failed attempt at humor” claiming it was not appropriate or consistent with their values. The two coaches were then suspended. Later, the university president issued a statement reading in part, “I was and remain dismayed, disappointed and angry” (Olson, 2016).

3.2 Scandalization of Chalk Talk At least two participants from the Chalk Talk viewed the presentation as a moral violation due to the sexists and demeaning portrayal for women. Tonia Dousay posted to Facebook she was disappointed and angry at the portrayal of women. Karen Weinberg blogged about the presentation saying it was “full of sexism and misogynist statements” (Zwerneman, 2016, para 16). Both online posts included images of the offensive slides from the presentation. Not all participants took issue with the presentation, some thought it was just good fun (Zwerneman, 2016). The perceived sexism in the presentation provided the raw materials for a scandal in a culture that condemns this behavior. The two participants who posted the images of the slide presentation served as the scandal sensors that recognize the potential for the situation to be scandalized. The two participants then decided the situation fit a scandal frame because of the derogatory nature of presentation for women. The two women framed the presentation as sexists and misogynistic, two factors that can be scandalous. The Chalk Talk represented Texas A&M University and a university should demonstrate respect for women. A potential scandal was sensed and the events framed as a scandal. The two participants then became scandal amplification stations by introducing others to the scandal via the digital world. Once posted to a blog and Facebook, a ripple effect could begin to emerge. Initially the ripple was small with a handful of people offering supportive comments and sharing the messages. For instance, Weinberg posted supportive messages for Dousay’s Facebook post. The four images were sent to an online sports reporter named Anwar Richardson. Richardson wrote

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for a number of online sports outlets specializing in college sports. He posted the four images to his Twitter account and his over 22 thousand followers. The original Tweet garnered 17 comments (all supportive of the scandal frame), 287 retweets, and 140 likes. Richardson became the big ripple because other sports and traditional news outlets drew from his post to write stories about the Chalk Talk scandal. Sports outlets including ESPN and Sports Illustrated along with traditional news outlets of the Washington Post and Houston Chronicle all reported in the story. Because of Richardson online scandal crossed over to the traditional media reaching an even wider audience. It is important to note that these news stories adopted the scandal frame by reporting on presentation as a moral violation because it was demeaning for women. Moreover, there was a felt need for punishment emerging in the stories. Online people wondered what the punishment would be and the stories included a need for Texas A&M University to be accountable for the actions of its employees. What began as two online posts reached a much wider audience both online and offline— the scandal frame was disseminated and reinforced as others supported the crisis frame and shared the moral outage over the presentation. Enough other people were reacting negatively to the presentation to require Texas A&M University to take action. The scandal reaction from Texas A&M University included embracing the scandal frame. University officials apologized for the actions, they did not defend the actions other than to say it was an attempt at humor that was completely inappropriate. The punishment came in the form of a suspension for the two coaches involved along with Texas A&M University officials recognizing the scandalous nature of the situation. Figure 2 uses the SAS model to map the Chalk Talk scandalization. We posit that the online environment is what made the Chalk Talk a scandal. If Dousay and Weinberg had not posted messages online, few outside of the presentation would have been aware of the problem. The two could have complained to friends and family or even sent messages directly to Texas A&M University officials to complain. Those private actions would not have resulted in the scandalization of the presentation. Another option would have been to contact reporters in the hopes of generating negative publicity about the presentation—scandalize it through traditional media coverage. However, it is questionable the situation would have had the news values necessary to prompt the writing of news stories. By going online, the two participants attract some attention. The key attention grabbing was of Anwar Richardson because his Tweet can be tied directly to the crossover of the scandal from online to more traditional media coverage.

4 Conclusion In many ways, the SAS model is a variant of whistleblowing. In whistleblowing, an employee (insider) exposes organizational misbehavior to the outside world, usually because the organization will not address the problem internally (Miceli & Near, 1994). The scandal sensor notices a situation could be a problem, frames the situation

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Person aending “Chalk Talks” views content as inappropriate

Framing: “Chalk Talk” defined as offensive to women (a scandal for the University)

Scandal Amplificaon: Specific offensive content posted to Twier. Others retweet including reporters—ripple effect

Reacons: others view the “Chalk Talk” as a scandal University must address issue with apology and suspensions Fig. 2 Chalk Talk in SAS

as a scandal, and then shares the scandal frame to others hoping some actions will be taken (punishment for the scandal). The two participants were insiders. They revealed how a presentation at a private event was scandalous (sexist) and used online channels to share the potential scandal with outsiders. The potential of the scandal was realized as others, including traditional media, agreed the situation was a scandal and warranted action. In the end, Texas A&M University recognized the presentation as a scandal and punished the two coaches involved. Some people even questioned if the punishment was too easy but action was taken and the scandal acknowledged by the scandalous entity. The SAS model maps one way the digital communication environment can affect scandalization. The social amplification of risk can be combined with the scandalization process to provide one means of explaining the connections between scandals and the digital communication environment. We say this one way because we believe there are many others, a few of which appear in this volume. Social media platforms and other forms of digital communication channels are a natural part of our lives and exploring their application to scandalization is a vital contribution to the development of the scandalogy research agenda.

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Scandalous Criticism in the Speakers’ Corner: Online and Offline Reactions to Rezo’s “The Destruction of the CDU” and Jan Böhmermann’s #Neustart19 Martin R. Herbers and Dennis Lichtenstein

1 Introduction In 2019, Germany’s governing political parties were challenged by two cases of scandalous criticism in the online environment. In the first case, 1 week before the European Parliament elections in May 2019, the YouTuber Rezo posted a provocative online video titled The Destruction of the CDU. In the video, Rezo provided a polemic but fact-based account of the alleged failures and shortcomings of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and other German parties. The video was an open recommendation to not vote for CDU and, a few days later, was backed by approximately 90 other YouTubers. In the second case, in August 2019, the comedian Jan Böhmermann surprised the public by launching his campaign #neustart19. On his TV show, Böhmermann announced his plan to apply for the chairmanship of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and continued his campaign with a series of videos on social media in which he criticized recent and former SPD’s leaders for practicing politics directed against their voter’s interest. In both cases, the political elites of leading democratic parties were accused of lacking accountability, and modern forms of citizens’ political participation were promoted. To engage in criticism, Rezo and Böhmermann stepped outside of their usual media formats, these being an otherwise unpolitical YouTube channel (Rezo’s Rezo ja lol ey) and a satirical late-night television show (Böhmermann’s Neo Magazin Royale, or ZDF Magazin Royale since 2020, broadcast on the public service channels ZDF Neo and ZDF, respectively). By doing so, they exploited social media’s quality of being a speakers’ corner that accepts everyone’s expressions and opinions, regardless of their individual social and media standing. M. R. Herbers (B) Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen, Germany e-mail: [email protected] D. Lichtenstein Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Haller et al. (eds.), Scandology 3, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85013-5_3

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Although it is not clear to what extent the addressed party behavior truly matches the criteria of a scandal, Rezo’s and Böhmermann’s attempts to brand the perceived lack of accountability as scandals can be seen as symptoms of recent transformations of the media environment and changes in political communication. Today’s “highchoice media environment” (van Aelst et al., 2017) is characterized by the expansion of the media system, an (over-)abundance of media channels, and a decentralization of political communication (Brants & Voltmer, 2011). New forms of digital media and new kinds of media actors complement and challenge political parties and the mass media in their roles as intermediary institutions that connect citizens with the political-administrative sphere and curate the formation of public opinion and political will in democracies (Bennett & Pfetsch, 2018). While political parties have experienced significant losses in membership, trust, and voter loyalty (Davis, 2019, pp. 35–42), legacy media has lost its monopoly on interpretation and its powerful role as the main gatekeeper in public communication. Following Blumler and Kavanagh’s (1999) influential model of three “ages of communication,” which ends with the dominance of TV entertainment, scholars have been referring to the fourth age of political communication, which is characterized by the decline of institutionalized and hierarchically organized institutions of mass communication, the rise of new actors engaged in horizontal rather than vertical communication, and the prominence of digital communication (Blumler, 2013). Particularly on social media platforms, new actors are engaging in innovative practices and provide content that traverses the boundaries between political activism, news coverage, and entertainment and goes beyond traditional forms of informationbased reporting (Lünenborg & Raetzsch, 2018). Besides a variety of journalistic or quasi-journalistic actors, activists and political commentators are using the opportunities provided by interconnectivity and social media’s logic to spread protest or scandal frames regarding such issues as the environment, migration, restrictions of democratic and citizens’ rights, and capitalism and economic inequality (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012). By pointing out shortcomings and violations of social norms, the new media actors establish or become part of decentralized communication networks in which they communicate protest and scandal frames and motivate users to spread the claims in their personal networks. Even though connectivity in social media communication generates communicative power, receiving the attention of the legacy media and establishing the scandal frame on the legacy media agenda is still the main goal and is decisive for gaining broad public attention for the desired causes. In this chapter, we discuss Rezo’s and Böhmermann’s performances as cases of scandalization in the fourth age of political communication. After considering social media as an environment for spreading scandal and protest frames, we show how Rezo and Böhmermann incorporated political elites and institutions into scandal frames. Then, in the empirical part of our study, we investigate their success. By conducting qualitative content analyses of mass media and social media discourses, we examine the media’s response to the scandal frames initiated by Rezo’s and Böhmermann’s performances. Our findings show how the scandal frames spread from the social media to the mass media environment and how they were supported and opposed by users and journalists. We pay special attention to the counter-frames

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in mass media discourse meant to delegitimize the scandalizers’ speech acts. In the discussion section, we summarize our findings and reflect on social media’s potential to spread scandal frames to the general public.

2 Social Media and Scandals: Theoretical Considerations Social media has played a major role in recent protest and scandal communication. Social media involves digital platforms that provide their users with tools for producing individual media content, sharing that content with a network of other users, commenting on it, and, in some cases, even altering it (Schmidt, 2018). Therefore, social media platforms establish a highly participatory and engaging environment for their users, who often organize themselves into virtual communities (Dolata & Schrape, 2018). Users’ interactions with content on social media are often mediated by algorithms. Two forms of algorithmic selection and presentation are relevant to our research. First, based on the quality and quantity of their network relations, users are exposed to the content produced or shared by other users. Second, content that features certain elements, such as partisan rhetoric, highly emotional appeals, or even scandalization, tends to be presented more frequently and to a wider audience of users (Napoli, 2014). In the fourth age of political communication, social media have become a vital element of political activism and protest (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012; McCoster, 2015), which has come to rely on issue-based digital forms of political engagement. This new form of “connective action” regards political activism as primarily driven by individuals and their personal interests instead of being initiated by institutional actors, who are seen as representing collective interests. Therefore, protest on social media caters to the idea of the speakers’ corner, whereby any person can engage in political action and communication and react to other persons’ speech acts, regardless of their individual social background (Hauser, 2008). Contributions to the speakers’ corner can happen in the form of performances, which come in many genres and styles, such as satirical communication, political commentary, or a collective-identity narrative—and, of course, scandals. As the speakers’ corner can be regarded as an open space for anyone who wishes to express their opinion on certain issues, this concept is a good match for the participatory culture of social media platforms, such as YouTube or Twitter (Burgess & Green, 2018). Blurring the boundaries between politics and entertainment has become the main element of social media content. Approximately 20 years ago, Dörner (2001) coined the term “politainment” to describe the emergence of hybrid forms of communication that involve political information and entertainment. Politainment can take two forms: it can either present political communication in an entertaining way, such as in a satirical post on Twitter, or it can be used strategically in political activism to bring attention to certain issues. Political activism can mix elements of political commentary and political satire. Satire can be understood as a variant of politainment that is prominent on social media and is frequently used in partisan

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communication (Schwarzenegger & Wagner, 2018). Satire is a performative mode of communication that is typically associated with aggression, judgement, mockery, play, laughter, and references to societal norms (Day, 2011; Simpson, 2003; Test, 1991). It provides social commentary and criticism, attacks power structures, and can contribute to controversial societal debates. In the context of online communication, several authors have observed the growing prominence of participatory and advocacy-based forms of political satire that speak up on behalf of disadvantaged persons and in defense of the public interest. These forms of political satire take up explicit positions on political issues, call for political or social action, and even directly participate in political processes and elections (Faina, 2012; Waisanen, 2018). This convergence of satire and activism has been coined “satiractivism” (McClennen & Maisel, 2014). On social media, satiractivism engages its audience and is strongly involved in community building to gain support from users’ networks. The promotion of a political claim in a satirical or entertaining way to gain the audience’s support can be carried out using scandal frames. Scandal frames provide meaning and interpretation to a certain event, which is depicted as a possible threat to societal values. Kepplinger (2018, p. 3) pointed out that all scandals start with a framing process and thus a strategic re-interpretation of a certain event as a scandal. According to Entman (2012, p. 28), framing scandal entails (1) the identification of a societally significant problem and (2) a causal agent who is then (3) morally condemned and (4) should be sanctioned to resolve the problem. Attempts at branding a scandal using scandal frames can be regarded as partisan actions that serve strategic or self-promotion interests. According to a more normative or functionalist view, scandals have positive social and political impacts and contribute to the construction of societal values and identities. Consequently, scandals uncover and sanction deviant activities of individuals and organizations and perform a stabilizing function in society (Kepplinger, 2020; Tumber & Waisbord, 2014; Thompson, 2000). However, several authors have argued that an oversupply of strategically set scandal frames contradicts this stabilizing function and contributes to societal disruptions (Kepplinger, 2020, p. 31). The stabilizing or disruptive function performed by scandals is generally disseminated through the mass media—that is, the legacy news media. Therefore, the scandals that are initiated on social media must spill over into mass media arenas to reach broader audiences. However, as the journalistic mass media reports and frames scandals according to their perceived newsworthiness and their fit in terms of journalistic news values and schemata, social media scandals do not succeed in the mass media arenas by default. Rather, attempts at setting a scandal on social media can be misattributed or interpreted as being scandalous themselves, as social media scandals attack established forms of democratic and political processes. As a result, in the mass media, a scandal frame can easily be cast over a satirical event, thus missing the point of the mockery.

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3 Two Cases of Scandalization of German Political Parties on Social Media In 2019, the social media platforms YouTube and Twitter became arenas for scandals involving German political parties. Although both platforms provide the same functionality (tools for content production, sharing, and commenting), they differ in terms of technical setup, initial idea, and current use. YouTube was launched in 2005 to challenge traditional broadcast television. Following its initial slogan “Broadcast Yourself,” the platform encouraged user-generated video content of varying topics, lengths, and production values. Focusing on users and their personal interests, YouTube quickly became a popular platform with individual content producers taking opinion-based stances in their videos. This was in line with YouTube’s general mission of being a platform that enables free speech and the possibility of circumventing traditional broadcasting’s criteria for selecting and presenting content (Strangelove, 2011). Although YouTube has undergone intense commercialization and professionalization, it still follows a user- and community-centered approach (Frühbrodt & Floren, 2019; Kim, 2012). For social media entertainers, such as Rezo, YouTube is the main platform for distributing performances and allows building up a community of followers. Even though successful YouTube channels and their contents are frequently shaped by audience expectations, economic goals, and professional management, YouTubers sometimes use their opinion-leading powers within their communities to spread political statements. Most prominently, YouTubers’ collective and coordinated protest against the so-called Article 13 of the European copyright law in spring 2019 generated considerable pressure for political actors and parties (Alexander, 2019). Twitter was launched in 2006 and featured a different approach to content production and distribution than YouTube. Twitter provides a microblogging tool. It is hence more of a text-based platform, and its content is focused on current events and appears as a steady stream of communication, whereas YouTube’s content is more permanent (Weller et al., 2013). To filter this steady stream of communication, Twitter uses hashtags, which bundle posts and make them searchable. Politically, these hashtags tend to be important for activism and serve the role of campaign slogans, as was the case with #blacklivesmatter (Bernard, 2019). For celebrities and prominent media and politics figures, Twitter offers the opportunity to communicate with fans and followers and to spread ideas, political claims, and comments. For instance, the satirist Jan Böhmermann, who rose to prominence with his TV show Neo Magazin Royale, uses Twitter to cultivate a large community of followers, and his satirical actions become the subject of intense Twitter debates.

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4 The Rezo Case The video The Destruction of the CDU was published by the German YouTuber Rezo, who was known for entertaining and music videos in his community but was relatively unheard in the broader public realm. His infamous video surfaced on May 18th, 2019, only 1 week before the European Parliament elections. In a critical 1hour analysis of the policies of the federal government at the time, which consisted of CDU and SPD, Rezo openly challenged the integrity of major parties in Germany. Using media materials on their past actions and employing exaggerations, generalizations, and simplifications, Rezo presented a circus of political incompetence and inconsistencies. The major topics in Rezo’s video were global warming, the US’s drone warfare conducted from Germany, inequality in wealth distribution, and low investment in education. In his video, Rezo constructed a scandal frame that claimed that politics would gamble away the younger generations’ future. When defining the problem, Rezo’s scandal frame emphasized major societal problems, which were said to endanger the future of the younger generations. It identified the CDU and other parties that had had governmental responsibilities in the last decades as causal agents. The parties’ supposed non-engagement with saving the future—for instance, not dealing with the coal phase-out in a consistent way—and unwillingness to listen to scientific arguments were evaluated as moral transgressions, the frame called for punishment of these parties in the upcoming European Parliament elections. The video thus implied a voting recommendation for the green and left-wing parties. Rezo received support from more than 90 prominent YouTubers, who collectively recorded and published, or participated as supporters of, a 3-minute video statement (May 24, 2019). The YouTubers repeated Rezo’s scandal frame. In addition, after the Rezo video, the hashtag #NiewiederCDU emerged on Twitter and gathered large numbers of CDU-critical tweets. Even though there is no data-based evidence regarding the video’s influence on voting behavior, the governing parties CDU and SPD experienced losses in the European Parliament elections, and the Green party registered massive gains in voter share. The intense societal debate about the video included speculations about a possible Rezo effect (Allgaier, 2020). Finally, The Destruction of the CDU became the most viewed video on German YouTube in 2019 and won the prestigious Nannen Award for Excellence in Journalism in 2020. The CDU, being at the center of attention and having its legitimacy challenged, struggled to find an adequate response to the allegations. The party’s chair Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer criticized the videos by Rezo and his supporters as “clear opinion making before the election,” as if “70 newspapers had done an election appeal together.” (quoted in: Gesing & Marx, 2019). She argued that the YouTubers had disrespected the people engaged in political parties and questioned whether such actions were permissible, calling for regulations of YouTube. Her argument was, in turn, regarded as a call to violate the ideal of free speech in the political system, which caused reactions of other political parties and led to a wider discussion, online and offline, about regulating political influencers and public voting recommendations

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(Gensing & Marx, 2019). After first announcing a response video, the party uploaded an 11-page PDF document instead. By contrast, SPD reacted with a retort video by the younger party representatives (Lars Klingbeil, Kevin Kühnert, and Tiemo Wölken) in which they emphasized their differences to the CDU, praised the engagement of the younger generations, and called for dialogue instead of confrontation between politics and movements to solve pressing problems, such as global warming, in responsible and inclusive ways. In the following months and years, several parties increased their YouTube presence.

5 The Böhmermann Case In the aftermath of Rezo’s video and due to the voter losses in the European Parliament election, the SPD chair Andrea Nahles announced her resignation as her approval ratings continued to fall. In light of SPD’s enduring general crisis, which faced the possibility of becoming marginalized, the party decided to turn the election of its new chairperson into a media event based on the principles of grassroots participation and gender equality. For the second time in SPD’s history, all registered party members were given the opportunity to participate in the election of the new chairperson after a month-long campaigning process. In addition, the party wanted to establish a dual mixed-gender leadership. During the application period, which ended on September 1, 2019, the Finance Minister Olaf Scholz and Member of Parliament Klara Geywitz decided to apply late in the process. Their application was received controversially both by the public and within the party, as Scholz was part of the “party establishment” that had been heavily criticized for SPD’s prolonged crisis that resulted in the loss of profile, principles, and votes. However, after receiving the most votes in the first voting round, Scholz and Geywitz were defeated in the second round by Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans (September 30th, 2019), who came from the party’s periphery but received strong support from SPD’s youth organization. Böhmermann started his satirical intervention two weeks after Scholz and Geywitz had announced their application and only a few days before the application period’s deadline. He coined the hashtag-slogan #neustart19 for his seemingly futile campaign, which did not have a realistic chance of fulfilling the formal conditions in time (e.g., becoming a party member, finding a female co-candidate, getting support from five local SPD groups). After being disqualified from participating in the election process, Böhmermann still claimed to strive for direct nomination at the SPD party conference, when party delegates had to nominate the new chairperson based on election results. However, he announced the withdrawal of his candidature after the first election round at the end of October 2019. Böhmermann launched his satirical performance on his late-night comedy show Neo Magazin Royale. In addition (and independently from the show), between September and November 2019, he published ten YouTube videos with the hashtag #neustart19. Two of these videos were statements on his application process, while

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the rest were so-called Monday speeches, which referenced the Monday movements against state repression in the former German Democratic Republic and were more serious in tone. The Monday speeches were described as “being written by an anonymous but renowned social democrat from within or without the SPD” and presented as protest speeches or as political commentary. On December 5, 2019, in the aftermath of the election, the satirical intervention was brought to a close by another statement on Neo Magazin Royale, which reflected on Böhmermann’s role in political communication. In his campaign videos, Böhmermann relied on a mixture of satirical criticism, political commentary, and populistic rhetoric. He promoted a scandal frame that was directed against the SPD party establishment. The frame argued that SPD had lost its identity as a party representing workers and the “common person” while adopting the principles of neoliberalism, which were established during the era of Chancellor Schröder (1998–2005). In terms of moral evaluation, this was presented as a betrayal of voters and party values. When assigning the blame for the loss of party identity, the frame targeted the politicians who practiced politics as a career, treating politics as a springboard for high-level management positions later on, and were not driven by the motivation to improve society. When considering solutions, the scandal frame called the party and its members to turn away from the party establishment and its political direction. The frame envisioned a policy change that would reconnect SPD with its members and former voters and embrace societal solidarity and equality in property, chances, and education. Referring to his own biography, Böhmermann presented himself as one of the common people and engaged in self-dramatization as the savior of SPD. In specific videos, the scandal frame criticized the lack of gender equality and the patriarchal structures within SPD and argued for a liberal migration policy, climate protection, and embargos on arms exports.

6 Research Questions: The Spread of Scandal Frames from Social Media to Legacy Media Keeping these cases in mind, we investigate the spread of the discussed scandal frames and the responses that they elicited on social media and in the mass media discourse. More specifically, we propose the following research questions: RQ1. How were Rezo’s and Böhmermann’s scandal frames received on social media? RQ2. How did the scandal frames spread to the legacy mass media? RQ3. What counter-frames were deployed to oppose the scandal frames on social media and in the legacy media?

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7 Methodology: Analysis of User Comments on Social Media To examine the spread of and responses to the scandal frames on social media, we analyzed YouTube users’ comments on Rezo’s video and Twitter users’ comments on Böhmermann’s satirical intervention; in other words, we focused on the social media platforms where the two actors carried out their main activities. To examine how the scandal frames shaped journalistic reporting and were supported and opposed in media discourse, we conducted a qualitative content analysis of media material. Employing Mayring (2015) structuring approach, we systemized the content of articles from the legacy news media based on whether they criticized or supported the scandalous performances. We conducted the analysis in several iterative steps, condensing the criticism and support and noting the differences between the studied media sources (Mayring, 2015). During the analysis, two coders worked independently but met regularly to compare their results and decide on borderline cases. The legacy media sample consisted of the online outlets of the major daily and weekly print media outlets in Germany. The studied daily newspapers covered different positions in the political spectrum: the conservative Die Welt and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), the left-liberal Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), and the left tageszeitung (taz). We also analyzed the weekly outlets Der Spiegel, Stern, and Focus. Using the keywords “Rezo” and “Böhmermann,” we searched for and identified all articles that were published on the newspapers’ websites within the timespan of 6 weeks after the publication of Rezo’s video (May 18–June 30, 2019) and from the beginning of until 4 weeks after the end of Böhmermann’s campaign (August 28–October 31, 2019). We validated the decisions for the timespan and the simple keywords by testing strategies with longer periods and more keywords, such as “YouTube” and “SPD.” It turned out that, differently from Rezo’s case, the journalistic reporting on Böhmermann’s satirical intervention, rather than lasting for a few weeks, could be observed during his whole campaign, though the coverage exhibited rather low intensity. In sum, our sample included 61 articles for Rezo’s case and 55 articles for Böhmermann’s case. The online media sample consisted of user comments on Rezo’s and Böhmermann’s original publications and amounted to more than 200,000 comments on Rezo’s video and 18,830 comments on Böhmermann’s Twitter messages. By employing a theoretically driven sampling strategy, we analyzed the main topics discussed by the social media users. For our analysis, we subsumed the data into categories, based on statements found in postings and legacy media articles, which supported or contradicted the scandal frames. Based on Entman’s (2012, p. 28) definition of a scandal frame, we identified the problem, which was stated, any causal agents that were mentioned, the moral evaluation given, and finally, the treatment recommendation or the proposed form of sanctioning that was stated. Combined with our research question, we were able to bundle matching statements to internally homogeneous categories, which were exclusive to each other. As recommended by Meyen et al. (2019), we present our

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qualitative findings in a narrative way along these categories, stating their main ideas and providing examples found in our data. Though the method of content analysis is universal and can be applied to any semiotic text, the method needs to account for the material and technological specificities of its sources. As content analysis is usually used to analyze static forms of text, such as paper-based newspaper articles, it is designed to deal with a non-changing semiotic environment. When it comes to online media, such as online newspaper articles and Twitter data, the semiotic environment is more dynamic and allows for changes and alterations of the texts at hand. As McMillan (2000) pointed out, the online environment can be regarded as a “moving target” to which a static “microscope” of content analysis is applied. To build a static corpus that allows for reliable and valid research, we saved the online articles in their latest edition in PDF format and based our analysis on these data (Herbers & Friedemann, 2010). To save the usually ephemeral Twitter data, we followed the methodological suggestions of Gaffney and Puschmann (2014), who recommend hawkeye, a script-based online tool which saves the contents and metadata of tweets in tabular form. Regarding the YouTube comments, we selected the comments that were of interest and took screenshots.

8 Analysis of Rezo’s the Destruction of the CDU By January 2021, Rezo’s video had received more than 200,000 comments. Many of these comments were posted by accounts that were attempting to exploit the video’s popularity to increase their own reach. These rather strategically motivated comments either conveyed information about the gravity of global warming and related issues or, by contrast, spread opinions and arguments against migration and challenged the belief that the youth would be willing to fight climate change. Most comments, however, are reactions to the content of Rezo’s video or the subsequent debate.

8.1 The Scandal Frames on Social Media in Rezo’s Case Judging by the user comments in general, the video succeeded in generating interest and outrage. The video was described as informative and enlightening, eye opening and shocking. Several users stated being surprised by the video and having learned new information: “Wow, I have to say the 55 min put me off watching the video at first, but I’m so glad I did! Thank you for your work”; “never before, I got so much information in one hour about the CDU. Oh f***!”1 ; or “Wow. I have to say I watched the whole 55.08 min because I can vote for the first time and was really lost…. I have to say that the video you made was not one second long winded or inaccurate. I am 1

We translated the data ourselves, as all the analyzed newspaper articles, tweets, and YouTube comments were in German.

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very convinced of your statements and thank you for opening my eyes.” While users evaluated the video as convincing and well researched, the entertaining presentation style of the unusually long video was also praised in many comments. Anger toward the CDU was visible in comments such as “Oh I am just a little bit angry. Very angry. What is wrong with them??” Other users reacted with fear: “I got really scared about my future while watching the video. We really have to change something.” Many users expressed their plans of action in reaction to the video. For example, support for sanctioning CDU in elections was frequently expressed—as one user said, “I hope so much that this video will shape the election! 9 million clicks must have an effect!” While many users stated that they would not vote for CDU anymore, others planned to talk to their parents and grandparents about the video and to that their relatives should not vote for CDU: “My father is a CDU member, and I will show him the whole video and also my friends so that they show it to their parents. Thank you for this video. Thank you!” Several users responded to the video by using populist rhetoric and drawing a line between citizens and the corrupt political elites who allegedly misinform the people. As one user wrote, “When wrong becomes right, resistance becomes a duty. I hope we don’t have to go that far. But we must get the old parties out of politics in the next 2–3 years.” Support for the scandal frame led users to engage in sharing and further spreading the video. Many users made the following kind of calls: “Please share this video. This must be seen by many people!”; “We must get this video trending! Before the European elections”; or “Share the video, especially to older people or people who do not really care and always vote for the CDU because they just always vote for them.” One user even planned to show the video to his or her teacher because the video should be discussed in class. In many posts, support for Rezo was complemented by criticism or mockery of CDU politicians’ reactions to the video. As several users put it, “Rezo made a well-researched video and what is the CDU’s argument? ‘He wears blue hair, he lies’.” In several comments, users explicitly revealed themselves as belonging to the older generations rather than YouTube’s core target group. Many users stated that they had heard about the video on TV or radio news. These users also praised the video and encouraged the young generations to further pursue their political goals: “I am hopeful that the many positive signs sent by the young generation today will bear fruit. And quickly enough so that the future can still be saved.” One user wrote the following: “I am 54 and have 3 kids. My 12-years-old has shown me the video. WOW!!! THANK YOU!!! Rezo, you changed my mind. On Sunday (the election day) I will take the first step.”

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8.2 The Spread of Scandal Frames to Legacy Media in Rezo’s Case To answer RQ1, when it came to the YouTube comments, Rezo’s scandal frames spread rather unchallenged and succeeded in generating attention and outrage. In relation to RQ2, we found the responses in the media discourse to be more reserved. In several newspapers, Rezo’s scandalous claims were the object of fact checking. However, even though journalists pointed out the video’s polemic and exaggerated style, they approved the content of Rezo’s criticism. It was also reported that specific politicians, such as the SPD Secretary General Lars Klingbeil, tried to reinforce Rezo’s scandal frame by blaming CDU’s coalition partners for supposedly blocking climate politics and digitalization efforts. However, the content of Rezo’s scandal frame received little attention in the media coverage. Instead, the media extensively covered the political reactions to the “Rezo shock,” which ranged from efforts to delegitimize Rezo’s expressed opinion to calls for political parties to immediately and strongly engage with social media. In this particular category, one can find journalistic observations stating that Rezo successfully disturbed the political system and led to several politicians demonstrating their inability to deal with changes in political communication (Stern, June 14th, 2019; taz, May 23rd, 2019). Therefore, the media deployed a framing strategy that focused on intense criticism of party communication. Accordingly, 6 years after Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) had referred to the internet as “terra incognita,” politics, and CDU in particular, remained baffled by YouTube and digitalization (Welt, May 25, 2019). Politicians were overwhelmed by changes in the online environment and now demonstrated their ignorance regarding online communication and social media platforms (Haupt, FAZ, May 26, 2019, p. 10). As the conservative Die Welt (May 22, 2019) argued, CDU politicians’ reactions to Rezo provided “evidence of incapacity.” Some journalists countered calls from CDU politicians to integrate social media in parties’ strategic communication, emphasizing the lack of expertise. FAZ, for instance, reminded politicians that social media was not just another channel for spreading information but had to be used to establish a relationship between politicians and citizens, build a more personal form of communication, and improve accountability. In some articles, this technology-ignorance frame was also applied to journalism and mass media organizations (taz, May 30, 2019). In addition to the reproach regarding the lack of skills and motivation to use social media and to adapt to changing media environments, journalists also criticized politicians for having lost contact with the younger generation of those under 30 years of age. This generation was said to constitute the YouTube community and to be represented in Rezo’s accusations. The Sueddeutsche Zeitung drew a picture of a generation that is digitally native, rather unpolitical, follows idealistic values, fears for its future, and feels as if it is not taken seriously by politics (SZ May 29, 2019). Journalists argued that a failing and poorly drafted internet policy, also in the context of the 2019 EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, contributed to the politicization of YouTubers, who felt powerless against politics and the older

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generation (Freund, FAZ, May 23, 2019). YouTube was said to be used as a tool for generating attention for young people and their issues independently of the mass media, in which the younger generation is supposedly not represented (SZ, June 21, 2019).

8.3 Spillover into Legacy Media in Rezo’s Case In another strand of the debate, the legacy media framed Rezo’s performance by exploring the role of YouTubers as political actors. In terms of RQ3, the related frames can be regarded as counter-frames. The YouTube community was characterized as having a vegan, anti-smoking, and anti-drinking lifestyle, using youth language, and engaging in fun-oriented challenges (SZ, May 29, 2019). In some articles, YouTubers were glorified as new actors in the competition for public opinion as they were attributed significant credibility by their followers. Accordingly, Rezo was described as “currently the political commentator with the widest reach in Germany” (Cremers, SZ, June 14, 2019). Using a mixture of information and entertainment that is perfectly in line with the rules of YouTube’s algorithm-driven communication structures, Rezo succeeds at engaging young people in politics and the European Parliament election (Stern, May 22, 2019; Stern, May 24, 2019). For a so-called “private person” (Stern, May 24, 2019), this was considered to be a significant achievement. Against strong criticism from the CDU chair Kramp-Karrenbauer, the left-leaning newspapers Spiegel, taz, and Stern respected the content of the video and defended Rezo’s right to free public expression (e.g., Spiegel, May 28, 2019). They agreed with Rezo’s self-description of not having journalistic ambitions but aiming to express justified opinion in public (SZ, May 29, 2019; Spiegel, May 30, 2019). Other articles adopted a contrary perspective and criticized Rezo for practicing a populist communication style (e.g., Hanfeld, FAZ, May 31, 2019). Instead of fostering a discussion with measured arguments, the video promoted opinion-based arguments via gestures of moral superiority, lack of complexity, and one-sided selection of material. Finally, several articles aimed at demystifying YouTubers. Their “miraculous power in influencing the political masses” was said to be overrated because YouTube channels do not have the broad reach of newscasts and talk shows, which, precisely due to their broad appeal, allow political discourse to occur (Fleischhauer, Spiegel, May 30, 2019). Second, the legacy media questioned the self-description of Rezo and other actors on social media as individual “cowboys”. Accordingly, as several mass media journalists emphasized, the YouTubers were not simply representatives of civil society (FAZ, June 5, 2019) or “the young guys who speak out publicly” (Freund, SZ, May 25, 2019, p. 4) but professionals who know how to engage an audience, how to conceptualize videos, and how to make their videos appear authentic. The legacy media stated that YouTubers treated their channels as businesses—that is, with a management strategy, employees, and some financial power. They had contracts with agencies and companies that used them for product placement and other forms of strategic communication (Fleischhauer, Spiegel, May 30, 2019). This perspective

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also questioned the role of the public relations company Ströer and the associated social media network Tube One, which owned Rezo’s channel and produced the video (FAZ, June 5th, 2019; FAZ, June 15, 2019, p. 4).

9 Analysis of Böhmermann’s Satirical Intervention The satirist Jan Böhmermann announced his candidacy as SPD chair on the late-night comedy show Neo Magazin Royale in August 2019 and launched his intervention on Twitter on August 29, 2019, adopting the hashtag #neustart19 for his campaign. Most of the user reactions (more than 90%) referred to this initial posting and happened in the election period from August to September 2019.

9.1 Scandal Frames on Social Media in Böhmermann’s Case With regard to RQ1, our analysis detected a large quantity of tweets posted in August and September, with Twitter users questioning the seriousness of Böhmermann’s campaign. They cited his other political stunts and wondered about his political stamina and chances of success. However, we found no direct criticism of Böhmermann’s satirical intervention in users’ comments. Instead, most of the tweets could be characterized as supportive rather than skeptical. “Give him party membership at once!” or “He is the innovator our SPD needs!” are some examples of the supportive voices on Twitter. Furthermore, we found a number of posts belonging to the category of policy recommendations, which proposed several pressing political issues for Böhmermann to tackle in case he got elected. Climate change, the consolidation of German–Turkish relations, prevention of arms deals, and migration politics were among the issues that users said Böhmermann should engage in as a newly elected SPD chairperson. These recommendations were often combined with a criticism of SPD’s party politics and SPD performance in the governing coalition. The SPD’s performance was perceived as failing to address the above-mentioned issues. “Let’s hope his campaign leads to new ideas and overcomes old patterns!” users exclaimed. Several twitter posts emphasized that the party had seemingly given up on its core values and had no “party line” on current issues. According to some users, Böhmermann could rejuvenate or even “save” the party: “He has more revolutionary ideas than SPD, the Green Party, and the Left Party combined!” In line with this position, many users criticized SPD for not reacting to Böhmermann’s initiative and remaining silent instead of releasing a statement regarding his application. Some users complained as follows: “Fun Fact: The SPD headquarters still remains silent. If they were smart, they would use this attention!”. Thus, on Twitter, Böhmermann’s application was not seen as scandalous at all. This may have been due to the community of fans and users who follow him on

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Twitter and are familiar with his rhetorical style and political antics, which is why they reacted sympathetically rather than negatively. Therefore, the audience was mostly supportive of his proposal, even playing along with it and engaging in citizensatire—for example, some users joked as follows: “When will (former chairman) Willy Brandt appear in Böhmermann’s dreams?”.

9.2 The Absent Spillover of Scandal Frames into Legacy Media in Böhmermann’s Case Regarding RQ2, journalistic reporting in the legacy media paid little attention to Böhmermann’s scandal frame. His satirical intervention was a marginal part of the general journalistic criticism of the party’s condition and its search for new leaders. For instance, journalistic criticism was directed at the selection process, which resembled a TV casting show and was deemed inappropriate for a serious party, even without Böhmermann’s contribution (FAZ, September 8, 2019). One article claimed that Böhmermann’s satire reflected SPD’s longing for new and younger faces and for ending the coalition with the conservative CDU. However, journalistic reporting addressed Böhmermann’s TV statements and did not refer to the more substantial Monday speeches. Instead of spreading or reflecting on Böhmermann’s attempts to incorporate a scandal frame of the role of SPD and its leaders in German politics, all studied newspapers first and foremost speculated about the seriousness of Böhmermann’s application and wondered whether there was a way for him to participate in the elections. The speculations were combined with analogies to the political interventions by other satirical actors, such as the election of Volodymyr Zelensky as the president of Ukraine and the election of Martin Sonneborn and Nico Semsrott (from the German satire party Die Partei) to the European Parliament (e.g., FAZ, September 7, 2019; Spiegel, September 6, 2019). In all studied newspapers, criticism of Böhmermann prevailed. According to journalists, Böhmermann’s satirical intervention lacked relevance and was predominantly regarded as self-promotion and an “ego-trip” (Focus, October 4, 2019). Several newspapers disputed Böhmermann’s ability, power, and persistence in terms of a political career, they also criticized his lack of political experience and qualities. Several articles highlighted Böhmermann’s silence after his poem against Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan led to international tensions and juridical consequences (Focus, October 4, 2019; Welt, August 30, 2019). With reference to a quote from the satirist Martin Sonneborn who criticized politicians using satirical communication styles, journalists argued that also politics should be left to the professionals (FAZ, September 7, 2019). In several articles, the satirical intervention was perceived as destructive on two counts. First, Böhmermann’s performance was said to sabotage SPD’s necessary self-discovery process. This was seen as an illegitimate undertaking for satire because it involved punching down on a party in crisis. It was also said to

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disrespect the members who were engaged with the party and its goals via voluntary work. Moreover, journalists believed that Böhmermann’s intervention threatened the legacy of SPD as an essential pillar of German democracy and that SPD’s weakness had strengthened the political fringes. Second, regarding society, Böhmermann’s performance was seen as contributing to political cynicism because it robbed politics of its dignity. According to the journalists, Böhmermann overstepped the borders of satire, which has no mandate for acting as a “wrecking ball” (Focus, October 4, 2019). His performance was perceived to be hurting democracy instead of rejuvenating democracy. Against this backdrop, Böhmermann’s “democracy martyrdom” (Spiegel, September 6, 2019) and the media’s attention to his performance (Welt, August 31, 2019) were criticized. In sum, Böhmermann’s proposed scandal frames were not adopted by professional journalists (RQ2). Instead, the media employed counter-frames, which is relevant to our RQ3.

10 Discussion: The Role of Legacy Media in Spreading Scandals In sum, our findings provide insights into the differences in scandal communication dynamics between social media and the legacy media. The findings also demonstrate the limitations of scandalous criticism: while this sort of criticism may be effective on social media, which functions as a kind of speakers’ corner, scandalous criticism that started on social media has limits in the broader media environment. Building on a functionalist theory of scandals, the focus in our two cases was on the interplay between social media and traditional mass media in terms of spillovers of scandals. However, as our examples showed, the functionalist approach was theoretically limiting (Kepplinger, 2020, p. 29) and could not convey a holistic impression of the cases. Therefore, the cases at hand, namely individual actors initiating scandals through social media, need to be taken into consideration, which would provide new insights into a functional theory of scandals. We found that social media platforms, specifically YouTube and Twitter, served as a launching pad for scandalous criticism. Rezo’s and Böhmermann’s provocations were targeted at the audiences that already followed them and formed a community of like-minded users. The successes of these scandalous forms of criticism became visible in subsequent outcomes, such as Rezo’s video influencing the electoral process. The spillover effects between social media scandalization efforts and mass media discourse are more difficult to analyze. In this matter, journalists’ filters and interpretations shape scandal frames by referring them to standards of journalistic reporting. Thus, scandalous criticism provoked media attention but did not manage to successfully spread the promoted scandal frames in legacy mass media to its full extent. Yet, individual differences became visible, as Rezo’s scandal frames were more readily picked up by journalists than Jan Böhmermann’s. Therefore, we

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conclude that the analyzed scandal frames were mainly successful in the social media environment. Some journalists perceived the scandal frames of Rezo and Böhmermann as scandals. In Rezo’s case, the scandal was perceived as functional for public debate because it contributed to discussing YouTubers’ roles as new actors in political communication. Further, journalists highlighted the deficits of politics in relation to social media communication and younger people in the fourth age of political communication. Some general progress in adopting digital modes of communication can be seen in several parties’ increased presence on social media. However, the content of the scandal frame, revolving around the political shortcomings of CDU, was at the center of the debate. Regarding Böhmermann’s case, we showed that in print media, the performance was questioned through counter-frames and was itself criticized, without resulting in productive debate. In this case, only Böhmermann’s announcement of his candidacy was focused on, with further discussions on social media not being reported. Online, there were no clear indications of a scandal taking place, and no fruitful discussion either. Overall, we found no direct transmission from online to offline news in Böhmermann’s case. This demonstrates the problems involved in spreading a scandal frame from social media to mass media, as the two environments have different processes for highlighting and reporting events for different audiences. Consequently, Böhmermann’s satirical intervention did not extend beyond the community of his followers. Concerning aspects of the public sphere, our findings showed that social media opened up the space for a variety of potential speakers from all kinds of lifestyles and social backgrounds. The various speakers cater to their own communities and followers as well as strangers and form new arenas for discussing public issues and problems. In the fourth age of political communication, they are the new actors in political communication and scandalous criticism who go beyond the established routines of reporting. As some of them make use of politainment, they approach their issues and agendas performatively in front of their audiences. However, the speaker’s corner has limited reach. Performers still need a broader audience to step beyond their online communities if they want to situate their issues effectively in the society at large. Thus, they need to gain the attention of the legacy media to have access to a wider audience. Employing satiractivism may serve as a way to catch the legacy media’s attention, but there is no guarantee that the proposed scandal frames will be disseminated. Journalistic reporting follows its own logic and can turn the satirical and scandalous interventions against their inventors. Therefore, the frames that are brought to the broader audience differ from the initial ideas of the performers. Not every scandal will reach beyond its social media environment. Consequently, the societal aspects of scandalization, such as making moral condemnations and proposing resolutions, may not reach a broader audience but may remain within the original community. Regarding the characteristics of contemporary political communication, scandals on social media lead to a further disruption of the public sphere (Bennet & Segerberg, 2012) and may increase social segmentations. Thus, the interplay between social media and the legacy media in a hybrid media system (Chadwick,

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2017) is crucial in fulfilling political communications’ stabilizing social and political functions, especially in the fourth age of political communication.

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Are We Living in a Post-scandal Era? High-Choice Media Environments, Political Polarization, and Their Consequences for Political Scandals Christian von Sikorski and Emily Kubin

Political scandals are common features of the modern media landscape (Allern et al., 2012; Allern & von Sikorski, 2018; Entman, 2012; Tumber & Waisbord, 2004; Tumber & Waisbord, 2019) and scandals can have serious consequences for political parties, political candidates, trust in the political elite, and democracy more generally (Bowler & Karp, 2004; Thompson, 2000; von Sikorski et al., 2020; von Sikorski & Herbst, 2020). Involvement in scandal frequently results in negative consequences, for instance, negatively affecting a candidate’s reputation, such blows to reputation can result in vote loss or even resignation (Banducci & Karp, 1994; von Sikorski, 2018). On the other hand, we see an increasing amount of scandalizing news coverage about some political actors’ norm transgressions (oftentimes from populist parties or individuals with populist agendas) that seemingly lead to no discernible consequences. Based on research informed by the motivated reasoning perspective (Kunda, 1990; Redlawsk et al., 2010) it has been demonstrated that political ideology as well as both candidate and party identification can dampen the negative effects of scandals, or even result in backfire effects in which voters support a candidate even more strongly despite involvement in scandal (Fischle, 2000; von Sikorski et al., 2020). In fact, the long list of Donald Trump’s norm violations are good examples of this. It has been proven that Donald Trump was involved in various forms of scandalous behavior (i.e., sexual relationship with a porn actor, verbal norm transgressions, and spread of disinformation). However, during his term as president of the United States, these norm transgressions arguably did not have any direct negative consequences for him, apart from two impeachment trials, which amounted to no actual punishment by elected officials. In fact, he was able to substantially increase his popular vote C. von Sikorski (B) University of Koblenz-Landau, Landau, Germany e-mail: [email protected] E. Kubin Center for the Science of Moral Understanding, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Haller et al. (eds.), Scandology 3, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85013-5_4

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margins between the 2016 (approx. 62.9 Million) presidential election and the 2020 presidential election (approx. 74.2 Million). The only reason Trump lost the election was due to the unusually high number of votes that Joe Biden received; Biden is the first candidate ever who has won more than 80 million votes (approx. 81.29 Million), and Trump received the second most votes in U.S. presidential history (only exceeded by Biden). This trend, that political candidates survive accusations of political misbehavior and intensive forms of scandalizing news coverage, can also be detected in other countries. For instance, Great Britain’s leader Boris Johnson as well as Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro are good examples of this phenomenon. However, research has so far exclusively focused on the question of how partisans and individuals with different levels of candidate support (e.g., pro-/anti-Trump) react to political scandals (e.g., Darr et al., 2019; Newman & Otto, 2020). In contrast, scholars have so far neglected to examine the important role of political polarization in this context. Researchers have failed to consider how the level of political polarization (1) affects the likelihood that public accusations of misbehavior against a political candidate develop into a fullblown scandal (polarization as independent variable) and (2) how media coverage of norm transgressions affect news consumers’ level of polarization (polarization as dependent variable)? In the present chapter, we aim at finding initial answers to these questions. First, we consider the distinction between media conflict and political scandals. We then consider the role of high-choice media environments in shaping perceptions of political scandals. Next, we introduce the concept of political polarization and consider how political scandals are perceived in polarized societies (i.e., polarization as an independent variable), and how media coverage of scandals predicts further polarization (i.e., polarization as a dependent variable). We also consider the co-existing relationship between high-choice media environments and polarized societies, suggesting these two societal trends predict a decrease in the likelihood that norm transgressions will become full-blown political scandals. Finally, we discuss potential implications and consequences for modern democracies. Additionally, we discuss if we are entering a post-scandal era (i.e., a time where norm transgressions are no longer unanimously agreed to be scandalous), and introduce the dwindling effects hypothesis which describes the decreasing likelihood that a politician’s norm transgressions develop into a political scandal in high-choice media environments and in times of high levels of political polarization. We base our theoretical framework on an analysis of research in the communication, political science, and psychology fields, and argue that this post-scandal era can further exacerbate political polarization (both ideologically and affectively).

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1 Political Scandal Versus Media Conflict About Misconduct Previous research shows that the news media increasingly reports about politics in a scandalizing manner in many countries around the world (Umbricht & Esser, 2016). News about accusations against political candidates and reports about (alleged) severe norm transgressions of political actors (Kumlin & Esaiasson, 2012) make it more likely that these allegations develop into political scandals in which an overwhelming majority of the public judges political behavior as scandalous (Thompson, 2000). According to Thompson (2000), mass media plays an important role in reporting about political norm transgressions—when media intensively reports about political misbehavior, the (alleged) norm transgression is perceived by the public as scandalous (Entman, 2012). Thus, when media does not report on (or does not frame behavior as) transgressive, there is no scandal. Importantly, in political scandals the majority of leading media outlets report about alleged norm transgressions. This means the matter itself is typically not disputed, but there can be public debates about the consequences and actions that should or should not be taken (Kepplinger, 2009). For example, if there are credible and clear indications for a politician’s tax evasion, leading media outlets will likely agree that the politician’s behavior qualifies as scandalous. Yet, a discussion may arise on what actions should be taken to punish violators. In summary, political scandals can be defined as “intense public communication about a real or imagined defect that is by consensus condemned, and that meets universal indignation or outrage” (Esser & Hartung, 2004, p. 1041). In contrast, media conflict about misconduct is a dispute between at least two opponents or conflicting parties, which is carried out publicly via the mass media. Again, many of Donald Trump’s public comments and behaviors serve as good examples of this. For parts of the public and selected media outlets (mostly liberal/ on the political left) in the United States some of his comments about minority groups or certain political actions like the so-called Muslim travel ban (Executive order 13,769) were simply scandalous, meaning some media outlets reported about these comments and actions in a scandalizing way (e.g., Grinberg & McLaughlin, 2017). However, for other parts of the public and selected US media outlets (mostly conservative/on the political right) (e.g., Jenkins, 2018) the same comments and political actions were spot on and appropriate, and therefore not scandalous. Thus, political scandals have to be differentiated from media conflicts about misconduct. In scandals there is only one legitimate position that is not seriously contested. Most media outlets adopt a similar scandal framing and the matter itself is not disputed (Kepplinger, 2009). For instance, the plagiarism scandal around former German Secretary of State Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg was intensively covered in German news media and clearly framed as a scandalous norm transgression by the majority of media outlets. However, when a political scandal arises, and the majority of media outlets frame norm transgressions as scandalous, there still may be differences in condemnation of the transgressor between media outlets. For example, in

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the case of the plagiarism scandal, the influential German conservative tabloid newspaper BILD attacked zu Guttenberg less and defended him more compared to other outlets (Maier et al., 2019), while still highlighting the act as scandalous. In contrast, in media conflicts about misconduct there is no agreement among media outlets that an (alleged) norm violation qualifies as scandalous. While some outlets may label a particular type of political behavior as scandalous, others do not and thus at least two conflict parties (e.g., liberal versus conservative media outlets) publicly fight about whether misconduct, or transgressions should be perceived as scandalous.

2 Scandals in High-Choice Media Environments In recent years, we have witnessed changes in the media system regarding the way citizens learn about political events. There is an increasing trend toward fragmented and high-choice media environments (Van Aelst et al., 2017), and fundamental changes in both the supply and demand of political news. First, the increase of partisan media such as Fox News in the United States, the Internet and various technological shifts have fundamentally changed the way the media supplies political information about public affairs and political scandals. Although the total amount of mediated information has drastically increased in the last two decades, the relative amount of political information has not, because the amount of other types of information (e.g., entertainment or sports) have increased disproportionally resulting in an overall decreased share of political information. At the same time, these developments and the drastic increases in available media channels (new classic media channels, online platforms, blogs, news formats on social media, etc.), resulted in an increase in niche media outlets and partisan media (see Van Aelst et al., 2017). Thus, trends that have previously been detected in the context of classic scandal news reporting—showing that liberal-leaning newspapers in the U.S. report political misconduct by conservative politicians to a higher extent than conservative news outlets (and vice versa) (Puglisi & Snyder, 2011)—may be exacerbated. Secondly, in the course of these shifts in the media landscape, the demand and usage of political information has substantially changed. Individuals increasingly receive political information via social media (Newman, et al., 2020), which makes it more likely that online users are exposed to pre-selected political information (by algorithms) that is tailored to their prior beliefs (Stroud, 2011). Besides effects of exposure to certain pre-selected information individuals generally tend to expose themselves to information that is in line with their prior political attitudes and beliefs (Knobloch-Westerwick & Meng, 2009). This type of media exposure may foster so-called filter bubbles adding to the “balkanization” of the public sphere (Sunstein, 2007; for a discussion, see also Flaxman et al., 2016). Furthermore, citizens today regularly use classic media and new media formats in parallel and may thus be exposed to conflicting media contents. Besides being exposed to factually correct quality information in mainstream media, citizens may (at the same time) receive factually wrong mis- or disinformation via social media (Lazer et al., 2018; Dan

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et al., 2021) affecting public opinion (von Sikorski & Hänelt, 2016) and resulting in doubt and uncertainty (Oreskes & Conway, 2012). In sum, these changes may not only affect the way citizens learn about political events but may also contribute to different forms of political polarization (Prior, 2013; see also Levendusky, 2013). Thus, in the following section, we define and differentiate different forms of political polarization and then consider how political polarization (1) affects the development of political scandals in high-choice media environments and (2) how exposure to this mediated information may re-enforce polarization in the public.

3 Political Polarization Political polarization is, in the most general sense, the observed gap between political adversaries. It is widespread and increasing, both in the United States (Pew Research Center, 2017), and across the world (Gidron et al., 2019). There are two key types of political polarization. The first, is ideological polarization, which focuses on the extent to which political adversaries’ beliefs, attitudes, and stances diverge from one another (Fiorina et al., 2005). The more extreme and divergent political opponents’ attitudes are, the more ideological polarization. The second key type is affective polarization, which focuses on the extent to which people like their political allies and dislike their political opponents (Iyengar et al., 2012). The more people like their allies and dislike their opponents, the more affective polarization—though recent research suggests affective polarization is mainly driven by outgroup dislike rather than ingroup favorability (Finkel et al., 2020). We know people are psychologically motivated to seek out information that agrees with their worldview (e.g., confirmation bias; Nickerson, 1998). In a fragmented and high-choice news media market, this often means people are selectively exposing themselves to media in-line with their pre-existing beliefs (i.e., choosing to view pro-attitudinal media; Sude et al., 2019). Many media consumers are therefore not confronted with diverse perspectives that could challenge their worldview. Here, we see peoples’ psychological needs for confirming (rather than disconfirming) information and recent changes to the media market (i.e., partisan media and fragmentation), work in tandem to further exacerbate both ideological (van Dalen, 2020) and affective (Kim et al., 2020) polarization among citizens (Kubin & von Sikorski, 2021), which potentially drives further motivation for accessing like-minded media (i.e., a feedback loop).

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Fig. 1 Depiction of theoretical framework

4 Political Scandals in Polarized Societies Given the powerful role of media in determining what is and is not considered scandalous (Allern et al., 2012), and media’s reciprocal relationship with polarization, we suggest that (1) media coverage of political scandals can influence political polarization and (2) political polarization and high-choice media environments can simultaneously shape whether political misconduct develops into full-blown scandal, as depicted in our theoretical framework (Fig. 1). Additionally, since there is an increasing prevalence of both ideological (Pew Research Center, 2017) and affective (Finkel et al., 2020) polarization in society, and there is a close relationship between both forms of polarization and media (Kim et al., 2020; van Dalen, 2020; see Kubin & von Sikorski, 2021), we argue that both ideological and affective political polarization are key for understanding how political polarization can shape (and be shaped by) the publics’ perception of misconduct as scandalous (or not) in high-choice media environments.

5 Scandal Coverage and Effects on Polarization Ideological polarization means that political adversaries’ beliefs, attitudes, and stances diverge from one another in political scandals. Thus, ideological polarization increases when political opponents’ attitudes are more extreme and divergent. As people tend to selectively expose themselves to pro-attitudinal media, polarization is reinforced (Kim, 2017), and divergent beliefs about what is scandalous can

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develop. Take, for example, some of Trump’s incendiary comments about immigrants, liberals accessing likeminded left-leaning news may see these comments framed as scandalous by the media—in turn making they themselves view Trump’s comments as scandalous. Contrarily, conservatives accessing right-leaning news may see these comments framed as appropriate—in turn making the comments not seem scandalous. Thus, the current media environment and rising societal polarization, make people polarized about what is scandalous and what is not. However, we argue that these elements shape affective polarization as well. Perceptions of scandal and morality of norm transgressors have long gone hand-inhand with one another (Thompson, 2000). When a politician is involved in scandal, many view the politician as immoral—or at the very least as having committed an immoral act. However, it is also likely that who acknowledges scandal is also closely associated with who is perceived as moral. We posit that when political opponents do not agree on which norm transgressions are scandalous, they increasingly perceive one another as immoral (or at the very least as disregarding important immoral transgressions). These perceptions further sow divisions, exacerbating dislike for political adversaries (i.e., increasing affective polarization). Individual dispositions can also shape these dynamics. Specifically, individuals’ general level of media trust may also affect how news consumers react to political scandals. Results of a recent experimental study revealed that news images can (independently of textual information) result in a polarizing effect (von Sikorski, 2021). In the study, participants were randomly assigned to three groups and were exposed to coverage about a political scandal. Importantly, textual information was identical in all three conditions. However, participants in the two experimental conditions were exposed to both textual information and a (neutral) picture of the politician involved in scandal (control groups participants received no photo). The image foreground (i.e., politician) was identical in both conditions. Yet, the image background was systematically manipulated either showing an entirely black or light background. Crucially, in this context, the role of news consumers’ media trust mattered. The mere exposure to a negative visual background cue (scandalous politician depicted against an entirely black image background) compared to the identical image of the politician against a light background resulted in polarized attitudes toward the candidate, however, this effect was dependent on participants’ trust in media. More precisely, low trusting individuals showed more positive candidate evaluations, whereas individuals with high levels of media trust reacted in the opposite way and evaluated the scandalous politician more negatively (no effects of the light background condition) (von Sikorski, 2021). Thus, very minor changes in the way the media makes use of (visual) cues in portraying political candidates involved in scandal can substantially affect political polarization—though these effects can be shaped by dispositional factors of viewers (i.e., trust in media).

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6 Polarization and Effects on the Development of Scandal With the dwindling effects hypothesis, we suggest that the likelihood that political norm transgressions develop into full-blown political scandals decreases in democratic societies that are characterized by high-choice media environments and high levels of political polarization. We posit this is because these environments are more likely to have media conflict about misconduct—with media outlets squabbling over whether transgressions are scandalous or not. This might be especially likely in societies with predominantly commercial media systems (no strong public service broadcasting system), for instance, the United States (see Hallin & Mancini, 2004). In these media systems, technological shifts and the emergence of new media channels (e.g., partisan cable news; see Boxell et al., 2020) can have a disproportionally strong impact on the reciprocal relationship between supply and demand of political information. Various factors may contribute to political polarization including changing party compositions in a particular country and/or racial divisions (Boxell et al., 2020). However, as outlined above, the media plays an increasingly important role in this context (Kubin & von Sikorski, 2021). In sum, this may create a spiraling effect in which pre-selection (social media algorithms) and self-selection (based on ideological preferences) result in exposure to rather one-sided and extreme, polarized media contents, which in turn makes it more likely that citizens become increasingly polarized (both ideologically and affectively). This can result in shifts on the supply side and political news on commercial media outlets (e.g., Fox News, MSNBC, and/or alternative news outlets such as Breitbart) may become even more partisan and polarized to meet the demands of their increasingly polarized audiences. Under these conditions the likelihood decreases that the majority of media outlets reports about political misconduct in a scandalizing manner, as media outlets are (in part) divided as well—meaning media conflict about misconduct increases. For instance, there technically is no scandal when leading media outlets like CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post use a scandal frame and repeatedly report about an incident involving a conservative politician, but Fox News and other conservative media outlets that reach a large audience do not. In these situations, we are rather dealing with media conflict about misconduct, in which two sides or conflicting parties (e.g., liberal versus conservative media outlets) publicly fight about the interpretation of political transgressions (i.e., whether they are scandalous or not). We posit these media conflicts about misconduct will lead to conflicts within the public about whether misconduct is scandalous or not, subsequently increasing both ideological and affective polarization. In terms of ideological polarization, media (and subsequent public) conflict about misconduct, shapes peoples’ attitudes and policy preferences. For example, Trump refused to release his tax returns upon becoming president, before this, presidents releasing tax returns was not a partisan issue and was rarely discussed. However, after this event, conservatives (and the conservative media) did not support forcing presidents to release tax returns. Contrarily, liberals (and the liberal media) found this scandalous and calls for requiring the release of presidential tax returns quickly

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followed (Jagoda, 2021). Thus, a relatively non-polarizing topic became ideologically polarized after there was both media and public conflict about the supposed transgression. This conflict can also further increase affective polarization, because people (in line with Social Identity Theory; Tajfel & Turner, 1986) tend to defend their party and ingroup allies and react with outgroup derogation and dislike toward political opponents (Finkel et al., 2020). As mentioned previously, the reason people dislike their opponents is often due to beliefs opponents disregard certain (moral) transgressions (Graham, Nosek, & Haidt, 2012). This line of thinking suggests that when citizens see both media and public conflict about whether a norm transgression (e.g., Trump not releasing his tax returns) is scandalous, they dislike political opponents to a greater extent—as opponents seem to have dissimilar moral compasses (i.e., divergent views of what transgressions are scandalous) to ourselves and our political ingroup—thereby further exacerbating outgroup dislike (i.e., affective polarization). Future research should empirically test these assumptions examining under which conditions the proposed dwindling effects hypothesis can be supported.

7 Conclusion We recently witnessed two very different trends in political scandal reporting. On the one hand, the media increasingly reports about political misconduct (Kumlin & Esaiasson, 2012; see also Allern et al., 2012; Entman, 2012; Tumber & Waisbord, 2004; Tumber & Waisbord, 2019). Journalists increasingly report about both severe (e.g., tax avoidance) and non-severe (e.g., $300 haircut) political norm transgressions and forms of misbehavior that stem from the private sphere of political actors’ lives (e.g., comments made at a party, extramarital affairs; see von Sikorski, 2020). In contrast, the media often remains silent (Entman, 2012) or there is medial conflict about misconduct in which some media outlets report about an (alleged) norm violation using a scandal framing, while others do not. We suggest that political polarization plays an important role for the latter development. In high-choice media environments it becomes more likely that news consumers are exposed to tailored information that fits their prior attitudes (preselection). Additionally, the increase of partisan media makes it easier and more likely for citizens to choose political information that fits their ideology and political views (self-selection). At the same time, it becomes less likely that allegations against political candidates develop into full-blown scandals and that we thus rather see an increase in media conflict about misconduct (debating whether it is scandalous or not) in highly polarized societies. Assuming that our expectations can be empirically confirmed, this would have relevant implications for political communication and the political landscape more generally. News media has been described as a fourth estate and as having important social control functions (Esser & Hartung, 2004). When political elites misuse power or violate norms the mass media report these wrongdoings and may frame

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them as political scandals (Thompson, 2000). When media conflicts about misconduct increase (and therefore scandals decrease), it becomes more difficult to hold politicians publicly accountable for their behaviors. Arguably, this is problematic and could have other unwanted downstream consequences like further declines in political and media trust, the normalization of transgressions by political actors, etc. Therefore, we call for more research that systematically connects scandal research with research on political polarization. First, we need research that comparatively examines scandals in different societies taking measures of political polarization into account. Second, research should test whether there is evidence for the dwindling effects hypothesis. Specifically, future research should consider whether there are more political scandals (and less media conflict about misconduct) in times of low or moderate levels of polarization in a society compared with times of high levels of polarization. Third, future research should further examine how media coverage on misconduct can be realized without contributing to both ideological and affective polarization.

References Allern, S., Kantola, A., Pollack, E., & Blach-Orsten, M. (2012). Increased scandalization: Nordic political scandals 1980–2010. In: S. Alle E. Pollack (Eds.), Scandalous! The mediated construction of political scandals in four Nordic countries (pp. 29–50). Nordicom. Allern, S., & von Sikorski, C. (2018). Political scandals as a democratic challenge: From important revelations to provocations, trivialities, and neglect. Introduction. International Journal of Communication, 12, 3014–3023. Banducci, S. A., & Karp, J. A. (1994). Electoral consequences of scandal and reapportionment in the 1992 House elections. American Politics Quarterly, 22, 2–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/153267 3X9402200101 Bowler, S., & Karp, J. A. (2004). Politicians, scandals, and trust in government. Political Behavior, 26(3), 271–287. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:POBE.0000043456.87303.3a Boxell, L., Gentzkow, M., & Shapiro, J. M. (2020). Cross-country trends in affective polarization. http://www.nber.org/papers/w26669. Dan, V., Paris, B., Donovan, J., Hameleers, M., Roozenbeek, J., van der Linden, S., & von Sikorski, C. (2021). Visual Mis- and Disinformation Social Media and Democracy. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 98(3) 641–664. https://doi.org/10.1177/10776990211035395 Darr, J. P., Kalmoe, N. P., Searles, K., Sui, M., Pingree, R. J., Watson, B. K., Bryanov, K., & Santia, M. (2019). Collision with collusion: Partisan reaction to the Trump-Russia scandal. Perspectives on Politics, 24(6), 319–334. Entman, R. M. (2012). Scandal and silence: Media responses to presidential misconduct. Polity Press. Esser, F., & Hartung, U. (2004). Nazis, pollution, and no sex: Political scandals as a reflection of political culture in Germany. American Behavioral Scientist, 47, 1040–1071. https://doi.org/10. 1177/0002764203262277 Finkel, E. J., Bail, C. A., Cikara, M., Ditto, P. H., Iyengar, S., Klar, S., Mason, L., McGrath, M. C., Nyhan, B., Rand, D. G., Skitka, L. J., Tucker, J. A., Van Bavel, J. J., Wang, C. S., & Druckman, J. N. (2020). Political sectarianism in America: A poisonous cocktail of othering, aversion, and moralization poses a threat to democracy. Science, 370(6516), 553–536. https://doi.org/10.1126/ science.abe1715

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Newman, B., & Otto, A. (2020). Polls and elections: The economy and events still matter (at least a little): Partisans’ presidential approval in the Trump era. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12686 Nickerson, R. S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of General Psychology, 2(2), 175–220. Oreskes, N., & Conway, E. (2012). The merchants of doubt. How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming. Bloomsbury Press. Pew Research Center. (2017). The partisan divide on political values grows even wider. https:// www.pewresearch.org/politics/2017/10/05/the-partisan-divide-on-political-values-grows-evenwider/. Accessed 9 Mar 2021. Prior, M. (2013). Media and political polarization. Annual Review of Political Science, 16, 101–127. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-100711-135242 Puglisi, R., & Snyder, J. M., Jr. (2011). Newspaper coverage of political scandals. The Journal of Politics, 73, 931–950. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022381611000569 Redlawsk, D. P., Civettini, A. J. W., & Emmerson, K. M. (2010). The affective tipping point: Do motivated reasoners ever “get it”? Political Psychology, 31(4), 563–593. https://doi.org/10.1111/ j.1467-9221.2010.00772.x Stroud, N. J. (2011). Niche news: The politics of news choice. Oxford University Press. Sude, D. J., Knobloch-Westerwick, S., Robinson, M. J., & Westerwick, A. (2019). “Pick and choose” opinion climate: How browsing of political messages shapes public opinion perceptions and attitudes. Communication Monographs, 86(4), 457–478. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637751.2019. 1612528 Sunstein, C. R. (2007). Republic. com 2.0. Princeton University Press. Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behaviour. In S. Worchel & W. Austin (Eds.), The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations (pp. 33–48). Brooks/Cole. Thompson, J. B. (2000). Political scandal: Power and visibility in the media age. Polity Press Blackwell. Tumber, H., & Waisbord, S. R. (2004). Introduction: Political scandals and media across democracies, volume I. American Behavioral Scientist, 47, 1031–1039. https://doi.org/10.1177/000276 4203262275 Tumber, H., & Waisbord, S. R. (2019). The Routledge companion to media and scandal. Routledge. Umbricht, A., & Esser, F. (2016). The push to popularize politics. Journalism Studies, 17, 100–121. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2014.963369 Van Aelst, P., Strömbäck, J., Aalberg, T., Esser, F., de Vreese, C., Matthes, J., Hopmann, D., & Stanyer, J. (2017). Political communication in a high-choice media environment: A challenge for democracy? Annals of the International Communication Association, 41, 3–27. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/23808985.2017.1288551 van Dalen, A. (2020). Red economy, blue economy: How media-party parallelism affects the partisan economic perception gap. The International Journal of Press/politics, 1–25,. https://doi.org/10. 1177/1940161220926931 von Sikorski, C. (2018). The aftermath of political scandals: A meta-analysis. International Journal of Communication, 12, 3109–3133. von Sikorski, C. (2020). Scandalous?! Examining the differential effects of news coverage about (non-)severe political misconduct on voting intentions and news source evaluations. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 97, 762–789. von Sikorski, C., & Hänelt, M. (2016). Scandal 2.0: How valenced reader comments affect recipients’ perception of scandalized individuals and the journalistic quality of online news. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 93, 551–571. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699016628822 von Sikorski, C., Heiss, R., & Matthes, J. (2020). How political scandals affect the electorate. Tracing the eroding and spillover effects of scandals with a panel study. Political Psychology, 41, 549–568. von Sikorski, C., & Herbst, C. (2020). Not practicing what they preached! Exploring negative spillover effects of news about ex-politicians’ hypocrisy on party attitudes voting intentions and

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Forms, Functions, and Practices of Scandal Reporting in Changing Media Environments

Gossip as Journalism and Journalism as Gossip: A Cultural History Investigation of Two Royal Sex Scandals in Sweden 1890 and 2010 Mia-Marie Hammarlin and Lars-Eric Jönsson

1 Introduction In 2010, the Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf became the protagonist in a massive media scandal. It all started off by the reportage book Carl XVI Gustaf: Den motvillige monarken [The Reluctant Monarch], which claimed that the king and his upperclass male friends for some decades had been throwing wild parties, involving criminals, and maybe also prostitutes, so-called “kaffeflickor” (coffee girls), at the time undoubtedly crossing the line for what was considered as acceptable political behavior.1 That the king enjoyed partying hard when he was young was a well-known fact among Swedes but this disclosure was different, evoking the following critical questions: What did this story say about the king’s ideas of women? What did it say about his views on equality between the sexes? Did the king cheat on Queen Silvia? And what would Crown Princess Victoria, a young modern woman, think about her father’s behavior? All the juicy scandal ingredients were in place: forbidden sex, royalty, political bedroom antics, money, class, criminality, silence, and an agglomeration of gossip. Ever since, the word “kaffeflickor”—which the Swedish Language Institute put on the so-called new word list in 2010—is inscribed in the Swedish collective memory, giving rise to sayings, idioms, and endless amounts of satiric jokes. All in all, the scandal had an indisputable impact on Swedish cultural debate, albeit the will of many citizens to forgive the king and forget all about the affair came into the light. In this chapter—which draws upon a vast material from an externally funded 1-year full-time research project—we take as our starting point the assumption that this particular modern media scandal exists in relation to other, historical Swedish 1 Further

on, the book will be mentioned as “the book” or as The Reluctant Monarch.

M.-M. Hammarlin (B) · L.-E. Jönsson Lund, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Haller et al. (eds.), Scandology 3, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85013-5_5

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sex scandals with kings at their center.2 Royal scandals with sexual connotations are not a new phenomenon, so to better understand their formation, development, dissemination, and cultural value, we need to place them side by side. They belong to a tenacious news genre that takes place in the bedrooms of those in power, examining the limits between what is considered to be acceptable or unacceptable behavior, private and public sphere, personal and political (Hartley, 2008, p. 679–91). We do not believe in any supra-historical phenomena; each time period has to be investigated on its own premises. However, this belief does not hinder us from using scandals from different time periods as contrast fluids to each other. Our purpose is to investigate the mediated scandal as a phenomenon with historic power, which is created and communicated through a vast range of media. To do this, we critically challenge the narrow focus on traditional media (press, radio, television) and digital social media, when studying modern mediated scandals. The cultural history approach in this chapter is mainly inspired by book historian Robert Darnton’s studies (see Darnton, 1982, 1996, 1997, 2004, 2005, 2010), and will provide the reader with new knowledge about 1. how the intrinsic relationship between journalism and gossip— between text and talk—during a public scandal come into play; 2. the staying force of gossip and rumor as communication means for citizens to critically discuss powerrelated issues and politics, i.e., how they can be understood as both old and new; and lastly 3. how the mistresses in these affairs were described by the media and its audiences, and what role they were attributed in the public. This approach to some extent questions John B. Thompson’s presumption that mediated scandals can, and should, be considered distinct from what he calls “localized scandals” (Thompson, 2008, p. 61), “commonly linked to the kinds of gossip and rumor, which are spread by word of mouth” (2008: 62). The medium of disclosure and disapprobation in so-called localized scandals is face-to-face communication, Thompson states. The vehicle of the mediated scandal, on the other hand, is by definition mediated communication (Thompson, 2008, p. 62–3). Many media scandal scholars during the last decade have relied heavily upon Thompson’s definitions. For example, Steffen Burkhardt (2018) underscores the importance of differentiating between a scandal and a mediatized scandal. We do agree with him and others who adhere to the argument that there is a difference between the “localized” and the “mediatized” scandal. But what would happen if we, in line with Darnton, considered gossip and rumor as mass media, not only in the past but also in today’s media environment? When we use the concept “media scandal”, we dovetail with the seminal, rich work of Thompson and others but also seek to challenge some of the premises on which it is based. We do this 2

For example, yet another large sex scandal is included in the research project, which we investigate elsewhere. It is widely known as the Haijby scandal, and took place in the 1950s with King Gustaf V and the businessman Kurt Haijby in its epicenter. The king was alleged of having a homosexual relationship with Haijby and other men, causing extensive public debates at a time when homosexuality was criminalized. This scandal never fully dies: new facts, gossip, and rumors are still presented through different media, as, for example, in the book Ers Majestäts olycklige Kurt: En roman med verklighetsbakgrund [Your Majesty’s miserable Kurt: A novel with reality background] (Ebervall & Samuelsson 2021). We would like to take the opportunity to thank Ridderstads stiftelse for the funding of the project.

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by expanding media environments to include all kinds of communication forms and sources, such as news items, pictures, songs, poems, chapbooks, rumors, and verbal as well as written gossip.

2 Methodology The late nineteenth century showed a plethora of new newspapers and weekly magazines, some widely spread, some with a more limited distribution, some long-lasting, some with a lifetime of a few months or years, some serious, and some popular. In this sense, there are obvious parallels to the early twenty-first-century social media and Internet forums. Faster and wider distribution and higher speed are two such parallels. In the late nineteenth century, new printing technologies and new infrastructure of communication in the shape of railroads made distribution of printed media faster. The accelerating speed of speech (telephone) and messages (telegraph) gave text and the spoken word unseen connections over long distances (cf. Kern, 2003), with parallels to the Internet and social media. In this context, literacy increased in all segments of society. This is one of the fundamental conditions for mass media. Therefore, together with a growing literate public, mass communication in the late nineteenth century was established (Nordmark et al., 2001:181 ff., 238). Another such parallel is how older media coexisted with new. Asa Briggs and Peter Burke (2009) observe how the history of mass communication involves the multi-mediality of images, texts, and spoken words, and how older means of communication interact with new. This goes for, not the least, oral expressions and printed words and pictures. These temporalities of the late nineteenth century and the early twenty-first century are, of course, not identical. But they may serve us to analyze both time periods. Contemporary experiences may help us to understand the historical equivalents, and vice versa. Generally, we investigate the popular press and other entangled media as a prolongation and development of French scandal journalism during the eighteenth century, sometimes called the chronique scandaleuse—a broad genre within printed and oral news distribution. Darnton describes it in the following way: “A muckraking and mudslinging journalism, which built up an account of contemporary history by tearing down the reputation of public figures, beginning with the king” (Darnton, 2005, p. 23). Moralizing and entertaining drawings, songs, verses, leaflets, and pamphlets told compromising stories about the people closest to the French king, usually ministers, noblemen, and society ladies with alleged or real connections to the libertines and their scabrous way of life, all intended to annoy and belittle George III. The purpose of this vigorous literary genre, argues John Brewer from a British lookout point, was to expose political intrigue—whether true or false—which had previously been hidden from the public, putting these revelations to use in attacking the personal moral standards of the country’s leaders and, by extension, their power and influence (Brewer, 2005). In mid-eighteenthcentury Sweden, there were similar periodicals which produced person-orientated sensational journalism, one of which bore the telling title Stockholms Sqwallerbytta

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(“The Stockholm tattler”). Some scholars maintain that the purpose of these publications was mainly financial gain; scandals sell, then as now (Holmberg et al. 1983, p. 26). However, Adrian Bingham and Martin Conboy’s (2015) research on British tabloids during the era of journalism’s professionalization—connecting Darnton’s work with modern popular journalism—shows the tabloids’ importance for public discussions about class, gender, and sexuality. They underscore not only the viability of the popular press but also its inherent value for public political debate.3 In this chapter—on a broader level, and in line with Conboy’s (2010) suggestions—we wish to shed light on popular journalism’s meaning; the popular discourse in relation to the political discourse; and journalism’s active audiences, then and now.

2.1 Two Cases Empirically we depart from two sex-related scandals defined by the presence of kings and female artists. Even if the cases are fixed to specific time periods, we would claim that they contain meanings that extend beyond these periods. It is a hypothesis that the past is made active in the present, regardless of whether this present is located in the late nineteenth century or in our own time (cf. Jönsson, 2013). The two cases serve us well since they have—despite their temporal and cultural differences—certain common denominators, the royalty and female artists are already mentioned. Our first case is based on the small weekly news magazine Breflådan/Gamla Breflådan [The Letterbox/The Old Letterbox], which belonged to the less famous section of the popular press, published in Stockholm 1888–1892. This magazine was chosen since it was obviously driven by the urge to expose the societal elite, not the least the royalties and their presumed immoralities, decadence, and double standards. The journalistic methods of research were to a high degree based on listening to gossip and rumors. The editor Olof Roth (1854–1911) was what seems to be an ill-seen gossip journalist4 at the time, who claimed to be a left-wing radical and a friend of the workers but at the same time was critical toward the labor movement. Arguably, Roth was a modern, innovative journalist who relied upon both desk work and the physical hunt for the street talk when gathering news material for his sheet. He appears to have run the business mostly on his own, encompassing journalistic roles such as reporter, columnist, short story writer, translator, editor, and advertising salesperson. The Old Letterbox’ years of publication coincided with a scandal with the renowned actress Ellen Hartman at its center, who was surrounded by rumors of being mistress to king Oscar II. With The Old Letterbox as our point of departure, we follow the spreading of these sex rumors in the news sheet, and in multiple other 3

Even though focusing a slightly different genre, and different research questions, media historian Erik Edoff’s dissertation Storstadens dagbok: Boulevardpressen och mediesystemet i det sena 1800talets Stockholm [Big city diary: The boulevard press and the media system in late nineteenth century Stockholm] is an instructive historical introduction to the popular press in Sweden. 4 See further ahead in the chapter how Roth was described by the more respected newspaper Dagens Nyheter at his death.

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media forms, such as the more respected newspaper Dagens Nyheter (The Daily News), chapbooks, and novels commentating and adding stories and rumors to the case. These sources will be mentioned and commented upon as they are presented and analyzed. The initially mentioned king and the coffee girls scandal is our second case. As stated above, the scandal was triggered by a best-selling reportage book. Its authors, three Stockholm-based journalists, had collected and published talk that had surrounded the king for many years but had not reached a wider audience. When published in 2010, the book rapidly generated a media scandal with the king and his close male friends and their alleged women’s affairs at its center. The book was based on anonymous interviews that critics dismissed as slander. But it would have been unequivocally burdensome for the king if the information in the book was found out to be true. The book itself was thus surrounded by intense rumoring and gossiping through face-to-face meetings, journalistic coverage, and conversations in digital forums. In this case, it was necessary to limit the investigation to a defined time period, whereupon we decided to study 1 week during the scandal’s intensifying dynamic, November 2–8, 2010. From a digital archive, we collected 181 text items—news articles, columns, and debate articles—published in four well-established and nationally spread Swedish newspapers: Dagens Nyheter (independent liberal morning newspaper), Svenska Dagbladet (independent liberal conservative morning newspaper), Aftonbladet (independent social-democrat evening newspaper), and Expressen (independent liberal evening newspaper). Additionally, we have studied 1727 comments at a digital open forum discussion thread, presented in more detail below. Altogether the two cases bridge more than a 100 years, from the late 1800s to the early 21st century, encompassing Sweden’s development from a regime ruled by Oscar II, King by the Grace of God, to a modern democracy with a constitutional monarchy with no direct political impact. Censorship laws and regulations of the press have gone through radical changes during the modern era, which affect our possibilities to study the scandals in question. In the first case, the king’s sexual affairs were talk-of-the-town but at the same time thoroughly hidden, not least in the press due to the fact that it was a violation of the law to openly criticize the monarchy. Olof Roth and his radical press colleagues were used to being sent to prison now and then because of crimes committed against the freedom of the press, such as desecration of societal decency and morality. The penalties were something that Roth bragged about in his news sheet as it underscored his radicalism and elite questioning mission. In the latter case, the king was the protagonist in a massive, protracted, media scandal, which involved national television, radio, press, and social media. It speaks volumes that Carl XVI Gustaf is Sweden’s sitting king and did not hinder journalists from publishing innumerable pictures of the monarch on handbills and first pages, side by side of photos of alleged mistresses. Thus, finding enough data concerning the first scandal has sometimes provoked the feeling of searching for a needle in a haystack. In comparison, the subsequent case has provided us with oceans of easily retrieved media material.

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2.2 Listening to Text—A Methodological Experiment A starting point for this study is that speech in the form of gossip and everyday oral exchanges of information constitutes, and has always constituted, a significant proportion of journalistic sources, even in respect of journalism of the more serious kind. We have developed a method we call “listening to talk in text” to delve into this piquant area (Hammarlin & Jönsson, 2017, p. 93–115). By way of this method, we want to draw attention to and investigate the relationship of gossip to journalism and its methodological foundations in a manner that is rarely encountered in journalism handbooks and notably rarely in research on journalism and media studies.5 In our research, we have been especially interested in how such hot topics move between speech and writing and are interwoven with other kinds of communication, as well as in how newspaper journalists use them in their work, not least when royals are being discussed (Hammarlin & Jönsson, 2017, p. 93–115). As mentioned above, we have been inspired by book historian Robert Darnton’s many studies, particularly the method he uses when mapping the borderland between written and oral materials. He has devoted a large part of his research to precisely this intractable borderland, starting out from the French media landscape of the mid-eighteenth century. How, then, does Darnton locate the remnants of talk in his material? In his book Poetry and the Police, he notes how written poems and songs were modified by the people who recorded them (Darnton, 2010a, 2010b, p. 75). There are comments on how such a writer, having heard a song, wrote it down from memory. Minor adjustments then created different versions of the same song or poem, as a kind of whispering game. Darnton takes these changes as evidence for oral communication, extracting new knowledge about the media circuits of the time by means of listening (Darnton 2010a, 2010b, p. 76ff). Following written-down versions of talk and dialogue, he is able to describe the murmur of all these voices that together formed the sound of the people and simultaneously made up the framework for the news distribution of the time. Our methodological point of departure in this chapter is that we also listen through reading, in the process of which we do not only use our eyesight but also hone our hearing—metaphorically speaking—in order to pay attention to linguistic constructions that testify to a kind of union between talk and text. We also pay attention to flows, media transfers, tones of voice, and moods in the texts. This taps into the methodological advantages and challenges of seeing media as entangled and interlocked with each other, rather than seeing them as separate entities, especially when analyzing media scandals, where many different media simultaneously report about the same issue. This in turn leads to reflections about the difference between text and talk. For example, social media shine a light on the idea of solid boundaries between oral tradition, written text, and mediated communication. For how should one regard the special language forms of the Internet, which some linguists have 5

Science has, according to media researcher John Hartley, consciously or unconsciously adapted itself to the desire of journalism to be seen as a serious activity, a desire which has resulted in some unflattering journalism and less than rigorous journalistic methods ending up under the radar (Hartley 2008:679–91).

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classified as hybrids of speech, conversation, and writing?6 Oral and written forms of expression have been entangled—over the centuries, fertilizing one another, or as philosopher Paul Ricoeur claims: writing is an activity that runs parallel with speech, but occasionally writing takes the place of speech and appropriates it (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 35f). Attempts to construct a boundary where oral tradition ends and print begins— or where conversation face to face is seen as something completely different from conversation via computer programs—appears to be fruitless (see Stephens, 2007, p. 7–47). The traditional daily newspaper, which has gone through a metamorphosis over the past few decades can serve as an example. Transformed from print into a complex multimedial meeting place, where the Internet, television, radio, and telephone converge, it is a typical example of communicative development in our time, where conversation, talk, writing, images, and actors blend into an unorthodox mixture. Today’s journalists talk intensively during their working hours, both with one another and with other people. When focusing on the journalistic methods of today, it becomes clear that the hunt for news springs from a continuous flow of communication by way of face-to-face meetings, emails, text messages, chat messages, tweets, and phone calls. And there is quite a lot of gossip going on even in the most prestigious newsrooms. This is not intended as a critique of journalism. The point is that the connection between everyday small talk, gossip, rumor, and news lives on. For instance, a professional local reporter knows that it is the proprietor of the local grocery shop one should call in order to find out if something interesting has happened. The exemplary grocer overhears what newsroom staff usually refer to as hot topics; what people are talking about.

3 Analysis: Following Royal Mistresses in the Media 3.1 The Coverage of the Hartman-Case: Journalistic Genres and Practices Stockholm was a rather small but growing capital in the late nineteenth century with approximately 170.000 inhabitants in 1880 and 300.000 in 1900. This was a period when technological and political circumstances paved the way for a number of small newspapers, not the least weekly tabloids with a certain weakness for scandals and rumors. The Old Letterbox was one of these tabloids run by the journalist, hack writer, and editor Olof Roth. There is little known about how these small tabloids were run. A major part of the journalistic work was performed at the desk with pencil, paper, scissors, and glue (Jarlbrink, 2015). However, when reading The Old Letterbox as well as other tabloids and newspapers at the time, it is obvious that the journalistic 6

A few years ago, the periodical language@internet devoted a special issue to investigations of the conversational and oral features in the type of communication encompassed by CMC, ComputerMediated Communication, which is text-based (Herring 2011).

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work also consisted of presence in the urban public and semi-public spaces. Streets and squares as well as coffee shops and theaters were arenas for rumors and chit chat but also offered information for listening and attentive journalists. For this purpose, the editor and “proper” journalist also recruited so-called item hunters (translated from Swedish “notisjägare”), low regarded freelance workers who made a living from collecting news of the city life, selling them to the editorial offices. These bluecollar “journalists” made a trade of gossip, rumors, and information from not only the public sphere but also from contacts with, for example, downstair servants in the homes of the elite and celebrities (cf. Johannesson et al., 2001, p. 228). They were the editors’ ears and eyes in the streets and may in a sense be understood as a forerunner to the twentieth-century reporter who, rather than sitting by his or her desk, was out there in the vibrant city, searching for news. When trying to understand such journalistic practices one must consider the small size of the public sphere in a city like Stockholm in the late nineteenth century. It was obviously hard to retain one’s anonymity for the public elite, or for public professionals, such as artists and actors. For journalists who were looking for well-known faces or wanted to overhear chit-chat there were a limited number of places to go.

3.2 Communication Flows When investigating our case from the late nineteenth century, it is clear how tabloids like The Old Letterbox relied on several sources. It is also obvious how different media interplayed, more or less explicitly, to make sense of rumors and scandals. A tabloid with a low reputation could, without the risk of losing much, spell things out, mention people by their names, exaggerate and add things to make rumors even more interesting. More reputable news media were discrete, publishing smaller news items without much meat on the bones. Let us give an example of how different media, serious and less serious, interplayed, and how the newspapers relied both on each other and on the pre-understanding of the reading public. In May 1891, The Old Letterbox published an illustration, namely, a portrait—a new media form in the press during the nineteenth century—of three celebrities in Stockholm: The actor and husband Victor Hartman, the actor and wife Ellen Hartman and the well-known unmarried Lieutenant and noble man Reinhold von Rosen. She, Mrs. Hartman, was the most famous actress in Sweden by the time. As such, she was surrounded by rumors and slandering concerning different intimate affairs in general, but specifically her alleged intimate relation with the king. Now, both Hartman and von Rosen had disappeared together. It was a sensation and a scandal (Fig. 1). The Old Letterbox told a story built upon a mix of facts, rumors, uncertainties, claims, hints, and assumptions about the whereabouts of the two lovers as well as the actress’ connections not only to the king but also to others standing in line for hinted relationships where money, jewellery, and other expensive articles were exchanged for intimacy. The two lovers were well known, but the rumors surrounding the actress and the king gave the story its basic value and meaning.

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Fig. 1 The Hartmann case in The Old Letterbox (1891)

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Tabloids and daily newspapers were not the only mass media concerned with the scandal. From the same print shop where The Old Letterbox was printed, we found—in the National Library of Sweden—a chapbook from 1891 commenting on the scandal, and intended to be sung with a familiar and widely known melody. The chapbook had basically the same moralizing message as the tabloid portrait. However, it added a few “interiors”” from the assumed private life of Ellen Hartman. One of the seven strophes took the reader into these private spaces. Little Ellen was the most beautiful actress that existed in our Stockholm more loved she was after each whimsicality that was spoken every now and then Barons and counts and small ’directors’ courted her with flowers, jewels, liqueurs and in small ’Cabinets particulier’ privately, she was known as ’sweet ma chère’7

This chapbook ballad is not to be seen as an index of what was going on in the streets. The point here is rather to show how rumors, gossip, and obvious fiction were not only printed at the same office but also offered to the audience, that is, to the interested reader to perhaps sing, and to build a personal picture of the scandalous actions, true or false, as well as disseminating the song among acquaintances and friends; a circulation of mediated printed expressions of slandering, partly coming from the streets, partly returning to the readers and the streets, reminiscent of the chronique scandaleuse. In our case, these semi-fictional pieces were supplemented with a novel with the title “Art and love”, a contemporary story from the artist and “upper world” of Stockholm’ (Konst och kärlek’, en nutidshistoria ur Stockholms artist- och’högre verld’) (1891), written by the still enigmatic nome de plume ’L. von H…’, a story derived from “authentic sources”. In this novel, the real names of the protagonists were slightly changed. For example, Hartman was mentioned with a French pronunciation, “Artman”. Like in other depictions of the story, it circulated around money, forbidden sexuality, an obsolete social order, and dissolving ethics. The portrait, the chapbook, and the novel are three different yet entangled media where the public could collect more or less trustworthy information and speculations about the scandal and its main characters. Except for one: the king, Oscar II. His presence was seldom explicitly mentioned but could be addressed as a “princely” admirer (Beda, 1898, p. 6, 10–11). The royal connection was the reference that made the scandal something more and beyond a common celebrity scandal. The connection did not only give a certain flair and exclusivity to the scandal but also a political touch to it. In Sweden as well as in many other countries in Europe, the 7

Our translation from Swedish.

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late 19th century saw a budding movement toward democracy, which intensified after World War I. Monarchy and particularly the king were, of course, two of the main targets of this movement. And if one could show that the main upholder of the hereditary monarchy was incapable of monitoring his lower abdomen, exercised moral indecency, and sexual behavior risking children out of wedlock, then not only common decency and morals were challenged but also a fundamental condition of the monarchy. In the tabloids and chapbooks slandering, gossip and news met in a mix of infotainment. For obvious reasons, it is very hard to say anything about how the audiences met, understood, and circled these texts. But it is just as obvious that these media had a commercial base of buyers. However, it was not only dubious journalistic and popular media who dealt with the scandal. The more elevated and ambitious newspapers reported on the case but in more subtle and laconic ways. Dagens Nyheter, one of the still most respected newspapers in Sweden, shows, in short, how gossip and rumors played a vital role even in the most serious journalism of the time. Without referring to any rumors the newspaper reported, on the same page, one day in May 1891, that: (A) (B)

Mrs Hartman had left Stockholm without telling whereto, and that she according to a medical certificate was supposed to be weak and nervous. Lieutenant Reinhold von Rosen had signed and delivered his resignation from the army.8

These two tiny news items did not seem to be connected at all. They did not say much. But if you knew the background, if you listened to the gossip, the songs and/or read the popular press, you knew how to connect and relate. These small pieces belonged together, they were two sides of the same coin. In this way, the respected newspaper could feed its readers’ curiosity without, as it seemed, being part of the slandering. Our point here is to show how rumors and slandering, talk and whispering, turned into cultural expressions like songs and novels, journalistic portraits, and items that circulated in the press, both informing its readers and taking for granted that they already were informed. Another point is to highlight the political meanings of rumors and slandering. Some parallels with eighteenth-century France and Darnton’s investigations are obvious (also cf. Farge, 1994; Habermas, 1989). The connection to the royal family was a strong generator in this scandal. Mrs. Hartman was already well known in this respect and the affair with von Rosen added details to her royal affair, which seemed to add arguments not only against the monarchy but the alleged hypocrisy of the upper class and social elites in Stockholm at the time.

8

Dagens Nyheter May 6, 1891, p. 2.

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3.3 The Henemark Case: Gossip and Rumors Moving Between Reporters and the Audience With the gossipy albeit hidden journalistic Hartman material in mind, the media production during the king and the coffee girls scandal 119 years later seems like a veritable tsunami. At a first glance, everything appears to be outspoken. No one held back, especially not journalists. But, when delving into the text production more closely, we managed to track down a certain vagueness in this modern media scandal, especially in the tabloids. For example, a linguistic form that characterized the evening newspapers’ rich retelling of The Reluctant Monarch’s content was that someone “claimed” something. Another insisted that the king and his mistress “should have” (conditional mood) “is said to have” (present passive) or “must have” (modal verb) done one thing or another. Generally, these linguistic constructions are used to make guesses or deductions about an action in the past that we believe has definitely happened, has definitely not happened, or has possibly happened, based on our knowledge, information, or evidence—or lack of it for that matter. To clarify, in a single article in Aftonbladet the reader could find the following source references: “Swedish artist is alleged to have had a relationship with the king”, “the artist did not want to confirm or reject”, “an alleged relationship between the artist and the king”, “the artist was, according to the book, to have been invited to dinner”, “the king is said to have been childishly in love”, “the Swedish king must have visited the club”, “he should, according to information, have spent 100 000 Swedish crowns, on the club”.9 In regard to this style of writing, which we consider as a professional method, we would like to claim two things. Firstly, this journalistic ingenuity can be seen as normal scandal reporting, i.e., as non-confirmed or anonymous information circulation, which is possible to print as long as journalists critically distance themselves from it. Secondly, this kind of linguistic obscurity is, in itself, a sign of gossip and rumor, communication forms which are intimately connected to scandals but seldom studied as such (Hammarlin, 2019, 2021). This style of writing also indicates something important about the role of the scandalizer that some journalists seem—consciously or unconsciously—to take on; they not only report about the event but also spread rumor and gossip, which might add fuel to the fire.

3.4 Scandal Haze We would like to propose the term scandal haze to describe this phenomenon, which captures how gossip and rumors are spread by multiple actors simultaneously, i.e., professional storytellers as well as members of the multifaceted and active audiences through a vast range of media channel: print, radio, television, digital forum threads, 9

Mattias Carlsson, “Känd artist pekas ut: Kungen var förälskad”, Aftonbladet November 3, 2010. Our translation.

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and the mouth—the “talking out loud”. The accumulation of scandal haze, we argue, is not solely caused by actions by media professionals, but by people, who go on with their everyday businesses in newsrooms, staff rooms, digital forums, living rooms, bedrooms, and kitchens. The scandal haze triggers the will to “sort things out”, straighten the question marks, i.e., to enter into a dialogue with others to explore what can be seen as acceptable or unacceptable behavior, true or false information, etc., where the “no smoke without fire” idiom captures at least some of the willingness to talk (Bird, 2003; Hammarlin, 2019, 2021). Similar to the Hartman case, the audiences were cordially invited to speculate, subtract, and add as they themselves preferred. The scandal haze may be understood as a consequence of media convergence, that is, how talk, picture, and text amalgamate, when a scandal is at stake. Henry Jenkins (2008) relates this phenomenon to digital cultures (cf. Blank, 2013) but we would argue that media convergence also applies to pre-digital media. In our first case, we gave examples of how the printed press were intertwined with novels and chapbooks, especially the latter pointed toward orality with its instructions for singing. By convergence, Jenkins means the “(…) flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behaviour of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they want” (Jenkins, 2008, p. 2). It is not primarily a question of technologies but how different media interact and entangle. Digital media facilitate interaction, but as we may observe from history, interaction and entanglement are not dependent on digitalization. Oral communication and its mediation into different text genres are obviously interactive, as well as long-lasting.

3.5 Audience Participation and Scandalized Women At this point, one important question needs to be answered: who was the female artist on everyone’s lips, claimed to be King Carl XVI Gustaf’s mistress? During the coffee girl era in the 1990’s Camilla Henemark was an internationally established artist, mostly known for her role as a singer and front figure in the pop group “Army of lovers”. During the intense scandal week that we have studied, Henemark was placed in the center of attention, side by side with the monarch. When we studied the reporting about Henemark we assumed that the scandal audience activities at Flashback forum—a Swedish version of Reddit—are, in some way or the other, interconnected with the activities performed by professional storytellers. This premise is based on the fact that the journalists who wrote The Reluctant Monarch, which contains a long chapter about Henemark, openly announced that they had bumped into each other at the open digital forum in question, where they both had investigated the gossip surrounding the Swedish king. There, they could, among other things, study a lively discussion thread called “Den stora skvallertråden om H. M. Kung Carl XVI Gustaf” [The Big Gossip Thread about H. M. King Carl XVI Gustaf], which started in 2004 and consists of 9562 comments, written by anonymous members with usernames such as Rost_Biff [Roast_Beef], TröttSvensk

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[TiredSwede], and Farbror Sven [Uncle Sven]. The interconnections between the book and the digital open forum were also confirmed by other actors, such as Martin Kaunitz, publisher at Albert Bonnier’s publishing house. Kaunitz said in an interview in Svenska Dagbladet: “– (…) this book may be the first to press down a Flashback thread between two binders”.10 The statement was ambiguous. It underscored the fierce competition, and possibly envy, in a pressured book industry.11 It pointed toward the influence of Flashback on the book, but at the same time took honor and glory from it. It also hinted at the news media’s indirect dependence on Flashback as they, especially the tabloids, repeatedly published long excerpts from the book while at the same time distancing themselves from it. In connection with the publication of the book and the massive media reporting about it, the presence on the Flashback thread increased significantly.12 Exclamations in the style of the following occurred frequently. I’m drooling. This will be really yummy! My God, what a wonderful farce this develops into – just sit back and enjoy.

Undisguised scandal and gossip greed of the raw kind was expressed in many comments, paired with schadenfreude. During the studied week, Henemark was explicitly mentioned 582 times in the gossip thread. Most of what was written about her is impossible to reproduce, the language is too crude and racist, and reveals the dark side of the digital community. We can, however, take note of some general impressions, such as how she was reduced to her body, that is, the comments tied her to the female body. Body parts and other physical attributes were mentioned repeatedly. Lips, hair, legs, buttocks, breasts, the lush, and the dark skin color. According to the Flashback members, “La Camilla” sought spotlight and attention. She was a “star”, a “bride” who loved “scandal parties”, glitter and glamor, but she was also a “liar” and a “golddigger” who partied in a decadent way. She had “bad taste”. For a while she was rich, but now she was poor. She was a brilliant woman who turned into a notorious and promiscuous—perhaps even prostitute—addict, who ended up in the gutter, and therefore sold her story about the king to the evening papers. A sad figure. A victim. A manipulative, sinful seducer who needed psychiatric help. She was probably not completely healthy, maybe crazy. She was “a diva” and as such (…) high strung, self-centered and emotional, covered with a fragile shell. She can be an opera star, but also an actress or a13 dancer, a movie star, a club queen, a drag queen, a dandy, a sucking center of social life. (Johannisson 2015, p. 11)14 10 Lina Kalmteg and Johan Hellekant, “Kungaboken delar branschen”, Svenska Dagbladet, November 3, 2010. 11 It was another firm, Lind & Co., that published the book. The first edition was sold out in a week. The book was reprinted twice and sold approximately 80.000 copies, which is a lot for non-fiction literature in Sweden. 12 In fact, the week we study represents 18% of the total Flashback thread material, which spans over 17 years. 13 Our translation. 14 Our translation.

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This was the brighter side of the diva at the beginning of the nineteenth century, writes idea historian Karin Johannisson (2015). The negative meaning of the word included connotations such as manipulative, erratic, domineering, and easily offended. Also, hysterical and paranoid. “(…) how much headstrong, introverted or outgoing femininity can a contemporary tolerate?”, Johannisson asks (2015:13).

3.6 Gender Roles in Royal Sex Scandals The parallels to Ellen Hartman are obvious. Even though more than a 100 years separate Hartman from Henemark, the alleged royal mistresses were publicly described in similar ways, not least in terms of their physical attributes and personal characteristics, such as extraordinary, charming, unpredictable, luck-seeking, plebeian, seductive, and manipulative. By being eccentric, an anomalous identity was built up. As divas, they were almost masculine in their urge to rule and climb, yet vulnerable in the role of victim. The diva’s body is just too much and is dressed, as if to underscore this, in fur, wig, and swan’s-down. It does not fit into the gender contract. Extraordinary, radical, and intelligent, the diva raises a crucial question: Is she in fact a male (Johannisson, 2015:40)? And in relation to the kings: Of all women, why did they fall in love with them, such ambiguous and tragic figures? It is not unimportant that both Ellen Hartman and Camilla Henemark were described as mentally unstable. As such, they were placed outside of the acceptable and rational, they became representatives of the Other, in several senses. By the first decades of the twentieth century, they had perhaps been labeled by the authorities as “table ladies” [bordsdamer in Swedish], that is, a kind of geishas “who were employed in private clubs, attractive and multilingual, divided into types such as the ‘demonic’, ‘exotic’, ‘Scandinavian’, or ‘aristocratic’ (Johannisson, 2015, p. 27). In The Reluctant Monarch, Camilla Henemark is the only woman who appears with her real name in the book, as the protagonist in the most notable chapter called “The Courtesan”. The term places Henemark hovering just above the mentioned categories. A courtesan is a “woman belonging to the finer demimond”, a person who courts someone, flirts, and pretends.15 The Swedish phrase ’att bedriva kurtis’ simply means having sex with someone. If trusting in the press, Henemark was not formally interviewed by the book authors. The main author Thomas Sjöberg said in an interview in Expressen that he had compiled “things she has told me over the years”, that is, at various gatherings, such as private dinners. Undocumented private conversations without Henemark knowing about the book project, critically remarked the newspaper, thus once again succeeding in circulating the rumors and keeping a critical distance to them.16 As in the thread, Camilla Henemark was palpably exposed in the press, especially in 15

SAOB, search word: “kurtisan”. Christian Holmén, Andreas Johansson, and Diamant Salihu, “Henemark pekas ut av författarna”, news article in Expressen, November 3, 2010.

16

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the tabloids. The journalists repeated the same narrative about her but in less harsh wording, focusing on the huge success that was exchanged by misery and depression. It’s a fall from grace story that is supposed to touch the readers’ hearts, and make them both feel sorry for and distrust Camilla Henemark.

3.7 Reputation Management This unusually long-lasting scandal drama’s peripeteia took place on May 30, 2011, more than half a year after the book was published, when the king accepted an interview with TT News Agency to comment upon the revelations and accusations in the book—a reputation management act by the Swedish Royal Court Information Department, which caused much bewilderment and dark humor among Swedes.17 The interview was massively reproduced by multiple media genres and actors and caused yet another storm in the storm. We investigate this scandal’s momentum thoroughly elsewhere. The reason why we mention it here is to underline a particular circumstance: King Carl XVI Gustaf could not remain in the shadows, like his great great grandfather Oscar II, hoping that the storm would abate—because it didn’t. By way of perseverance, the media, professional storytellers, private gossipers, and all forced the king to respond.

4 Conclusions Even though technology has transformed the opportunities for communication in such a comprehensive manner that it is difficult to draw any parallels, people are still alike in some senses, i.e., they are cultural and political creatures, regardless of whether they live in the 1890s or the 2010s, and as such they are the same in some respects. For example, people’s need to both convey news and inform themselves of what is going on appears to be comparatively constant over time, and so is the way by which this is achieved: through communicative exchange via the available means and channels (Stephens, 2007, p. 7–16). In addition, gossip and scandalous news appear to be persistent phenomena that have a particularly marked effect on the audience, regardless of whether this audience was alive during the late 1800s or lives in the digital era. Journalism’s and the public rumor’s dynamics have changed radically since Olof Roth’s days. The possibility for journalists’ to read hybrid gossipy conversations in online forums is a twenty-first-century phenomenon. The power of the monarchy in Sweden has successively decreased while journalism’s power and societal influence have increased. The perceived meaning of a division between private and public 17 TT News Agency is a national wire service in Sweden, its history dating back to the 1920s (https:// tt.se/en/about-us/).

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life has been culturally negotiated, moved, and transformed. In the late nineteenth century, journalism held back because of fear of reprisals. Oscar II’s presumed bedroom antics gave rise to marvel and curiosity among people, especially when it was possible to detect the thrilling scent of scandal, but the reporting about the Hartman affair was conscientiously covered in satiric language in such a way that it has been a challenge during the research process to both find and analyze the scandal narratives. Libels, chapbooks, satirical drawings, couplets, poems, and also seemingly innocent news items published in a vast range of media presupposed the audience’s prior knowledge of the Hartman affair, and played on it. The same can be said about the Henemark affair, which took place in both old and new media environments. In addition, an old medium as gossip was reintroduced during this period of time in new digital media environments. Without having to mention Hartman or Henemark by name, the desire to gossip was aroused through an unspoken familiarity between journalism and citizens, like a tacit agreement. In fact, the scandals grew out of vagueness. We have pointed out how such vagueness had several causes that changed over time. Restrictions in the Freedom of the Press Act, the desire to protect the royal family, and poor access to information are some examples. At each editorial office, assessments were made of what was possible to publish. In other words, hazy, dubious statements, and obvious untruths should not be perceived as inherent weaknesses in this kind of journalism. Rather, we have shed light on how such “knowledge gaps” invited the creative and informed reader to actively form an individual opinion, not of what had happened but of what could possibly have happened, and what to think of this—a kind of grammatical conditional on which some media scandals rest. To gossip and spread rumors about kings and their alleged mistresses is neither innocent nor insignificant. Although often taking place unreflectively in everyday life, partly hidden behind a curtain of laughter, this particular talk about Oscar II and Carl XVI Gustaf both entertains, questions, and criticizes, and has as its very purpose to circulate. Our study shows the intrinsic relationship between “the street talk”—irrespective of if this takes place in digital or physical forums—and professional journalism, pointing toward journalism’s, and especially popular journalism’s, inherent sensitivity to its audiences, which in turn sheds light on media audiences’ power. We claim that listening to gossip and transforming it into journalistic features, through all sorts of professional tools, is an important yet understudied journalistic method, which is used systematically rather than haphazardly by reporters, both then and now. This is not something that just happens because journalists lack credible sources, rather gossip and rumors are, and were, important means of finding hot news for many editorial offices, especially the popular press, where—through their linguistic ingenuity—reporters both critically distance themselves from and benevolently circulate gossip. In accordance with this view, gossipy popular news journalism—by press historian Mitchell Stephens categorized as harmless fait divers (2007:94ff)—ought to be taken seriously, especially when it identifies and challenges power relations.

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Perceived immorality and demands for gender equality in the twenty-first century had its counterpart in allegations of indecency and demands for democracy in the late nineteenth century. Gossip and political change were closely connected then, as it is now. Intimate, popular journalism was, and is, a convergence of several communicating technologies where the written word has met the spoken word. This, in turn, has, and had, a tendency to bring down the royalty to a metaphorical street level, a downward movement stressed by bodily practices with a certain abdominal focus as well as the sexualized mistresses’ alleged commercial use of their sex.

References Archives Gothenburg, Gothenburg University Library. Lund, Lund University Library. Stockholm, National Library of Sweden, The Centre for Swedish Folk Music and Jazz Research.

Digital resources Flashback forum, Den stora skvallertråden om H. M. Kung Carl XVI Gustaf, all comments between Nov 2–8, 2010, in total 1727 comments, https://www.flashback.org/t119407. Mediearkivet (Retriever Research), Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Aftonbladet och Expressen. Search: ”den motvillige monarken”, the days before and after the publication of the book, Nov 2–8, 2010. In total 181 texts, mainly published in the popular press – comments, columns, debate articles and news items. The material was analyzed in facsimile.

Literature Beda. (pseudonym) 1898. Ellen Hartman. En firad aktris. Bingham, A., & Conboy, M. (2015). Tabloid century: The popular press in Britain, 1896 to the present. Peter Lang. Bird, S.E. (1997). ‘What a Story! Understanding the Audience for Scandal’. In J. Lull & S. Hinerman (Eds.),Media scandal: morality and desire in the popular culture marketplace (pp. 99–121). Polity Press. Bird, S. E. (2003). The audience in everyday life: Living in a media world. Routledge. Blank, T. J. (2013). The last laugh: Folk humour, celebrity culture and mass-mediated disasters in the digital age. University of Wisconsin Press. Brewer, J. (2005). Personal scandal and politics in eighteenth-century England: Secrecy, intimacy and the interior self in the public sphere. In: M.C. Skuncke (Ed.), Media and political culture in the eighteenth century (pp. 85–106). Royal Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities. Briggs, A., & Burke, P. (2009). A social history of the media. From Gutenberg to the internet. Polity Press.

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Burkhardt, S. (2018). Scandals in the network society. In A. Haller, H. Michael & M. Kraus (Eds.), Scandalogy: An interdisciplinary field (pp. 19–45). Herbert von Halem Verlag. Carlsson, I. (1967). Frihetstidens handskrivna politiska litteratur: En bibliografi, Göteborg: Serie: Acta Bibliothecae Universitatis Gothoburgensis. Conboy, M. (2010). The paradoxes of journalism history. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 30(3), 411–420. Darnton, R. (1982). The literary underground of the old regime. Harvard University Press. Darnton, R. (1990). The kiss of Lamourette: Reflections in cultural history. W. W. Norton. Darnton, R. (1996). The forbidden best-sellers of pre-revolutionary France. W. W. Norton. Darnton, R. (1997). Best-sellers and Gossip-mongers in 18th-century France. Unesco Courier, 50(6), 14–18. Darnton, R. (2004). All the news that’s fit to sing. Smithsonian, 35(7), 110–119. Darnton, R. (2005). Mademoiselle Bonafon and the private life of Louis XV: Communication Circuits in Eighteenth-Century France. In M.C. Skuncke (Ed.), Media and political culture in the eighteenth century (pp. 21–54). Kungliga Vitterhetsakademien. Darnton, R. (2010a). Poetry and the police: Communication networks in 18th century Paris. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Darnton, R. (2010b). The devil in the holy water or the art of slander from Louis XIV to Napoleon. University of Pennsylvania Press. Domeier, N. (2015). The Eulenberg affair: A cultural history of politics in the German Empire. Camden House. Ebervall, L., & Samuelson, P. (2008). Ers Majestäts olycklige Kurt. En roman med verklighetsbakgrund. Piratförlaget. Farge, A. (1994). Subversive words. Public opinion in eighteenth-century France. Polity Press. Habermas, J. (1989). The Structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a German Bourgeois Society. Polity Press. Hammarlin, M.M., & Jönsson, L.E. (2017). Prat i text. Om skvaller som journalistisk metod. In T. Forslid et al. (Ed.), Celebritetsskapande: Från Strindberg till Asllani (pp. 93–115). Lund: Mediehistoriskt arkiv nr. 35. Hammarlin, M.-M. (2019). Exposed: Living with scandal, rumour, and gossip. Lund University Press/Manchester University Press. Hammarlin, M.-M. (2021). Media scandals, rumour and gossip: A study with an ear close to the ground. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 24(1), 90–106. Hartley, J. (1996). Popular reality: Journalism, modernity, popular culture. Arnold. Hartley, J. (2008). The supremacy of ignorance over instruction and of numbers over knowledge. Journalism Studies, 9(5), 679–691. Herring, S.C. (2011). Computer-mediated conversation, Part I: Introduction and overview. Language@Internet, 8, article 2. Holmberg, C.G. et al. (1983). En svensk presshistoria. Esselte Studium. Jarlbrink, J. (2015). Mobile/Sedentary. Media History, 21(3), 280–293. Jenkins, H. (2008). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York University Press. Johannesson, E., Nordmark, D., & Petersson, B. (2001). Den svenska pressens historia 2. Åren då allting hände. (1830–1897). Ekerlids förlag. Jönsson, L.E. (2015). Writing history. Past and future in transforming Swedish psychiatry, 1970– 1990. Ethnologia Scandinavica, 43, 114–127. Kern, S. (2003). The culture of time and space 1880–1918. Cambridge University Press. L. von H… (pseudonym) (1891). ‘Konst och kärlek’, en nutidshistoria ur Stockholms artist- och ’högre verld’. Nya Boktryckeriet. Ohlsson, H. (2017). Representing pariah femininity sexuality, gender, and class at the Fin-de-Siècle. Nordic Theatre Studies, 29(1), 44–63. Ricoeur, P. (1988). Från text till handling: En antologi om hermeneutik, ed. by Peter Kemp & Bengt Kristensson. Symposion.

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Italian Newspapers and Corruption Scandals Coverage: The Construction of the “Parallel Trial” Roberto Mincigrucci and Anna Stanziano

1 Introduction For several years now, the relationship between the judiciary and politics in Italy has become conflictual (Guarnieri, 2003; Piana, 2014). Since 1992, when the investigations of a team of prosecutors gave rise to the biggest scandal in Italian political history (called “Tangentopoli”), the relationship between the judiciary and politics has become increasingly complex and the Italian media have begun to provide extensive coverage of inquiries concerning the political class (Marletti, 2010). Since that time, the judiciary has increasingly begun to investigate political figures for corruption offenses. On the other hand, some political groups have started a real struggle against judges, accusing them of politicization and instrumental investigations. In the literature, there is a great debate about the “permanent election campaign” (Blumenthal, 1980). It describes a situation when there are no differences between the periods before and after the election campaigns, in which politicians must implement communication strategies aimed at maintaining consensus at all times. In this context, in a similar way, some scholars also begin to speak of a “permanent Tangentopoli”1 , in which politicians must take care of their behavior and their communication strategies also to prevent a scandal breaking in the newspapers, in order not to erode the 1 The term “permanent Tangentopoli” is to be attributed to Fabio Bordignon, used during the conference “Conoscere la corruzione per combatterla. Una prospettiva interdisciplinare all’analisi dei fenomeni corruttivi” organized by Anac, University of Perugia and Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa as part of the research project Anticorruption Policies Revisited-anticorrp.eu, which was held in Rome on 09/03/2017. Speech available at the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ciU_B AiP38.

This work was supported by MIUR PRIN 2017—2017CRLZ3F: PolitiCanti. The Politicisation of Corruption and Anticorruption Strategies in Italy R. Mincigrucci (B) · A. Stanziano Department of Political Science, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Haller et al. (eds.), Scandology 3, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85013-5_6

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reputational capital that allows politicians to exercise power (Thompson, 2000). This can be considered a consequence of the recent transformations in the public sphere, particularly in relation to Manin’s (1997) “audience democracy” in which the vote is no longer given based on ideologies or programs, but it is based on the trust that a candidate can transmit to the voters. In this context, the media, with their coverage, play a fundamental role in building the reputation of a subject, but also in destroying it, especially through scandals. Through this study, we will try to highlight and evaluate whether the mediated scandal provides adequate coverage of dishonest episodes or has discrepancies between the judicial trial and the media trial. Several jurists (Bruti Liberati, 2010; Riviezzo, 2018) indeed, increasingly speak of a “parallel media trial”: a distortion of reality for narrative purposes, namely, its spectacularization, in which the judicial documents and the work of the prosecutors, in general, are dramatized or adapted to the quick rhythms of the news. More in detail, by analyzing articles published by a sample of Italian newspapers (Corriere della Sera; la Repubblica; Il Giornale) in their printed and web edition, which report on some Italian cases of corruption, we will try to highlight how the journalistic coverage of a scandal and its relations with judicial proceedings are structured over time. This helps to understand how they are born, what are the elements of greatest newsworthiness and especially if they can provide a complete report of the various phases of the event. The questions on which our research is based are as follows: (a) (b) (c)

What role do judicial investigations play in the social construction process of a scandal? Does media attention remain constant throughout the duration of the case, or is it only focused on certain aspects in particular? Is it possible to find a certain coincidence between the sanctioning mechanisms of a criminal trial for corruption crimes and the consequences generated by the scandal?

The underlying hypothesis is that the journalistic coverage of a corruption case is only a “partial” report of an event, capable of creating a “parallel trial” (Bruti Liberati, 2010), which, instead of taking place in the court, takes place on the pages of a newspaper. In the next two paragraphs, we will discuss the main discrepancies between mediated scandals and trials from a theoretical perspective. Subsequently, we will empirically evaluate these discrepancies through the analysis of selected case studies.

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2 Mediated Scandals Between Social Functions and Media Logic Often, both in literature (Brenton, 2019) and in the common sense, a social function is attributed to scandals because the visibility given by the media to illicit or morally deviant events can lead to “tangible” and “intangible” (Stapenhurst, 2000) consequences to the political system and to the social system. On the one hand, in fact, the scandal is able to activate sanction mechanisms against corrupt politicians or those acting against the interest of the community, which can be real “tangible” punishments such as resignations from public services or complaints and arrests. On the other hand, scandals are able to produce “intangible” effects that affect the community because, by bringing to light a certain illegal behavior, they re-establish certain moral codes in a symbolic way, or rather implicitly reaffirm what is right and what is wrong for a given social context (Ettema & Glasser, 1998). However, according to various scholars (Ares et al., 2019; Entman, 2012; Kepplinger, 2020), this social function attributed to scandals must be approached in a critical way, as scandals are complex phenomena that sometimes go beyond the actual transgression and therefore they can have ambivalent consequences in society. As Entman (2012) argues, sometimes the research on scandals is vitiated by a misidentification of the scandal as any immoral or illegal act while the offense and the scandal are two contiguous entities, partially interpenetrated, but with distinctions. On the one hand, in fact, not all scandals arise from a transgression punishable by law: crime is a behavior that violates legal norms and it concerns behaviors actively pursued and sanctioned by the law (Caniglia, 2016), while the scandal can affect a much wider range of behaviors, not necessarily illegal, but rather simply frowned upon or unconventional. At the same time, it must be considered that not all acts of deviance result in a scandal. Many behaviors may violate the law or prevail over morality, but not thereby arouse a similar level of indignation. The scandal is not an ontological reality, hence an objective and real event as a crime can be, but it is a process of social construction generated in a specific reference context (Cepernich, 2008). It could be assumed that scandal is a sort of “qualification”, a label that public opinion attributes only to some transgressions that violate the dominant morality. The breaking of a scandal implies a process of attribution of meaning within public opinion. This attribution of meaning is the result of a competition among several opinions: when there is a crime, a competition starts between those who try to label that particular behavior as “scandalous” and those who instead try to neutralize or counter-label it. It is no coincidence that Lang and Lang (1983) have titled their book “The battle for public opinion” concerning what is perhaps the most famous political scandal of all time: “Watergate”. As the two authors argue, the mechanism that led to the social construction of the scandal can be considered as a battle for the conquest of public opinion. On the one side, there is the person involved, who was trying to save his reputation by denying that he was responsible for the offense or by trying to

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convey the message that it was a minor infringement. On the other side, there are his detractors, who were trying to convince the public opinion of the seriousness of the facts (Lang & Lang, 1983). A key role in this process of “labeling” the scandal is played by the mass media (Tumber & Waisbord, 2019): Thompson (2000) argues that modern scandals are “mediated” scandals, which do not exist independently of the media but are created by mediated forms of communication (Allern & Pollack, 2012). This is because in contemporary societies the media play an important role as socialization agencies. They are the main tools through which most people become aware of corruption cases, significantly influencing the perception of public opinion (Rose, 2015). Through a process of “thematization” (Marletti, 1985), the media manage to direct the narrative flow toward certain frames, organizing a complex phenomenon like a case of corruption in a coherent and simplified story. It is precisely from this “mediated” characteristic of the scandals that, according to Thompson (2000), the main limits of the “social function of scandals” arise. Like any other event represented by the media, episodes of corruption are influenced (and sometimes deformed) by the so-called “media logics” (Altheide & Snow, 1979), namely, the need to adapt the news to certain techniques of presentation in order to make it compatible with the means of communication and attractive to the public (Mazzoleni, 2008). The commercialization of mass media has pushed the media to vie for the audience conquest, and news is selected and packaged with the aim of attracting as many readers as possible. However, this adaptation of corruption cases to the “media logic” generates at the same time a process of mediatization of corruption and the related judicial investigations. In a competitive information market, corruption reports must shock the public, outrage them, or sometimes entertain them in order to increase their attractiveness on the market (Jewkes, 2004). Very often distortions are generated in the plot due to narrative needs that also cause distortions in the perception of public opinion. These distortions concern the reporting of the prosecutors’ work and judicial investigations, in particular, which are in fact complex phenomena that are rich in technicalities and intertwine logical and legal rules (Giostra, 2018). At the same time, such cases are highly newsworthy, because they provide journalists with an interesting story to tell, made up of mysteries to be solved, continuous revelations that create suspense, and, above all, provide “bad characters” around whom it is possible to build a narrative. As we will see later, the journalistic coverage of a scandal does not offer a linear account of all the phases of the investigation and the judicial procedure, but reduces its complexity in some elements that are considered interesting for the reference audience (Conti, 2016). Influenced by the media logic, journalists actually produce distortions in the story of judicial activity: they pass from “information on the trial” (Giostra, 2007), or a faithful coverage of the judicial procedure carried out with a wealth of information, to a “parallel media trial” (Bruti Liberati, 2010; Riviezzo, 2018). The “parallel trial” is a trial celebrated in the media. Instead of taking place in a courtroom, it takes place in a newsroom. “Spectacularization undermines the logic of the trial, the space and time of the trial, the ritual of the trial to the point of proposing a real ‘parallel trial’” (Bruti Liberati, 2010, p.8). This ends up creating

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discrepancies between the “justice expected” by public opinion and “justice applied” by the judiciary (Canzio, 2017), generating confusion and sometimes disillusionment among the public.

3 “Parallel Trial” and Degradation As mentioned in the previous section, the way in which a corruption scandal is reported by the media can have important consequences, both in public opinion and in the political system. Among the effects that are commonly associated with scandals there is that of arousing indignation in public opinion (Sherman, 1978; Thompson, 2000), which very often turns into social disapproval and pours into one or more involved politicians. However, the blame and indignation produced by a mediated coverage of corruption may not necessarily be directed toward the right target. The “mediated scandal” can create discrepancies between the judicial procedure and what is actually perceived by the public that is getting informed about the investigations or more generally about the corruption episode through the press. These discrepancies arise from the inherent differences that characterize the media sphere and the judicial sphere. According to Haggerty (2003, p.57), in courthouses, “there are written rules of procedure, rules of evidence, rules for the particular court and judge hearing the case. Not so when dealing with the media. The forum is constantly changing, the rules are amorphous, and there is far more opportunity to be conversational”. At least at first sight, these two spheres pursue similar purposes. Both have the objective of reconstructing past events by sifting through clues and declarations. In substance, however, their tasks and their ways of acting are profoundly different. The former deals with repressing illegal behavior according to the legal system, following a specific procedure that requires ascertaining the truth in compliance with the adversarial procedure (Serges, 2008). The latter, on the other hand, tells stories that are able to attract the public, and sometimes they do so through a partial representation of the facts, missing other aspects that may be relevant for judicial purposes but which are not considered sufficiently newsworthy or that do not fit into the frame of the narrative. Judges focus on the quality of information, carefully selecting the data on which they then base their decisions. Journalists instead focus on quantity, collecting in a “bulimic” way any information coming both from the prosecutors but also directly from the interested parties, rewarding the emotionality of the story. For this reason, we believe that the term “parallel media trial” may help in describing our observation: it describes a distortion of reality for narrative purposes (Bruti Liberati, 2010; Riviezzo, 2018). The main difficulty in harmonizing the trial with its reporting perhaps concerns the “times” with which magistrates and journalists work (Giostra, 2018). The processing times with which the magistrates work are very long, due to the formalisms that require certain accuracy in finding all the evidence necessary to proceed legally and safeguard the indicted. This is particularly true for Italy, which has an overall duration of trials much higher than most Western countries. Instead, the journalists

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are dedicated to immediacy: they try to find and to publish as much information as possible in the shortest possible time. On the one hand, to avoid missing a news item that other newspapers cover and, on the other hand, to follow the audience’s interest in a specific case, which may loose intensity over the duration of the trial. This type of story can convey incomplete, fragmentary, and sometimes distorted information. At the same time, however, it can initiate a social process of labeling as deviant a subject who is simply being investigated, relying on the need for a guilty party on whom to direct the indignation. In this regard, Harold Garfinkel (1956) used the formula of “degradation ceremonies” to describe a symbolic process that aims to modify the public identity of that subject, attributing moral values to her/him lower than what society can consider normal and acceptable. The dramatization of an offense by some media outlets can be considered a real process of degradation as understood by Garfinkel, which aims to stigmatize and degrade the subject under accusation. The public identity of the person involved is changed through a double process of de-identification and re-identification; her/his social identity is in fact changed by deleting the previous image and replacing it with a new one, demolishing his reputation and labeling him as a subject irremediably immoral and worthy of social reprobation. Conti (2016) speaks of “profane knowledge”, referring to the level of information and preparation that the ordinary citizen presents with regard to the technical-legal categories that lead to the issuing of a judgment. According to Conti, the common people lack the necessary skills to fully understand the complex procedural bureaucracy and the logic carried out in the trial, therefore they rely on the mass media in order to obtain information on the criminal procedure. Profane knowledge leads to an instinctual way of reasoning, based on “cognitive shortcuts” that fill information gaps and overcome comprehension difficulties and which can produce an “explosive mixture” when combined with incomplete, fragmentary, and sometimes distorted information (Conti 2006). A mixture that becomes even more explosive in an era characterized by the so-called “politics of trust” (Thompson, 2000), that is, an era in which the reputation of a politician plays a fundamental role in the search for consensus after the end of the twentieth-century political ideologies. A corruption scandal is an event capable of irreparably damaging the reputation of the involved actor and, if it is based on incomplete and fragmented assumptions, it risks distorting the perception of public opinion and the correct functioning of democratic processes.

4 Methodology The data that will be presented in the following pages are the result of an empirical analysis on the journalistic coverage of nine scandals related to corruption offenses in Italy. This work is based on specific case studies, therefore it allows verifying the conditions under which a phenomenon can occur, but does not allow generalization on how many times this actually happens. For each scandal, two keywords (Table 1)

Franco Fiorito Pdl council group leader of Region Lazio

Er Batman Fiorito

President of Region Lombardia

Civil Protection Director

Fondazione Maugeri Roberto Scandal Formigoni

Guido Bertolaso

Filippo Penati

Ignazio Marino

Francesco Belsito

Gianfranco Fini

Civil Protection Scandal

Sesto System

Marino’s Crazy expenses

The family

Villa of Montecarlo

President of the Chamber of Deputies

Treasurer of Lega Nord party

Mayor of Roma

Pd council group leader of Region Lombardia

Treasurer La Margherita

Electoral refunds La Luigi Lusi Margherita

Mayor of Bologna

Flavio Delbono

Cinzia Gate

Character’s position

Main character

Case

Table 1 Summary of the nine analyzed scandals

Embezzlement

Embezzlement

Embezzlement

Bribes

Bribes

Bribes

Embezzlement

Embezzlement

Embezzlement

Crime

1/7/2010–1/7/2019

1/1/2012–1/1/2019

1/9/2015–1/9/2019

1/7/2011–1/7/2019

9/2/2010–9/2/2019

1/4/2012–1/4/2019

1/1/2012–1/1/2019

6/9/2012–6/9/2019

1/6/2009–1/6/2019

Period

Tulliani and Montecarlo

Belsito and Rimborsi

Marino and Scontrini

Penati and Sesto

Bertolaso and Appalti

Formigoni and Daccò

Lusi and Rimborsi

Fiorito and Rimborsi

Delbono and Cinzia

Keywords

1220

229

220

995

710

612

243

169

645

Print press articles

296

265

224

319

436

293

202

189

289

Web-edition articles

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that could identify it as uniquely as possible were chosen. All articles that contained both keywords (in the title or in the text) were selected and downloaded. The analyzed newspapers are Il Corriere della Sera, Il Giornale, and la Repubblica in their printed versions and in their respective web editions. The selection was made by trying to reconcile some criteria, such as circulation, political position, and different “styles” of journalism. The choice of basing the analysis exclusively on newspapers is due, first of all, to a greater heuristic operation, since newspaper articles are easier to recover than other types of sources, especially if one intends to investigate relatively remote articles (for example, in the empirical part some cases dating back to 2009 will be analyzed). Furthermore, the scandal is a process of construction of reality that is divided into different phases and the story that journalists offer every day lends itself to an analysis better than the brevity of the news reports or the sporadic nature of a television broadcast. In fact, newspapers have the opportunity to follow a scandal in depth day after day, allowing us to understand how it manifests itself and how it evolves over time. The articles published by the print press edition of the three selected newspapers were downloaded from the “Factiva-Dow Jones” databases. The articles published by the digital editions, on the other hand, were downloaded through the online archives made available to users by the three newspapers. The method used to download the articles and the choice of remote scandals may have affected the limited number of articles found for digital editions. As regards the online archives, for example, the newspapers could eliminate some published articles over the years and leave only a selection of these available to users, or they could decide not to keep in the archives the updating interventions made on an article in the course of the day. As for the choice of remote scandals, on the other hand, in this case the limited number of articles published, especially in the first years, could be due to a limited activity of the three newspapers on their websites, an activity that has been significantly increased in more recent years (Van Dijck et al., 2018). We tried to balance the selection of cases based on the political placement of the person involved. In addition, remote scandals were taken into consideration in order to have a longer reference period that also included some advanced phases of the judicial trial and not only the preliminary phase. Through the downloaded articles, it was possible to reconstruct the trend of the coverage that the three newspapers and their respective web editions devoted to the topic, correlating the amount of articles with the main events that characterized the scandal.

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5 The Role of Judicial Investigations in the Social Construction a Scandal In the next two paragraphs, we present the analysis of the journalistic coverage by the three analyzed newspapers (both in the print and web editions). It will look at changes that take place over time, in order to verify the concordance between the main stages of the investigation and judicial proceedings and the peaks of media attention. In other words, we will analyze the “cycle of attention”, that is, the periods (and consequently the events) that have captured the attention of the analyzed newspapers, in order to verify whether the latter have provided linear and complete reports of the events or if they focused only on some aspects. In this paragraph, we will focus, in particular, on the initial stages of the analyzed scandals and in the revelation mechanisms, and thus on the role of judicial inquiries on the rise and development of a mediated scandal, while in the next paragraph we will focus on the discrepancies between reporting and trial. The cycle of attention shown in Fig. 1(A and B), if contextualized with the main events related to the case, allows us to draw important conclusions about the relationship between judicial investigation and media coverage. Starting from our first research question, it is evident that judicial inquiries play a key role in the social construction of scandal. Almost all the analyzed cases start out to be covered in an intensive way, just when the magistrates or the police reveal the wrongdoing and start investigating the case.2 This may seem obvious: revelation is one of the most important phases of a scandal because it brings to light hidden elements and produces an offense or outrage against the person involved (Thompson, 2000). The event triggers the scandal because it “scandalizes” the public by attracting attention (Sherman, 1978). However, in two of the analyzed cases, the disclosure occurred before the judicial investigations. In those cases, the wrongdoing was exposed to the public by the media, without getting the high degree of attention and indignation that we would have expected from a scandal. We refer to the cases “Cinzia Gate” (concerning the Mayor of Bologna, Delbono) and “The Family” (concerning the League politician Belsito) (see Fig. 1B). In the first case, the Mayor of Bologna, Delbono was accused of embezzlement for having donated a Municipality credit card to his fiancée for private expenditure. In that case, the revelation first appeared in the media in June 2009 (month 1 in Fig. 1B). The analyzed newspapers were only marginally interested in the event for the first few months. The interest in the affair began to rise progressively, especially when in January 2010 (month 7 in Fig. 1B) Delbono was officially investigated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office. In that case, media attention was also amplified. A similar situation occurred in the case “The Family”. The story concerns a case of embezzlement in which Belsito, Treasurer of the Lega party, is accused of having embezzled money from the party and having allocated it to himself and to some prominent members of the party. It was brought to light by a newspaper investigation 2

The only exception concerns the “Villa of Montecarlo” case, but, in this case, it is an episode of an instrumental case of investigative journalism. See Mincigrucci, Stanziano, and Mazzoni (2018).

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in January 2012 (month 1 in Fig. 1B) but, in the days following the revelation, the event was covered with far less intensity than all the other scandals.3 Also, in this case, media attention began when the documents of the prosecutor’s investigation were made public (April 2012, month 4 in Fig. 1B). With the publication of the documents resulting from the prosecutor’s investigation, the attention on the scandal increased exponentially, and telephone interceptions or reports of interrogations were published daily. The judicial investigation has produced such a significant echo that the leader of the Northern League, the Founder Umberto Bossi, was forced to leave

Fig. 1 a Cycle of attention of the nine analyzed scandals (n. articles per month) (A). b—Cycle of attention of the nine analyzed scandals (n. articles per month) (B)

3

The investigation was carried out by a newspaper that was not included in the sample because it has a lower audience than those analyzed. The name of the newspaper is “Il Secolo XIX”.

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Fig. 1 (continued)

the position of Federal Secretary, marking an important change in the history of the party. The judicial inquiry has received profoundly different attention than the journalistic investigation. The intervention of the judiciary increases the propensity of newspapers to cover the case but also the public indignation. Another interesting point that emerges from Fig. 1 is the close coincidence between the coverage of the newspaper and that on the website. Both print and online newspapers increase their coverage when documents from prosecutors emerge. This means that, in corruption cases, both follow the same logic, and that they consider judicial material as a criterion of strong newsworthiness. This may be because we analyzed the same newspapers, but more importantly because of the observation period. A number of analyzed scandals began several years ago, a time when the newsrooms of online newspapers and those of print ones were the same, and the first ones only replicated the news of the latter (Van Dijck et al., 2018). This tells us that, for both cases, the magistrates have a fundamental role in the mechanisms of social construction, as if to apply a certified label of deviance to the case. However, the analyzed cases do not allow generalizations as regards differences between online and offline coverage.

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As we will see in the next paragraph, the close connection between judicial inquiry and journalistic coverage is strong only in the first phase of the scandal. Over time, the two entities begin to take separate paths.

6 The Media Construction of the Parallel Trials As can be seen from Fig. 1, the examined cases dominated the media agenda for several days, giving rise to a sort of narrative-informative bulimia made up of stolen wiretaps and other investigative material. However, interest is not constant over time and within a few weeks the attention toward the events runs out. In a short time, the various revelations, wiretapping, and scoops fall into oblivion. From Fig. 1, however, we can see other aspects that deserve to be investigated, i.e., what can be defined as the “media storm” (Boydstun et al., 2014), ends when the persons involved resigned or were dismissed from their office. For all the other protagonists of the selected cases, the scandal has effectively interrupted their political activity. Their careers were irreversibly compromised without a real sentence having been issued. However, it is important to point out that none of the analyzed cases had a final conviction during the period shown in Fig. 1. The trials, especially in Italy, are very long and bring their own results many years after the outbreak of the scandal on the newspapers. This means that all the analyzed cases have produced effects on the political system before the final judgment. In other words, a corruption scandal is capable of inflicting a punishment well before a judge upholds a conviction and therefore in the absence of the due process of law principle. In the media trial, the presumption of innocence is not respected, nor the right to counsel, nor the adversarial procedure (Conti, 2016). In this paragraph, we will try to verify whether the final judgement receives adequate media coverage, or whether the scandal ends with the resignation of the person involved. In particular, we will try to show some discrepancies between the media and judicial trials. In Fig. 1, we have seen that attention wanes as the months go by, even in subsequent years media coverage of the case fails to rekindle itself. Tables 2 and 3 report the number of articles published in the years following the revelation (up to 2019). As can be seen, the absolute number of articles published in subsequent years is much lower than in the first year, or rather compared to the first months (Fig. 1). Yet, the most important steps of the trials occur just years after the first revelation. It is in the final stages of the trial that it is determined whether a subject is guilty or innocent. However, in that period, the media attention is significantly reduced, if compared to that of the initial phases. The only exception to this concerns “The Family” case (Belsito). In this case, however, the increase in attention that occurred in year 7 (2019) is not linked to new developments in the case, but to the fact that Belsito’s party, the League, won the elections in 2018, and many newspapers referred to the scandal to criticize it, demonstrating the potential for degradation of a scandal. This shows that the attention of the analyzed newspapers focuses mainly on the initial stages of the judicial trial, on the investigation phase, relying on elements or clues that

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Table 2 Number of articles per year (Print press) Penati

Belsito

Bertolaso

Delbono

Fiorito

Formigoni

Lusi

Marino

Fini

Period

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

Year 2

170

31

104

95

32

63

32

29

128

Year 3

49

7

23

11

16

22

7

17

163

Year 4

31

9

20

10

5

33

1

8

50

Year 5

40

2

14

8

3

25

2

24

Year 6

48

18

8

2

4

13

3

15

Year 7

12

73

12

0

1

17

Year 8

6

1

46

Year 9

4

0

19

53

Table 3 Number of articles per year (web edition) Penati

Belsito

Bertolaso

Delbono

Fiorito

Formigoni

Lusi

Marino

Fini

Period

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

Year 2

36

21

46

45

43

21

16

40

15

Year 3

22

13

15

17

12

14

15

20

11

Year 4

11

20

13

12

6

12

6

14

1

Year 5

13

6

8

4

8

17

4

5

Year 6

21

24

7

2

5

12

3

6

Year 7

16

75

19

3

1

27

3

27

Year 8

10

5

4

25

10

1

8

Year 9

will not necessarily be recognized as evidence that can be used in the trial phase. In addition, in this case, there are no significant differences between printed and online newspapers, for the reasons explained in the previous paragraph. Both formats acted following the same logic, and although with different numbers of articles, both show decreasing attention to cases as the months and years go by. The most important moment for a judicial proceeding is perhaps the hearing in the courtroom; the phase in which any responsibility is actually proved, but the chronicle of the scandal almost never covers the trial. As demonstrated by the previous data, the parallel trial takes place much earlier; it focuses mainly on investigations, where the responsibilities are not yet ascertained (Marotta, 2017). «On the one hand, there is the pace of the trial, with its considerable long times. Hyper criminalization of antisocial conduct, inalienable formalities, chronic structural and organizational deficiencies, a culture of referral (…)On the other hand, there is the pressing speed of information» (Giostra, 2007, p. 61). The scandal is based on the media turmoil at the start of the investigation, a phase in which the information on the case comes mainly from the magistrates who are the accusers, while those involved (and their

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lawyers) have very few elements to build an adequate defense. The fact that judges are investigating an alleged case of corruption does not give a guarantee that there was indeed malfeasance. In some cases, the initiation of a judicial proceeding can be a formality that leads to immediate termination because there are not enough elements to prove the crime. Especially if the offense concerns well-known personalities, such as some politicians, they are subjected to a real media pillory for the simple fact of being suspected. It is evident from Tables 2 and 3 that attention to the case does not remain constant over the years (research question b), but remains high only until the person involved suffers severe consequences to his or her political career. However, our analysis also allowed us to answer the third research question, verifying some discrepancies between sanctioning mechanisms of a criminal trial for corruption crimes and the consequences generated by the scandal. While, as noted above, all of the scandals produced political consequences for those involved, these discrepancies are particularly evident in two of the selected cases: “The Sesto Systems” (involving regional councillor Penati) and “Marino’s Crazy Expenses” (involving the former Mayor of Rome Marino). In fact, these two cases are emblematic of the discrepancies referred to earlier. Both politicians were removed from their political roles (Penati was expelled from his party, namely Pd, Marino was removed as Mayor following the resignation of 26 councillors of his own and other parties) and saw their political careers ruined by corruption cases. Both politicians were subject of critique by newspapers during the first year and for all the following years documented by Tables 2 and 3. There was a great deal of talk about the charges against them and presented to the public as being guilty. Years later, however, the two trials have produced different results than imagined by newspapers: the final judgment has declared their acquittal. Thompson says that a scandal, to be defined as such, needs a public of “nonparticipants” that must feel a sentiment of indignation toward the corruptive episode (Thompson, 2000). To stimulate the reaction of the public, journalists organize the events with the help of storytelling that presents the victims (which often in a case of corruption are the citizens who pay the taxes) and the villains. Protess and other authors (1991) argue that to increase the rate of indignation of readers there are no half measures: bad characters must be demonized without leaving space for mitigating or doubting their guilt. “The hat of the villains must be black and not grey (…) if the muckrakers want to convey empathy towards the victims; they must produce anger towards the villains” (Protess et al., 1991, p. 22). To feed this anger, the journalist must present the involved subject as a person who is certainly corrupt, leaving out any principles that could underlie civil liberties: the suspicion represents the “black hat”, namely the element that certifies the guilt of a subject in the dynamics of the “parallel media trial”. This type of storytelling creates discrepancies in sanction mechanism when the trial, years later, ends in an unexpected way, leading to an acquittal of the already degraded individual. In the “parallel media trial”, for the politician it is not his criminal record but his reputation that is at stake. Namely, the symbolic capital that Thompson (2000) considers fundamental for the exercise of political power and that a corruption scandal can erode in a very short time. Such reputation can be eroded even without effective

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criminal responsibility certified by a court, because the audience is not interested in legal technicalities, which are long and difficult to understand, but in the moral implications of the story (Giglioli, 1996), which can be also highlighted by a partial representation of the investigation. The investigation, as represented in the newspapers and in the web edition, is perceived as a process in which guilt and innocence are asserted, while the actual trial becomes an appendage that struggles to find media coverage years after the revelation of the scandal. The judicial trial ends with a conviction or acquittal, while the scandal ends most often with the resignation or expulsion of the involved subject from the party. The two outcomes are not always congruent: it may happen that a political subject is forced to resign due to the degradation carried out by the media through the “parallel media trial” even if, after months or years, the judge does not find any criminally relevant element to condemn him.

7 Final Remarks With this study, we have tried to analyze how print press and their web editions narrate a corruption scandal, focusing, in particular, on the delicate balance that exists between judicial investigation and journalistic coverage. We conducted this study in order to understand if journalists are able to provide a complete report of the various phases of the event. Going back to our research questions, we demonstrate that the judicial system plays a key role in the first part of mediated scandals, providing the media with the legitimacy to start the scandal and the material to outrage public opinion. When a corruption scandal occurs, journalists do not play the role of investigators, but rather the role of megaphones for judges and prosecutors. After their disclosure, the documents produced by the prosecutors continue to be resumed and commented, because an investigation conducted by third parties such as judges or law enforcement agencies facilitates the work of labeling deviant behaviors and represents a sort of guarantee that certifies, at least symbolically, the presence of a crime and makes it easier to stimulate indignation. However, this role fades over time: despite the fact that investigations and trials go on for long periods, with continuous developments and new material, media attention does not remain constant and it wanes. By focusing only on the initial stages, i.e., the prosecution documents, the media inevitably produce discrepancies, effectively creating a “parallel mediated trial” that can generate distortions in public opinion. The gatekeeping action implemented by journalists implies a selection of the elements that earn visibility: the journalistic coverage does not offer a linear report of all the phases of the investigation and the judicial procedure but simplifies some elements that are deemed interesting for the audience. Journalists do not provide a faithful report of the activity carried out by the judicial authority, but a real construction of news that is also marketable and therefore of great interest to the potential public. The judicial proceedings and the work of the prosecutors, which are usually very slow and cumbersome, are dramatized or adapted to the pressing pace of the news production. However, inconsistencies between the “justicialist” expectations

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of the public and the actual outcome of a trial exist (Conti, 2016). In other words, newspapers need a culprit in the short term, while very often the trials can ascertain guilt and responsibility only in the long term. It can sometimes happen that a political subject undergoes a process of degradation (Garfinkel, 1956) for the mere fact of being investigated and without his criminal responsibilities having been ascertained. These inconsistencies certainly do not contribute to forming an informed citizen capable of recognizing and consequently preserving himself from corruption. When indignation is based on correct information on a subject’s criminal responsibilities, it has the advantage of activating accountability mechanisms that allow “criminalization of corruption” (Sberna & Vannucci, 2013) and therefore to sanction, at least at the electoral level, corrupt politicians. The indignation that is produced by the “parallel media trial” is ambiguous because the reasons for which it is produced are not always functional and instead of conveying a sense of repulsion toward corruption, it can generate a feeling of anti-politics and generalized distrust of institutions. Future research on the field can focus on these discrepancies, especially in light of the new media ecosystem brought about by the rise of digital media. In fact, the main limitation of our research is related to the fact that most of our case studies began when digital platforms were not as pervasive as they are today. Moreover, the choice of analyzing the same newspapers in their online and offline versions prevented the evaluation of different editorial choices in the coverage of the scandal. Digital media, especially social media, have become fundamental agencies of socialization, as well as newspapers and television, and consequently their role in scandalization cannot be underestimated, especially regarding the social perception of scandals (Goel et al., 2012). Phenomena such as citizen journalism, grassroots initiatives, and unconventional blogs can have disruptive effects in the creation and coverage of scandals. However, this branch of study is still scarcely researched (Berti et al., 2020).

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Bruti Liberati, E. (2010). La rappresentazione mass-mediatica della giustizia. Relazione al Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura, Roma, 23 Marzo. Caniglia, E. (2016). Devianza e interazione sociale. Maggioli. Canzio, G. (2017). Relazione sull’amministrazione della giustizia nell’anno 2016. Corte suprema di Cassazione. Cepernich, C. (2008). Le pietre d’inciampo. Lo scandalo come meccanismo sociale. Aracne. Conti, C. (2016). Processo mediatico e processo penale. Per un’analisi critica dei casi più discussi da Cogne a Garlasco. Giuffrè. Entman, R. M. (2012). Scandal and silence. Polity Press. Ettema, J. S., & Glasser, T. L. (1998). Custodians of Conscience. Investigative Journalism and Public Virtue. Columbia University Press. Garfinkel, H. (1956). Conditions of successful degradation ceremonies. American Journal of Sociology. 61(5), 420–424. Giglioli, P.P. (1996). Political corruption and the media: The Tangentopoli affair. International Social Science Journal, 48, 381–394. Giostra, G. (2018). La giustizia penale nello specchio deformante della cronaca giudiziaria. Media Laws. Rivista di diritto dei media. 3, 23–38. Giostra, G. (2007). Processo penale e mass media. Criminalia, 66, 57–72. Goel, R. K., Nelson, M. A., & Naretta, M. A. (2012). The internet as an indicator of corruption awareness. European Journal of Political Economy, 28(1), 64–75. Guarnieri, C. (2003). Giustizia e politica: I nodi della Seconda Repubblica. Il Mulino. Haggerty, J. F. (2003). In the court of public opinion: Winning strategies for litigation communications. Wiley. Jewkes, Y. (2004). Media and crime. Sage. Kepplinger, H.M. (2020). Functional analysis or impact research – where is scandal research going? In H. Haller & M. Hendrik (Eds.), Scandalogy2. Cultures of scandals – scandals in culture. Herbert Von Halem Verlag. Lang, G. E., & Lang, K. (1983). The battle for public opinion. Columbia University Press. Manin, B. (1997). The principles of representative government. Cambridge University Press. Marletti, C. (1985). Prima e dopo. Tematizzazione e comunicazione politica. Eri-Rai. Marletti, C. (2010). La Repubblica dei Media. L’Italia dal politichese alla politica iperreale. Il Mulino. Marotta, G. (2017). La vittima del processo penale: Un nuovo processo di vittimizzazione. In G. Spangher (Ed.), La vittima del processo: I danni da attività processuale penale (pp. 438–444). Giappichelli. Mazzoleni, G. (2008). Media logic. In W. Donsbach (Ed.), The international encyclopedia of communication (pp. 2930–2932). Blackwell. Mincigrucci, R., Stanziano, A., & Mazzoni, M. (2018). Spectacularization and instrumentalization of political corruption scandals in the Italian Press: The case of villa in Monte Carlo. In A. Haller, H. Michael, & M. Kraus (Eds.), Scandalogy: An interdisciplinary field (pp. 89–115). Herbert von Halem Verlag. Piana, D. (2014). Pesi, contrappesi e media nel rapporto fra giustizia e politica. In C. Fusaro, & A. Kreppel (Eds.), Politica in Italia. I fatti dell’anno e le interpretazioni 2014. Il Mulino. Protess, D. L., Fay, L. C., Doppelt, J. C., Ettema, J. S., Gordon, M. T., Leff, D. R., & Miller, P. (1991). The Journalism of outrage. Guilford. Riviezzo, A. (2018). L’ingiusto processo mediatico. Media Laws. Rivista di diritto dei media. 3, 62–76. Rose, J. (2015). Corruption and the problem of perception. In P. M. Heywood (Ed.), Routledge handbook of political corruption (pp. 172–182). Routledge. Sberna, S., & Vannucci, A. (2013). “It’s the Politics, Stupid!” The politicization of anti-corruption in Italy. Crime, Law and Social Change. 60, 565–593. Serges, G. (2008). Principi in tema di giurisdizione. In F. Modugno, (a cura di) Lineamenti di diritto pubblico. Giappichelli, pp. 613–641.

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Scandals, New Media and the Historical Perspective

Early Modern Sermon and Scandalization? The Sermons of the Jesuit Georg Scherer (1540–1605) Joachim Werz

In the following, I would primarily like to investigate whether mechanisms of scandalization can be found in early modern sermons, making the printed sermon, as an outstanding new medium in early modern Catholicism and as a source of historical research, far more than a mere way of conveying biblical content and church teachings. I will illustrate this by analysing the sermons of the Jesuit Georg Scherer, who lived and worked in Vienna and the Habsburg Empire in the second half of the sixteenth century. Finally, I would like to ask on a meta-level whether the approaches of scandalogy can also be fruitful for church history research as a trans-epochal method.

1 A Century of Media Events Johannes Gutenberg and the invention of the printing press stand as a turning point for the initiation of a new era in media history, because “media history takes place in leaps and bounds, at least at its technological level” (Dotzle & Roesler-Keilholz, 2017, p. 25). The potential of this new technology, which was intended to simulate handwriting—just more practicable—only unfolded a few decades after its invention. It was above all the Reformation at the beginning of the sixteenth century and in it the “exceptional position of the publicist Martin Luther” (Kaufmann, 2020, p. 3) that established a new era in media history. In order to clarify the importance of Luther in this context, let us take a brief look at book production in his place of activity Wittenberg: when the university was founded in 1502, a printing press was also set up. The printers, who changed several times until 1516, only printed Latin works for academic use. Around eight volumes were printed each year. Less than three decades J. Werz (B) Rottenburg am Neckar, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Haller et al. (eds.), Scandology 3, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85013-5_7

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later, Wittenberg had six printing works at full capacity, which published an average of 83 works, half of them in the vernacular, of which a good 30% came from Luther’s pen. With Luther’s death in the middle of the sixteenth century, Wittenberg had developed into the largest German printing and publishing centre, ahead of the cities of Augsburg, Cologne, Nuremberg and Strasbourg. (cf. Pettegree, 2016, p. 35–36) Luther was a professor of theology whose intention was the renewal of theology—he used the “media event” for this. It is therefore important “to combine both stories— the spiritual and theological on the one hand and the economic and commercial on the other hand— […] in order to understand the extraordinary explosive power of the Reformation” (Pettegree, 2016, p. 37). The impact of his early journalism was known to be so overwhelming and evoked such an echo in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation that Luther—initially accused, then condemned as a heretic—truly wrote “for his life”, as the Göttingen church historian Thomas Kaufmann aptly put it (cf. Kaufmann, 2016, p. 17). Within a very short time—of course by the standards of the sixteenth century, and in no way comparable to the surge in popularization in social media in the twenty-first century—he became a celebrated and at the same time reviled “media star” (Leppin, 2017, p. 151–164) in a turbulent time that is rightly often described as a “media event” (Hamm, 1996, p. 139–166; cf. Nieden, 2012). There is an important strand of Reformation research that understands the journalistic communication process as the key to interpreting the history of the Reformation as a whole. (cf. Burkhardt, 2002, p. 14). Limiting the Reformation as a media event to the printing press and/or Martin Luther would not only fall short, it would also be wrong. There was an interaction of various media of numerous actors in many places. Werner Faulstich (2006) considers the preacher, the letter, the leaflet, the pamphlet, the book, the singer, and the theatre to be the most important media of this time. The following will deal with the former— even if it belongs to the Roman Catholic denominational church. Journalism ensured that the Reformation and the reaction of the Roman Church to it were “an international event from the very beginning” (Kaufmann, 2016, p. 11). A public was generated that not only happened to watch a theological/church political struggle by chance, but was able to intervene in what was happening and—thanks to the media—be active: The classic possibilities of repression and the canonical legislature were targeted immediately and wanted the audience as judges (cf. Schuster, 2014, p. 592). This abbreviated presentation of the Reformation as a media event may suffice to illustrate that a media and communication studies view of the Reformation and the time of confessionalization is fundamentally sensible and justified (cf. Haberer, 2012, p. 1–10).

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2 The Written Sermon as a Communication Medium of the Early Modern Period Among all media that existed in early modern Catholicism, no other means of communication could have been as important and formative for the formation of the Roman Catholic confessional church and for the establishment of a confessional culture after the Council of Trento (1545–1563) as the printed Postils and single sermons. In his quantitative study “The Primacy of the Postils” (Frymire, 2010), the American church historian John F. Frymire was able to show how the reproduction of printed sermons increased rapidly in both denominational churches in the course of the sixteenth century. Printed sermons were a source of what and how to preach professionally for priests who preached the faith. In addition, they were “habitual reading”, through which a way of life according to the priestly status was to be instilled. They were also a source of information to inform the clergy and, through them, the faithful about certain events and developments. As I have shown in my dissertation, the range of topics in the sermon genre is wide and ranges from the purely informative sermon, in which denominational beliefs and practice are explained, to pejorative articulations on the denominational or religious counterpart (cf. Werz, 2020a). Then as today, sermons dealt with current events and sensational incidents that were mostly associated with violations of moral and legal norms, such as the harmful effects of witches, the massive consumption of alcohol and the excessive sexual debauchery, the wasteful acts of church leaders or the conversion of Christians to Islam. The early modern sermon was therefore not only instructive for matters of the faith, but also to a very decisive extent for social events, social grievances, sensational incidents, and not infrequently scandalized individuals or entire groups. In the first half of the sixteenth century, the sermon primarily had an apologetic function in order to defend the Roman Catholic teaching against the Protestant teaching. The preaching of early modern Catholicism—like other formats of denominational reporting, such as newspapers, which were thus widely distributed—became a central internalizing medium of the new Roman Catholic teaching, motivated and structured by the Council of Trent, after the Council of Trent and in view of the emerging and growing triumphalist “Lutheran denominational culture” (Kaufmann, 2006, p. 3–26). The sermon was an institutionalized medium of articulation to carry out theological conflicts on the pulpit and to communicate denominational selfperception and external perception (cf. Bremer, 2005). In view of the fact that the ecclesiastical order seemed to be threatened by the denominational counterpart, and due to the associated denominational disputes (which must not be considered separately from political and legal interdependencies), ecclesiastical actors constructed orthodoxy and heterodoxy in order to construct a plausible perception of their own and other denominations (cf. Witt, 2019, p. 21–51; Werz, 2019, p. 77–100; Henderson, 1998). So there is a twofold thrust in controversial theological sermons in the second half of the sixteenth century: they wanted to prove to the counterpart (believed to be false believers) the truth of their own and thus the falsity of the others’ teaching, to warn them of this error and perhaps even to win them over.

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However, this intention, which also aimed to scandalize the personal origins of the threat, came not only from narrow-minded dogmatism, but also from pastoral care, because salvation was thought to be denied to those who died in the wrong faith. For this reason, through the communicative mediation of the other as an existential threat to salvation, their own denominational beliefs also needed to be strengthened, so that they would resist any seduction by the denominational rival and would reject any considerations of conversion. Because of this intention, which is directed outwards and inwards at the same time, the sermons have a pastoral motivation in spite of all controversial theological tones. The preachers tried to communicate as well as to overcome the threat seen in the denominational Other for the sake of the pastoral mandate in the form of warnings. This form of communication meant to establish or restore a denominational order for the sake of the salvation of one’s own confessional members, as well as those of the foreign confession.

3 From Information to Scandal—Sermons by Jesuit Georg Scherer Georg Scherer is an outstanding example in early modern Catholicism. He joined the Jesuits as a young man. Even during his novitiate, he already stood out as a talented preacher, which is why he was then appointed to the service of the Habsburgs (cf. Werz, 2020a). In many of his sermons, he scandalized individuals, entire religious communities or religions in order to warn his addressees of them. Other sources relevant to social–historical research, which need to be critically compared with the sermons in a historical–critical analysis, testify that Scherer’s proclamations evoked public outrage and thus that the scandalization was successfully communicated in urban society. In the following, I would like to give two examples that show how Georg Scherer was able to scandalize in what was then a confessional society through his sermons, both spoken and written.

3.1 The Witch in Vienna On Sunday, 18 August 1583, the Jesuit Georg Scherer closed his sermon about the “Grace and miracle of God” (Scherer, 1584) with what had occurred in Vienna a few days earlier. A sermon he gave from the pulpit in front of the Mayor Hanns von Thau and many residents of the city of Vienna in St. Stephen’s Cathedral. The focus of his sermon was “a young woman named Anna Schlutterbäwerin” (Scherer, 1584, p. 13), from whom 12,652 devils had allegedly been driven out in the past few days. From the age of five, she grew up with her grandmother Elisabeth Plainacher in the Lower Austrian village of Mank, since her mother Margret died with the fifth child

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during pregnancy. Anna was seriously ill at the age of 14, for which her father Georg Schlutterbauer blamed his 70-year-old mother-in-law, “an excellent poisoner who has long been dedicated to hell” (Socher, 1740; Grubner, 2014, p. 66–125; Lackenberger, 1998). While the young girl was being cared for in the Vienna Citizens’ Hospital and the exorcism, i.e. the expulsion of the evil spirits, was carried out on her by the Viennese bishop and some priests in the collegiate church of the Jesuits in Vienna, the grandmother was also held in Vienna and interrogated under torture to lead her to a confession. Elisabeth Plainacher was burned alive in September 1583 as the first and only “witch” in the history of the city of Vienna (cf. Diocesan Archive Vienna, 1583, p. 417). In order to inform the Viennese population about these events of the past weeks and to warn them against the powers of the Devil believed to be real, the danger of magic and heterodoxy, the Jesuit priest Georg Scherer was regarded as the most suitable preacher of the city. In preparation for his sermon, he was apparently entrusted with reading the interrogation or inquisition protocols, because—even though he was not present during the exorcism—the descriptions of the sermon match the interrogation protocols received. The transformation of the secret interrogation protocols into a publicly held and published sermon was primarily intended to encourage people to “persist in the old Catholic and uniquely religious religion all the more firmly” (Scherer, 1584). Scherer explained that the perverted and degenerate way of life of a witch, according to the church’s opinion, resulted from the renunciation of Catholicism and the turn to Lutheranism. In this way, Scherer exploited such events for the defence of Roman Catholic teaching and related practices that were criticized and decisively questioned by the Reformation. The statements made and blasphemy committed by Satan, which featured in his sermon, were to be understood as a warning to its hearers and readers, because the changes in past worship practice through Lutheran teaching were seen as being the idea of the Devil, as were the Protestants’ anti-pope and anti-church pamphlets, which were known to the population (cf. Scherer, 1584, p. 29). The events were said to show that the threats to the denominational order and the salvation of the individual stem from those teachings that deviated from church doctrine. As well as informing the population of Vienna, he used the events to warn them of Protestantism as a tool of the devil and to strengthen their commitment to the church. Only in this way could the consequences of heterodoxy—including witchcraft, sorcery and magic—be banished from society. However, it would be too simple to interpret the case of Elisabeth Plainacher and Anna Schlutterbauer solely as a denominational and apologetically intended construct, which was used by secular and ecclesiastical authorities and staged or even invented by the media: in a theonomic worldview, it was a threatening reality— according to one of the central ideas of late medieval witchcraft—that the Devil did his evil work through heresy (cf. Holzem, 2016, p. 634). It was therefore a matter of scandalizing heresy and magic practices through preaching, and recommending church teachings and practices as the most appropriate remedy against the Devil and all his henchmen (cf. Scherer, 1584, p. 3). Since the Devil could not harm Christians who believed and lived according to the teaching of the church, believers were to pray, fast and practise good deeds to ward off the Devil (cf. Scherer, 1584,

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p. 33–36). Ultimately, the religious practices recommended as protection and defence mechanisms were those that were rejected by the Protestants. This was to serve as proof to preachers and readers that the Protestant teachings were nothing but the work of the Devil himself. The scandalization by Georg Scherer’s sermon in St. Stephan intensified public pressure on the executive bodies that had the power to destroy the threat. The population was frightened and panicked. Above all, they demanded that the authorities fulfill their duties and create order. Protests and riots in the streets as well as written submissions show in the city chronicles and other reports—comparable to today’s newspapers—how the city or religious community could exert pressure on the rulers. In favour of the denominationalizing of the world, Scherer scandalized magic and witchcraft—favoured coping practices in both ancient, medieval and early modern society—as devilish and warned against them, since they posed a threat to the urban and ecclesiastical order. In the series of so many women convicted as witches, the case of Elisabeth Plainacher, or the interpretation of these supposed events by church and secular actors, shows “the relentless attempt to radically eradicate sin and heresy in a great cleansing of the communities” (Holzem, 2016, p. 640). The main aim of demonization was to suppress Protestant belief in the city of Vienna. Scherer, like many of his contemporaries, was convinced that the fight against unbelief, false belief and superstition must and should be fought with all means. “Transformations of the natural” (Roeck, 1992, p. 72–103; cf. Labouvie, 2016, p. 66–96) deals with the fact that transcendent explanatory patterns were used not only for epidemics, catastrophes, natural phenomena, but also for religious disunity. The solutions for such people, who were scandalized mostly as scapegoats, and the threats they emanated mostly led to a practice of persecution, displacement or destruction. Two days after Elisabeth Pleinacher’s death, Scherer handed over his post-sermon manuscript—a mixture of historical narrative, denominational apology and demonization of Protestantism, which alternated between public outrage and general warning—to the Ingolstadt printer David Sartorius for printing.

3.2 The Army Camp as a Pool of Sins Due to the Ottoman conquest of the strategically important military base Raab in 1594, the Ottoman troops were only 120 km away from the city of Vienna. Almost 70 years had passed since Sultan Süleymann I and Makbul Ibrahim Pasha, with their 150,000-strong army, had invaded the Habsburg lands and besieged the city of Vienna for several weeks (cf. Weigl, 2003, p. 110). The memory of this threat, although successfully overcome in the end, was present in the population. The extent to which the event of the siege of Vienna in 1529 by “the Turks” shaped the thinking, acting and perception of the population in the area of religion, art and literature is also shown by reporting documents that deal with it in various forms and modes of expression. They provide a reporting reappraisal of what has happened (cf. Sturminger, 1955). Georg Scherer therefore knew that the news of the “Turks” approaching was a threatening

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déjà vu, because the consequences of the first siege of Vienna in 1529 by the Ottomans were manifold. “Turks” is the contemporary term used by Georg Scherer and other Turcica authors. Various measures to secure the city were carried out under Ferdinand I and Maximilian II (cf. Hecht, 1958). Nevertheless, the threat of the siege of the fortress of Raab became real and acute again, as the Ottomans thus moved closer to the imperial border. While prayer, songs, pamphlets, plays and sermons before the Reformation upheavals mainly focussed on the Ottoman Empire as a military threat, the media perception changed in the 1530s due to the described events of the siege of Vienna in 1529. A wealth of perceptual interpretations and articulations arose of the Ottoman Empire as the “hereditary enemy”: “This overall picture boiled down to the formula of the ‘hereditary enemy’, which means the born enemy, for whom no current hostile act was required to recognize him as an enemy. Being a Turk was enough to be an enemy of Christianity. This ‘hereditary enemy’ found his ideological exaggeration in the image of the ‘anti-Christ’ in the Catholic as well as in the Lutheran view” (Schulze, 1978, p. 55). These were also reflected in the so-called Turkish sermons of Georg Scherer, because the threat in the interpretation of the Jesuit and his contemporaries was not only an acute one that came from outside, but also one that originated from inside of Christianity (cf. Werz, 2020a, p. 486–487). In the following, the term “Turkish sermon” is used to refer to sermons that were printed before or after they were preached to warn the communities or individuals of the perceived threat of the Ottomans. Therefore, for the analysis of Scherer’s sermons on the Turks, which he had held in his function as preacher for Archdukes Ernest and Matthias, the interpretation of a “double threat” (Werz, 2020b) must be considered. There are a total of 20 Turk sermons in Georg Scherer’s oeuvre. Upon closer examination, it was found that these sermons were a series of sermons lasting over 20 Sundays and public holidays (cf. Werz, 2020a). The following three sermons were conceived as so-called “WundsegenPredig” (sermon on wound blessings) (Scherer, 1595) by Scherer, which were published in a 74-page print, were originally held in the Vienna parish church of St. Augustin and were not only to be received in the army, but also by the people in cities and areas who lived near the besieged border, in order for them to be read. So-called wound blessings were amulets, but also sayings and songs from which people hoped for protection and help in situations of danger, as Hans Sachs also wrote: “When I carry a blessing with me, it makes me happy, because nobody may wound me”. (Grimm, 1991, p. 71–75) Scherer criticized the fact that it was a widespread ritual in the imperial army to use so-called wound blessings—occult pendants, songs and sayings—as protection against the attacks of the Ottoman enemy. He warned of such unchristian practices and intended to stamp them out because he saw them not only as a threat to Christian piety, but also as a loss of Christian opportunities for participation in obtaining blessings and protection. For this reason, he preached a decidedly Christian blessing, consisting of prayer, deeds of mercy and fasting. On 18 December 1594, he explained to the congregation gathered in the St. Augustin parish church that prayer was the first part of that Christian wound blessing

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with which the warriors and the entire population had to arm themselves in times of war. In the next sermon, he spoke about the works of mercy. The following day, Scherer preached—and I would like to focus on this—the third part of his Christian wound blessing. In it he addressed fasting and was even more indignant about the sinful life in the army camps: Instead of fasting, there is eating and drinking day and night / in the highest security / jubilant / singing and jumping / as if there were no Turks / Indeed, it seems / as if he didn’t want to pray and fast the Turks away, but instead eat and drink them away / often what is the army camp other / than a cheerful church ceremony / a full inn / luxuriousness / a feast / a wedding / to which the Turk comes uninvited / and destroys all our good cheer. (Scherer, 1595)

By giving his listeners and readers an insight into the life and activity of the soldiers in the army camps, Scherer not only warned the soldiers of sinful acts, but also scandalized those who should actually be working to protect the population. The excessive drinking and eating would be followed by “unchastity and lust” (Scherer, 1595), which they acted out with so-called hags and prostitutes. The serious problem was that the culinary and sexual debauchery of the warriors resulted in a lack of focus on the enemy and a failure to perform their actual duties. Since a drunk and oversaturated army could not perform its duties well at the moment of danger and at the moment of defence, fasting should be prescribed to the whole army as the necessary medicine “against the Turks” (Scherer, 1595). By reporting on the situation in the army camps, Scherer wanted to bring about indignation and the associated public pressure on those responsible for camp life. His detailed reports fuelled this scandal, because Scherer also pointed out that it was precisely the tactical calculation of the Ottomans to attack the Christian army after the Habsburg soldiers were oversaturated and drunk. Order and discipline should prevail in the army, otherwise God would punish the ways of the soldiers and those responsible. Scherer illustrated his message of the Ottoman threat by interpreting Jesus’ parable of the fig tree (Mt 24, 32–35) as a parable for their own historical situation, turning away from an outer threat to one that comes from within the Christian community. Therefore, he pictured the “Turks” as a tool of God to beat those living in constant sin: We have gone too far with our sins and angered his majesty. The naked sabre of the Turks over us / is God’s sabre / his arrow and bow / are God’s arrow and bow / his armour against us / is God’s armour / his scourge and rod / is God’s scourge and rod. (Scherer, 1595)

Scherer’s communication of sinful practices in the army camps was in favour of establishing Christian faith and denominationally spelled out active religious practice by the soldiers. In the sermon, which provided information about the conditions in the military camps and scandalized the sinful conduct of the soldiers, public pressure was created which forced the military authorities to take rigorous action, otherwise the threat to the “Turks” could not be averted. Such information communicated in sermons was perceived as a scandal by the noble and educated audience in St. Augustin and required the nobility and military leaders to discipline the soldiers.

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4 Conclusion and Perspectives for Research into Church History The two case studies focussed on a central communication medium of the early modern era, which until now has not been analysed in terms of scandalization. The question asked in the beginning, whether sermons of the early modern times can be examined in terms of scandal research, can be answered with a clear yes. Even more so because if one examines such sermons, in which threats were primarily communicated, a central contribution can be made to answering the question that has always been asked in preaching research: namely, how the medium of sermon was able to convey events effectively, and, even more, how it could mobilize the audience at that time. The scandalization of events, people or misconduct was a rhetorical and tactical means for preachers to not only convey their intentions clearly, but also to provoke public outrage (cf. Burkhardt, 2020; Haller et al., 2018; Kepplinger, 2018a, 2018b; Haller & Michael, 2019; Bergmann & Pörksen, 2009; Kepplinger, 2003). The most dynamic factor for a mobilizing and scandalizing sermon was the communication of threats to the life and order of the individual or even of the society as a whole. The current hypothesis is that the inclusion of real or perceived threats in preaching communication could lead to a “successful” scandal. The reason is that in the religious conception and theological justification of that time, the threat in the form of evil and diabolicality represented a real threat to man both for his successful life in this world and in the hereafter. In general, previous social, communication and media scandal research was usually focussed on processes and phases, forms of staging and structural elements of the scandal. Frank Bösch, who has developed perspectives for historical scandal research, also aims at a “historical-comparative consideration of scandals” in order to “differentiate current assessments and gain typological knowledge about the occurrence, progression and consequences of scandals” (Bösch, 2011a, 2011b, p. 46). According to Bösch, a contemporary historian, the importance of actors is put into perspective. However, he recognizably uses the journalistic realities of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as a basis. The less a journalistic perspective appears as mediator between the perspectives of the actors, the more necessary an actororiented historical scandal research seems. In the “pre-journalistic” age, what was already recorded for the classic political scandal is now also clearly shown as a characteristic of the “unleashed scandal” in the age of social media: “Scandal is a matter of opinion” (Pörksen & Detel, 2012, p. 35). Emphasis on actor-oriented historical scandal research is undoubtedly compatible with the latest trends in scandal research, which not only investigate how scandalization works in the mass media, but also how one can behave towards it in the context of social media. In contrast to possible “culturally pessimistic misinterpretations” (Pörksen, 2018, p. 23) of the current situation, the focus is again on the individual actors, their decisions and their behaviour. The “utopia of the editorial society” of the Tübingen media scientist Bernhard Pörksen aims in many ways at the actions of the individual (cf. Pörksen, 2018, p. 186–218). The focus is not only

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on individual journalists as gatekeepers, but also, given the potential ubiquity of the scandal in digital media, every student, every teacher, every football coach, every mother and every neighbour—in other words: everyone can be affected by scandalization. Actor-oriented historical scandal research is an important and useful addition to current scandal research. In historical retrospect, it aims to explore the circumstances and individual possibilities, options for action and motives of the respective actors with their different perspectives before and in dealing with the scandal. After this example of Scherer’s sermons as a means of successful mobilization through scandalization, it should not go unmentioned that not all the early modern sermon authors were able to have such “success”. This also makes it clear that in the early modern era it was already necessary to set the scene for the scandal: in addition to various aspects of “hard power” (Nye, 2004, p. 7–8; Hahn et al., 2021), as Joseph Nye would call them, including financial, personal and other factors of power, the “media environment” was of crucial importance whether communicated scandals could be conveyed sustainably in sermons. It would also be important— insofar as this is possible historically from the source material—to analyse the failure of scandals. Means of power are everything that an actor has already acquired from the sources of power and that can be used for specific purposes (such as mobilization). We basically differentiate between three types of means of power: physical means of pressure include those means of power that make the threat or use of violence possible; financial resources are primarily money as well as goods and services worth money; finally, symbolic means include the use of symbols, practices and speech acts that give an actor power based on the appropriate cultural context. Different types of power can also be assigned to the means of power. Military and financial resources on the one hand differ in this respect from symbolic resources on the other. The former can be understood as hard and physical types of power, and the latter as soft and symbolic power. This distinction draws on Joseph Nye’s political scientific comparison of hard and soft power. Hard power, according to Nye, includes means of coercion like violence and sanctions as well as financial incentives; in contrast, soft power is the ability to influence others through attractiveness in such a way that one’s own goals are achieved without the use of coercion or means of payment. The political science concept of soft power can be seamlessly combined with Bourdieu’s idea of symbolic power, that is, a power that—according to Bourdieu—only exists to the extent that it manages to be recognized, to gain recognition. Distinguishing hard and soft power does not, however, mean that this separation is always clear or easy to make. Often it occurs that, for instance, physical power is conveyed through symbolism (e.g. a uniform symbolizes physical power). To date, the investigation of scandals has hardly been considered systematically, academically or based on previous research results in Christian theologies, especially in their disciplines related to church history (cf. Bösch, 2011a, 2011b; Bösch, 2004; Jaspert, 2016; Lütz, 2018; Domeier, 2015; Druwé, 2018). However, I am convinced that the previous results of scandalogy can also be received and used in church history research. For this reason, I would like to use the knowledge gained from scandalogy in the coming years to develop a method that is profitable for church history. The (church) historical investigation of scandals is in no way intended to make church

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history a scandal or even criminal history. Rather, the historical analysis of scandals in the Christian confessional churches should focus on the constituent factors in the procedural, complex and multi-perspective events of the scandal (cf. Werz & Hahn, 2021).

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“Revenge for Caligula!” Ludwig Quidde, Wilhelm II and the Scandal of 1894 Florian Krüpe

“you can’t have a scandal if they don’t report it” Donald J. Trump, 29.11.2020 on Facebook, Twitter and Fox “Die USA haben einen Superspreader an der Spitze, der zwei Viren verbreitet: Covid und Cäsarenwahn. “(The USA have a superspreader at the top, spreading two viruses: Covid and ‘imperial madness’.”) Der Standard, 8.10.2020, p. 1

Caligula, Nero, Commodus, Caracalla. Napoleon, Hitler, Ceausçescu, Mugabe, Sebastian Kurz, Angela Merkel, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and, of course, Donald Trump. All of them have been accused of having fallen victim to ‘Caesarenwahn’— ‘imperial madness’, a combination of hubris, paranoia and delusions of grandeur, also known as the ‘Caligula-virus’. And according to Thomas Kron, a licensed physician, this virus is still incurable some 2000 years after its eponymous victim (Kron, 2020). The list of ‘victims’ to this virus could undoubtedly be longer, for currently a certain ubiquity of this topos can be observed, both in the media and in scholarly research (see for instance Sittig, 2016, 2018; Blank et al., 2021), but the enormity of the accusation has been diminished during the last century. Some 125 years ago, this accusation was truly scandalous, and could easily fall back on the accuser, even if the target for most of these accusations in 19th-century Germany, Emperor Willhelm II, was just as controversial at his time as some of the names listed above are today (Kohlrausch, 2016, p. 19).

1 The Setting The scandal under investigation takes place at a time of enormously accelerated media change, which is characterized in particular by changed technology, changed quantities (number of newspapers, circulation), changed qualities (reporting, commentary) F. Krüpe (B) Phillips-University, Marburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Haller et al. (eds.), Scandology 3, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85013-5_8

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and a transformed space of communication (Stöber, 1998, p. 75–90; Kohlrausch, 2005: 48; Kohlrausch, 2017, p. 92–93). This change in communication was a revolution of a special kind, comparable only to that of printing and broadcasting: Whereas around 1860 there were about 1500 daily newspapers, 40 years later the number had risen to more than 4000, the total circulation of all newspapers rose from 300 million to over 2 billion (Stöber, 1998: 75–90). Within a few decades, Germany had become the largest newspaper market in Europe, favoured by comparatively low prices of pamphlets and newspapers and a high level of literacy (Kohlrausch, 2005, p. 49). Newspapers became the most important medium of the empire, their readers were members of all social classes. Reading, spreading and sharing news became a community experience (Kohlrausch, 2005, p. 52). Particularly affected by this process of change was the monarchy, which naturally attracted the special interest of all readers (Stöber, 1998; Kohlrausch, 2017, p. 92; 94). Alongside newspapers, political pamphlets—“a hermaphrodite of newspaper and book in style, pricing and speed of publication” (Kohlrausch, 2005, p. 59)—were the medium of choice: small writings with comparatively high circulation, low price, simple brochures, a page count of eight to about 80, a mostly clear political orientation and often polemical argumentation (Kohlrausch, 2005: 56). Despite their comparatively cheap appearance and sometimes rushed production, these pamphlets were extremely successful and controlled the discourse, especially in the national scandals of the imperial period (Kohlrausch, 2005: 56–58). Unlike the daily newspapers, they were fast and volatile, but more difficult to control, their sometimes well-known authors hidden behind pseudonyms, and production shifted to neighbouring countries. Pecuniary interests also played an important role, as one wanted to sell as much as possible, the higher the public excitement, the better. In political debates, pamphlets played an extremely important role as multipliers of arguments and opinions (Kohlrausch, 2005, p. 61). In view of diverse social and political processes of change and this significantly altered media public sphere, the numerous scandals were always given a special stage. Domeier (Domeier, 2010, p. 24) has rightly observed that a society is particularly susceptible to scandal when it simultaneously has many traditional norms and a free market for revelations. According to his analysis, scandals functioned as forums for social and moral disputes in which political battles were fought by other means. The scandal of 1894 began with a picture—if we are to believe the memoirs of Ludwig Quidde (1858–1941): In 1890, Quidde, one of the “architects” of the modern concept of the “Caesarenwahn”, had been given the opportunity to become the second director of the Prussian Historical Institute in Rome, founded only two years earlier (Holl, 2007, p. 70). During his time there, regular visits to the Prussian envoy in the Vatican, Kurd von Schlözer (1822–1894), were part of his official duties. Over one of these visits, as he recalled thirty years later, he had seen a photograph of the then Crown Prince and later Emperor Wilhelm II, which the Prince had circulated as autograph cards. On these cards, as a motto and a promise for the future, the prince had written in his own hand the famous Caligula quote oderint dum metuant (Let them hate [me] as long as they fear [me]). [Quidde, 2001, p. 56; Holl, 2007, p. 95]. According to Quidde, this card recalled his reading of a standard work of his student

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days—Gustav Hertzberg’s “Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit” (“History of the Roman Empire”). Quidde then noticed more and more parallels in the daily actions, behaviour and “extravagances” between the then Crown Prince Wilhelm and the third Roman Emperor Caligula (Quidde, 2001, p. 56; Holl, 2001, p. 9–39; Holl et al., 2001, p. 24–25; Holl, 2007, p. 95). The man who drew this comparison between Wilhelm and Caligula had achieved a great deal at a relatively young age: having studied history, philosophy and economics at the universities of Strasbourg and Göttingen from 1877 to 1881, he received his doctorate in medieval history at the age of 23. Immediately afterwards, he became a staff member of the scholarly team entrusted with the enormously prestigious edition of the Reichstag records, soon advancing to the position of its main editor. In 1887, he was elected an associated member of the Historical Commission of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences at Munich. A year later, he founded the “Deutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft” (or DZG, German Journal of Historical Studies) and became its main editor. He was further appointed secretary of the Prussian Historical Institute in Rome and gained a professorship in 1890. Two years later, he returned to Munich and was admitted to the Historical Class of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. With the help of the DZG, he also organized the First German Historians’ Day 1893 in Munich. He had a brilliant career up to this point and a chair at a reputable university seemed certain for him (Röhl, 1989, p. 8; Holl et al., 2001, p. 12–26). His 1894 study “Caligula—Eine Studie über römischen Cäsarenwahnsinn” (Caligula—a study of imperial insanity) became one of the most successful publications of the Wilhelmine era. It went through over 30 editions, with a circulation of over 200.000 copies and—because his writings passed from hand to hand—a readership of presumably several millions (Quidde, 2001, p. 61). Quidde achieved remarkable popularity with it, especially because this ostensibly dry scholarly study of ancient history was in fact an easily decipherable satire on the German Emperor Wilhelm II (Röhl, 1989, p. 9; Fesser, 2001, p. 117; Stöber, 1998, p. 155; Kohlrausch, 2009, p. 122). What is particularly fascinating about this book is the thin line that Quidde walked successfully: His stylistic device of choice was that of the sometimes oblique and often strained historical analogy, at no point was the German Kaiser explicitly named. This technique opened up the possibility for him to reach a readership which— through their education at the Gymnasium (grammar school)—was “literate” in Roman emperors, and which he could confidently expect to decipher and understand his literary forgery (Stöber, 1998, p. 259, “Camouflage”). Quidde himself admitted years later that his scandal-ridden work was only formally a scholarly study of history, but that its essence was unquestionably a satire. His aim, as he said, was to demonstrate his readers how problematic and meaningful certain traits and actions of the German Emperor were. One could be surprised, annoyed, laughing, mocking, amused or indignant about them, but one had to take them seriously as the symptoms of a highly placed personality unequal to the seriousness of public life (Quidde, 2001, p. 68; 81). The subversive, yet never explicit message of his text was: Just as a Roman Emperor could easily turn from a liberal to an absolute ruler and

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become insane during this process, pathological traits can also be perceived in our ruler in the here and now (Franzen, 2016, p. 134). The timing of the publication was risky: Pre-censorship had been abolished in 1874 with the Reichspressegesetz, which allowed newspapers and magazines to play a changed role in the communication processes of the young empire (Stöber, 1998, p. 9). However, with 925 indictments and 720 (!) convictions, in 1894 more lèsemajesté trials took place than ever before (Franzen, 2016, p. 123–124). As an ancient historian, one is reminded of Tacitus’ description of Tiberius (ann. 1,72,1) and his demand of leges exercendas esse (“laws must be enforced”), not only applying the Iulian lèse-majesté laws, but extending them with the prosecution of written attacks against the maiestas. As is well known, this caused the number of lèse-majesté trials to increase by leaps and bounds and led to dramatic problems with denunciators. Satirical criticism of rulers was dangerous, both in the first century and nineteenth century (Baar, 1990, p. 98; Levick, 1976, p. 180–200; von Haehling, 1997, p. 60; Yavetz, 1999, p. 93). Quidde has the honour of having for the first time defined a kind of canon or checklist of the manifestations of Caesarenwahn: Megalomania, increased to the point of self-deification, disregard for every legal barrier and all the rights of individuals and aimless and senseless brutal cruelty. While these elements are “also found in other mental patients”, the emperor was the perfect case for the diagnosis of “Caesarenwahnsinn”. This differed from normal insanity in that the position as a ruler brought out these dispositions to a high degree and allowed them to develop unhindered in a way that would otherwise hardly be possible. It was reassuring to know, Quidde writes ironically, that some political progress had been made in 2000 years (Quidde, 1926, p. 42; 51). Quidde’s study of Caligula actively refers to Gustav Freytag, a national liberal member of parliament and writer, and his 1864 work “Die verlorene Handschrift” (The lost manuscript). What Quidde and Freytag have in common is a decisive innovation in the classification of Caesarenwahn: the medical-scientific dimension is linked to the almost inevitable (!) degeneration of the ruler, giving the phenomenon an almost prognostic value. For one of the best-known biographers of the German emperor, John Röhl, Quidde’s analysis was the uncanny anticipation of Wilhelm II’s later development (Quidde, 1926, p. 42–43; Röhl, 1989, p. 13). Röhl and Fesser have compared Quiddes’ bullet-points, i.e. the historical Roman Emperor with the historical German Emperor, and find a number of justified parallels and corresponding remarks by contemporaries of both—that, however, cannot be listed at length here. Symptoms of Caesarenwahn were unquestionably present in Wilhelm, possibly even a medically diagnosable cerebral dysfunction (Röhl, 1989, p. 13–35; Fesser, 2001, p. 117–152). The texts and statements analysed by modern scholarship had not been available to Quidde when he wrote his study; but his thrust, as will be elaborated, was different anyway. Quidde had been preoccupied with compiling material since 1889, as he informed a friend from his days as a student in a letter from the same year (Holl 2007, p. 94). He was not alone in associating Caligula with Wilhelm II; other contemporaries also had personal doubts about “Wilhelminism” and its supreme representative (Quidde,

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2001, p. 56; Röhl, 1995, p. 13–29; Holl, 2007, p. 95). As will be shown later Quidde’s thin-line-walking publication only became a scandal through its reception in the media, through—in modern parlance—a “flame war” that relatively soon turned into a succession of proxy wars and party fights, for the author himself did well not to comment on it publicly apart from a brief rejoinder. This journalistic storm will be briefly traced in the following, inter alia on the basis of texts that have either not been taken into account so far or only to a limited extent. In a second step, an analysis of the otherwise excellently documented and analysed scandal will take place, which will attempt to pose a few new questions and adopt different perspectives.

2 Chronology of a Scandal Quidde’s “Caligula” appeared in 1894 around 25 March as “Separatschrift” (separate publication) of the journal “Die Gesellschaft” and at the same time as a brochure at the publisher Wilhelm Friedrich in Leipzig. But initially it attracted no attention, although review copies had been sent to all the major newspapers (Stöber, 1998, p. 155). The first press organ to react was the social democratic “Vorwärts” six weeks later (6 May), praising the witty analysis of a “einschlägigen Sonderfalls” (“relevant special case”) as quite worth reading, which deserved the attention of all “politically thinking people”. Caesarenwahn as a category was not new, the review said, Gustav Freytag had already described its manifestations 30 years earlier. However, in his publication Quidde had described a special case, pointedly and wittily developed. The review focused primarily on the “antique setting” and did not touch on the obvious connection to Wilhelm II expressis verbis, but clearly expressed the criticism of the power relations of its own time and thus established the connection to the later scandal (Fesser, 2001, p. 153, 157). The reception started and demonstrated that readers understood the messages only too well. Alfred Graf von Waldersee, former Chief of General Staff and instrumental in Bismarck’s downfall, got hold of the “Caligula” immediately after its publication and on 29 April 1894 and noted his horror in his diary: at the publication itself, at the obvious comparison with Wilhelm II and at the outrage of a German professor writing such a thing. He wrote that he had not been able to detect any psychological disorders in his meetings with the Emperor, but that the analogies were striking and the subject of Caesarenwahn had been discussed in an inner circle years before (Waldersee, 1967, p. 313; Röhl, 1989, p. 13 note 21; Fesser, 2001, p. 161 note 5). August Stein, the editor of the “Frankfurter Zeitung”, early on realized the potential for agitation hidden in the publication and refrained from publishing a review in his newspaper (Quidde, 2001, p. 58). Wilhelm von Kardorff, a Prussian politician and businessman who had been a member of the Prussian House of Representatives for almost 30 years, wrote enthusiastically to his wife on 29 May how sensational this brochure was, every line containing a lèse-majesté. He stated that the author was a “republican-coloured historian” who was not lacking in malice and that his brochure was being devoured (von Kardorff, 1936, p. 295).

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Quidde’s “Caligula” only really took off with the help of the national-conservative “Kreuzzeitung” that reported on it in detail on 18 May. This review started the “fire” and inflamed the scandal. The transgression was thus less the writing itself, but its medial reception. At that time, only 6000 copies had been distributed, but then the circulation increased to about 150,000 in a few weeks (!), and even translations were requested from abroad (Kloft, 2020, p. 139). It can be assumed that the Emperor himself was among the readers of the brochure (Quidde, 2001, p. 60– 61; von Kardorff, 1936, p. 295; Holl, 2007, p. 96–97 note 61). The review in the “Kreuzzeitung” and the subsequent reviews in numerous other newspapers acted, as it were, as fire accelerators for the media, a fact that Quidde himself still marvelled at 30 years later: three printing presses ran day and night, the readers—among them schoolchildren as well as workers, aristocrats, civil servants and military personnel— practically snatched the book out of the hands of the booksellers. Everybody just had to have the “Caligula”. People bought several copies each and distributed them among their friends and acquaintances, it was read in public, it was sent abroad (Quidde, 2001, p. 61–62). The “impact” of this small study surprised even contemporaries: the massive review of the “Kreuzzeitung” was amazed at the great success of such a small, cheap brochure, about which one knew nothing at all. Even before the review discussed the contents, a comparison was made with an allegedly comparable work on Julian Apostata from the 1840s by David Strauß, a comparison in which Quidde came off badly: Quidde’s publication was deemed a pathetic effort, the comparisons farfetched and testifying to the author’s crude taste. It was regarded as contradicting the state of science. The vocabulary of this paragraph suggests the further direction: Quidde “entblödet sich nicht” (= is presumptuous) and crude, draws nonsensical comparisons, is ignorant, has no intellect. His pamphlet is described as lacking any deeper historical understanding. “Caesarenwahn as a disease” is seen as an invention, a circular argument; one could just as well speak of writer’s madness. And the next sentence anticipates one of the main criticisms of the concept during the twentieth century: whether Caligula was insane or cannot be decided by psychiatrists on the basis of the known sources. The review of the “Kreuzzeitung” states that Quidde is not interested in presenting a medical or historical study at all, but just in presenting a satirical pseudohistory; that the intended target hidden behind Caligula was all too obvious—but that one would refrain from voicing this suspicion. After a detailed critique of manipulative translations and errors in the rendering of ancient authors and the forced modern language, the article arrives at the final verdict of this “latest historical achievement of so-called free and independent scholarship”: the author should be glad to live in a mild age in which, unlike comparable authors of the past, he is not beheaded for lèse-majesté. It would remain to be seen whether the continuation of the monarchy would benefit more from severity or from leniency, but the “Kreuzzeitung” would always stand by the monarchy. The reviewers are not identified by name, but the whole text breathes the spirit of Kreuzzeitung’s two chief editors, Wilhelm Freiherr von Hammerstein and Hermann

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Wilhelm Kropatschek. Because of his academic training, it was probably the latter providing the detailed historical and philological criticism, while Hammerstein was most likely responsible for placing the whole into a political context. In Quidde’s perception, the scandal had been deliberately provoked, and it had been these two chief editors, who had initially tried to incite the “Frankfurter Zeitung” (Quidde, 2001: 60f.; Röhl, 1995: 614ff.; Röhl, 2008 : 159ff.). Fesser and Schlange-Schöningen rightly point out that the motivation of the “Kreuzzeitung” was quite ambiguous: Wilhelm von Hammerstein, editor-in-chief of the newspaper since 1881, had become one of the two-party chairmen of the German Conservative Party in 1892 (Fesser, 2001, p. 154; Schlange-Schöningen, 2003, p. 305 ). One of his friends was the anti-Semitic court preacher Adolf Stoecker, whose articles Hammerstein regularly published in his newspaper. In their programme and outlook, this group was in a permanent conflict with Reich Chancellor Leo von Caprivi; moreover, they worked towards alienating Bismarck from the young Emperor and, since 1890, towards discrediting the Emperor himself. In 1890, Stoecker had become intolerable and was dismissed as court preacher, chiefly because of his political activities; in that year, the emperor even prohibited the “Kreuzzeitung” from being distributed in his palaces. The confrontation then became publicly apparent in the context of a vote in the Reichstag on a trade treaty with Russia, that Hammerstein described as a “tombstone” for German agriculture. Shortly afterwards, the Emperor publicly distanced himself from Hammerstein, what most likely cost Hammerstein his seat in the Reichstag elections of 1894 (Eulenburg, 1979: 1236; Röhl, 1989: 454; Heffter, 1927, p. 198ff.; Fesser, 2001, p. 155). As a result, the royal sympathies of Hammerstein in particular must have been not all that deep at the time of the publication of the denunciation of the “Caligula” in May of 1894—unless one wants to accuse him of a high-risk manoeuvre in order to launch his personal rehabilitation. It is far more likely that the review of the “Caligula” was used as a welcomed opportunity to harm the Emperor, since the newspaper actively urged its readers to read Quidde’s brochure and, by discussing specific arguments, set the tone of the debate (Taube, 1963, p. 5; Stöber, 1998, p. 156). The “competition” was only all too aware of the duplicity of the Kreuzzeitung and its editor-in-chief (Stöber, 1998, p. 156), and irritation with this conduct predominated, especially in the liberal organs. On the very day (!) of the scandalizing review, the “Vossische Zeitung” reported in its evening edition (No. 227) on the all too obvious purpose of drawing attention to and advertising the anti-monarchical pamphlet, stating that the “Kreuzzeitung” apparently called upon to denounce Quidde’s publication—that incidentally was a captivating portrayal of the Roman emperor—as a political diatribe. Slyly, the liberal paper pointed out that the Kreuzzeitung had also been confiscated in the past because of accusations of lèse majesté. Quidde’s reputation was enormous, it was affirmed, the accusations had been “read into it” (“hineingelesen”)—a formulation that was subsequently found in many newspapers. This immediate interpretation was also reflected in the following day’s reporting of the same paper: yes, Quidde was a democrat and political man, and yes, he had opposed “Byzantine ambitions” at the Historians’ Conference in Leipzig, however he was definitely not a “pamphleteer”,

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but a respected scholar recognized by the Prussian Ministry of Culture and held in the highest esteem by his colleagues (Vossische Zeitung [no. 228], 19 May 1894). The direction of the debate was now set and the Berlin papers joined in unison from 19 May onwards, first and foremost—with very short reaction times—“Das Berliner Tageblatt”, “Die Volkszeitung” and “Die Nationalzeitung”, also the “Germania— Zeitung für das Deutsche Volk”, owned by the catholic Zentrum party, in addition to newspapers in neighbouring countries (Berliner Tageblatt [no. 248], 19.5.1894; Die Volkszeitung [no. 201], 19.5.1894, p. 1; Die Nationalzeitung: quoted after: Hannoverscher Courier 20.5.1894; Germania—Zeitung für das Deutsche Volk: quoted after: Berliner Neueste Nachrichten [no. 246], 19.5.1894; Feser, 2001: 156). The tenor was the same everywhere: The indignation of the “Kreuzzeitung” was seen as hypocritical; it was not the “Caligula” that was a denunciation and an insult, but the interpretation given to it by the “Kreuzzeitung”. The journalistic uproar had only arisen through the review of the “Kreuzzeitung” (Neues Wiener Tageblatt [no. 135], 20.5.1894, p. 6). Similar things were written by the “Innsbrucker Nachrichten”, the “Linzer Tagespost”, the “Neue Freie Presse” and the “Weser-Zeitung” (Innsbrucker Nachrichten, 23.5.1894, p. 2; Linzer Tagespost [no. 11], 22.5.1894, p. 2; Neue Freie Presse [no. 10686], 25.5.1894, p. 5; Weser-Zeitung 30.5.1894). From today’s point of view and in the sense of Burkhardt’s typology, one must therefore state that this reporting was the key experience, the “primary transgression”, through which the scandal was so fueled (Burkhardt, 2006, p. 151). This media frenzy put Quidde under increasing pressure, from today’s point of view he had lost the sovereignty of staging (Burkhardt, 2006, p. 155f.). He expected an investigation by the public prosecutor and felt compelled to publish a statement in which he defended himself against attacks by the “Kreuzzeitung”. At the same time, he ensured that his private and scholarly notes were safe and took particular care to destroy the original manuscript, that contained his handwriting as well as that of his friend Franz Rühl and two co-workers, whom he wanted to protect at all costs. The situation was extremely dangerous, for him as well as for his family and friends; if he was convicted of lèse majesté in an especially serious case, a prison sentence of five years awaited him. He was advised to flee abroad, which he refused, as this would have looked like an admission of guilt in his eyes and would have resulted in a certain conviction (Quidde, 2001, p. 63f.). However, Quidde agreed with his advisors that he had to take action and published the aforementioned declaration on 23 May 1894 in both the “Vossische Zeitung” and the “Frankfurter Zeitung”. In it he defended himself against the characterization of his “Caligula” as a pamphlet and the one-sided selection of evidence by the “Kreuzzeitung” and emphasized the historical character of his study. At the same time, he pointed out the duplicity of the “Kreuzzeitung”, as cited in the newspapers, which demanded prosecution for the sake of scandal. He conceded that his writing was quite unusual, more journalistic than scientific and coloured by his political convictions. Quidde also defended himself against accusations that the “Caligula” was the publication of a failed man: Yes indeed, every word breathed his republican views. His dementi were successful in terms of prosecution, but proved too weak to have any effect in the heated debate. Instead they even provided their opponents with munition for further attacks (Quidde, 2001, p. 66; Stöber, 1998, p. 157).

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Camps were formed and a veritable “newspaper war” developed: “Der Reichsbote” sided with the “Kreuzzeitung” and criticized the work as the dissolute, unhinged fantasy of a clique of writers who believed they had to play world innovators and had long since been sleepwalking along the socialist abyss. The “Hamburger Nachrichten”, which was close to Bismarck, found Caligula offensive because of the connections that could be made between the pamphlet and the present. The “Leipziger Tageblatt und Anzeiger” tried to take a middle position by first claiming that it would await a scholarly appraisal of this publication and then reprinting the entire damning review of the “Historische Zeitschrift” (Der Reichsbote, 1. Beilage[no. 120], 26.5.1894; quoted from: Neue Freie Presse 25.5.1894, p. 5; Leipziger Tageblatt und Anzeiger [no. 368], 21.7.1894). Local authorities reacted very disparately to the publication of the brochure or its review in the newspapers: The “Hamburger Generalanzeiger” was confiscated for reprinting extracts of the “Caligula” and charges of lèse majesté were brought, while the review in the “Ostdeutsche Rundschau” resulted in the confiscation of its Sunday edition of 27 May 2—this is the reason that this edition is today missing from all relevant databases (Die Presse [Wien] [no. 140], 24.5.1894, p. 5; Neue Freie Presse [no. 10686], 25.5.1894 (Abendblatt), p. 1; Ostdeutsche Rundschau [no. 15], 5.6.1894, p. 3 with the caption “Noch einmal Caligula”). The “Ostdeutsche Rundschau” actually claimed to have a pro-monarchy position and saw itself confirmed by comparable reports in other German magazines in the Reich such as the “Tägliche Rundschau”. In order to avoid further difficulties, the article with the headline “Noch einmal Caligula” (“Caligula again”) invoked the right of quotation and quoted from articles of other newspapers at length. The attacks formulated in the article were primarily directed against Quidde, against his “attitude” and against the outrage of the supposedly obvious comparison, all the while using the appropriate vocabulary: One had to join the chorus of the decent, so that no false impression would be created abroad. This pamphlet was a cowardly, unmanly and un-German “pasquinade”, with which Quidde had pursued concrete intentions despite his protestations to the contrary; it was not a historical study. Quidde was in line with Jewish publicists like Maximilian Harden. The two were kindred spirits: Like Harden, Quidde had squinted at the Emperor when writing; he had misused the ancient authors for his own purposes. Plus, Quidde had probably taken his cue from Theodor Mommsen, for Mommsen had allowed himself to be tempted to “descend” into the political arena as well and had suggested a comparison with Bismarck in his expositions of piquant events, but had been politically dead as a result. So, Quidde’s republican attitude was clearly revealed in this publication, deserving a sharp rejection, and no excuse for it could be accepted. There was indeed the right to freedom of expression, even against the emperor, but only if the author of such criticism wanted to improve existing conditions. For honest Germans, Caligula was unacceptable in times like these. Maximilian Harden, mentioned here in the same breath as Quidde, reacted in his own magazine, the “Zukunft”, on 2 June. He justifiably pointed out once again that it was only the “Kreuzzeitung” that had elevated the cheap grey brochure to the rank of a political pamphlet—and thus ensured enormous publicity. It had been the same newspaper that had accused Quidde of a particularly treacherous and deceitful insult

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to his majesty and was therefore also responsible for the current “spectacle from hell”, which resembled a witch burning because, together with Quidde, the press of both camps were trying to also burn a few other unloved contemporaries. Harden concludes that “criticism is a form of appreciation” and that with its reaction, the German press had unmasked itself, it was now no longer fit to be either a judge or decision-making body. Quidde’s caricaturing study did not deserve this publishing success by any stretch of the imagination; instead, one could also read “tendency writers” such as Suetonius and Tacitus in the Reclam or Langenscheidt editions. They were at least amusing, whereas Quidde was boring. But a German professor is not obliged to have talent as a writer. Harden takes the trouble of a detailed source criticism and historical evaluation of the historical personalities in Quidde’s account and flatly denies it the status of a historical study. He claims that the purpose for which it was written would not be clear at first glance. He writes that Quidde’s anti-monarchism is personalized, oversimplified and propagandistic, and the author looks like “a late 48-er”. However, he writes, the author had in the meantime distanced himself from any comparisons between Wilhelm II and Caligula, and all delatores (denouncers) should finally finish him off. He goes on to say that the German people were far removed from Byzantine cowering and saw the Emperor as someone who was above the parties and their interests, who did not enrich himself, did no injustice, and whose fate was inseparably linked to the welfare of the country. There was to be no doubt about the Emperor’s good intentions. Whoever compared him to Caligula was not a case for the public prosecutor, but for the mad doctor. He saw the importance of the affair in the sensationalism, the collective indignation, the national dissemination—and in the damage it caused to the monarch’s reputation among the population. In his memoirs of 1926, Quidde revealed that this scathing review had a history, as Harden had tried to persuade him to contribute to his journal “Zukunft”, but Quidde had refused. After the publication of “Caligula”, Harden wrote to him, again expressing his regret that Quidde had not published it in the “Zukunft”—Harden was convinced that the effect of the “Caligula” could have been even greater. Harden subsequently had to justify himself for this ambivalence (Quidde, 2001, p. 62–63). This “flame war” raged in the newspapers for about a month before it slowly faded. With Burkhardt (2006, p. 205), one could say: it moved from the downturn phase to the rehabilitation phase. However, there could be no talk of rehabilitation and normalization, because the “Caligula” did not completely disappear from the public discourse in the years to come (Kohlrausch, 2005, p. 128; Stöber, 1998: 157– 158). Apart from the most politically charged publicity and the numerous polemical pamphlets with their enormously sharp personal attacks against Quidde (Kohlrausch, 2005, p. 130), it is worth taking a look at the scholarly world, because according to the form and Quidde’s subsequent declaration, the publication was, after all, a study of history, or more precisely, a study of ancient history. The most prominent ancient historian of these days was (still) Theodor Mommsen, who was named in more than one newspaper article as a reference in various respects. Quidde, for his part, placed certain hopes in the prominent colleague.

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3 The Scholarly Reception Quidde hoped for a different reaction from Mommsen (and Treitschke) than that of his other servile colleagues obedient to the authorities; he hoped that they would at least like the political attitude of his “Caligula” (Quidde, 2001, p. 68; Holl, 2007, p. 41, 54–55). To Quidde’s chagrin, both remained silent in public, but this would have been different by a hair’s breadth: A few years ago, Heinrich Schlange-Schöningen made a previously unpublished four-page manuscript of Mommsen’s available to the public, that shows how Mommsen struggled with the situation. Schlange-Schöningen claims that Mommsen was in a dilemma: If he stood up for the right of writers and historians for a strong—and also political—freedom of opinion, this might weaken the Emperor and become an aid to those who were working towards chancellor Caprivis downfall, a group with whose views Mommsen sympathized at the time (Schlange-Schöningen, 2003, p. 330; Schlange-Schöningen, 2005: 52). On the other hand, a technically well-founded attack on Quidde and his “Caligula” could have been understood as an “indirect declaration of loyalty” to the Emperor, which was incompatible with Mommsen’s fundamentally liberal convictions. In his eyes, there was enough cause to criticize Wilhelm II; there is no known declaration of loyalty by him to the Hohenzollern monarchy, even though he considered the monarchy indispensable for the continued existence of the German Empire (Schlange-Schöningen, 2003, p. 327; Schlange-Schöningen, 2005, p. 52–54). A middle course in the form of an anonymous publication was also out of the question for Mommsen; it would probably have gone unheard in the cacophony of those days anyway. Furthermore, it would have been easy to expose him (Schlange-Schöningen, 2003, p. 331). All in all, these problems led to Mommsen writing a statement, but not publishing it. If he had decided otherwise, it would have appeared in the liberal weekly “Die Nation”, in which Mommsen had repeatedly published in those years and with whose editor Theodor Barth he had repeatedly corresponded in the causa Quidde after the article in the “Kreuzzeitung” and after Quidde’s reply (Schlange-Schöningen, 2003, p. 299). Fortunately, their correspondence survived (Schlange-Schöningen, 2003, p. 299–300). It documents the stimulating discussion between the two friends. In his remarks, the now 76-year-old Mommsen analysed the problematic nature of the discussion razor-sharp: the form and content of the writing were not important. The excitement about Caligula did not come from what was articulated there, but from what was between the lines, that is, what one should read into it. Legally, one could hardly hold a writer responsible for thinking of certain contemporary things and persons when writing—or for evoking such associations in his readers. Without question, one could wage a war against the state order and its supporters by depicting historical parallels, but at least in the past, prosecutors had not intervened. Thoughts are free and one cannot be held legally responsible for free thoughts when reading a historical story. Yes, it was possible that historical narratives might also violate criminal law, but they were actually protected from this by the incomparability of historical personalities. From a political point of view, the “Kreuzzeitung” and its “back room” were not known for loyalty to the Emperor—and whether they

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had even interpreted Quidde’s study correctly was questionable. He, Mommsen, considered it a bad political mistake to hand Quidde over to the public prosecutor because of the “Caligula” and the indifferent, inaccurate, silly parallels there; the silence of contempt was more appropriate (Schlange-Schöningen, 2003, p. 332–334). Ultimately, therefore, Mommsen abstained from a technical or political classification of the “Caligula”. One of his many students, however, did not see himself at the mercy of these constraints. Elimar Klebs had studied philology and history in Königsberg and Berlin. He had gained his doctorate in 1876 with a thesis on historiography in the time of Sulla at the age of just 23 (Heil, 2018). Klebs was regarded as a first-rate expert on the Roman imperial period, but also as a difficult colleague who was not very cooperative. Mommsen was by no means entirely enthusiastic about him either, and the latent and persistent rift in their relationship was due to injuries on both sides (Meinecke, 1969, p. 132; Meinecke, 2012, p. 496 n. 410; Brandt, 2009, p. 54; Glock, 2009, p. 65–66; Wannack, 2007, p. 46–54, 86–87, 137; Heil, 2018, p. 92, 97). Klebs was first and foremost a philologist, not a historian—which may have been one of the reasons that the “Caligula” triggered him that much: it was because of Quidde’s dealing with the ancient sources (Heil, 2018, p. 93). The main reason for Klebs’s extensive professional invective against Quidde, however, was another: Kleb’s devastating review in the “Historische Zeitschrift”, the second authoritative journal of those years, of 1894 had been commissioned by Friedrich Meinecke, the editor of the journal. This means that Klebs’ text was also an expression of the competition between Quidde’s and Meinecke’s journals. Meinecke was highly satisfied with the review: Klebs had scientifically destroyed Quidde (Meinecke, 1969, p. 132; Meinecke, 2012, nos. 410 + 415; Goetz, 1957, p. 26; Fesser, 2001, p. 158). Klebs pretended at the beginning of his review that he wanted to examine the writing non-politically, purely from a scholarly point of view. However, after this brief premise he directly states his intention quite clearly: Caesarenwahn was scientific nonsense, the one described by Quidde even more so, he refuted the existence of an “occupational disease of kings”. Despite his earlier claim, Klebs subsequently criticizes Quidde’s fundamental convictions, while he at least attests Quidde to having exercised caution in his writing. However, if one seriously wanted to deal with Caligula’s “paranoia monarchia” and only used Suetonius and Cassius Dio, but mostly ignored Philo and Josephus and all inscriptions, and if one moreover ignored Ranke’s damning judgement of both Suetonius and Dio, this simply was not an adequate presentation for a historian. From this point on, Klebs becomes increasingly harsh in his review: almost every source was coloured and distorted beyond recognition, he writes, trying to prove it with a few examples; moreover, Quidde had taken enormous linguistic liberties in the titling and classification of persons and events, and, even worse: he had deliberately misquoted Ranke in a note! There could be no question of the author’s dishonesty. The end of the review then bears some traits of a Philippic: The study was not truly scholarly; with this wretched work, the author had forfeited any claim to be a scholar. As a historian, he had done something immoral, namely misused history for the purpose of political dispute.

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With this review in the HZ, the spectrum of possible reactions had been, in a sense, staked out; in between the poles lay a number of diverse and highly varied reactions, including not a few—partly anonymous—brochures, satirical magazines and couplets, that were performed in the singing halls of the time (Quidde, 2001, p. 60, 62).

4 The “Caligula” and Its Consequences The “Caligula” publication confronted the state and its highest representatives with quite different problems from those of the author: how was one to denounce something that was deliberately within the realm of suggestive interpretation, but could not be derived directly from the content itself? Hermann von Lucanus, chief of the personal office of the German Emperor and thus one of the highest prussian civil servants, considered the publication an intended (sic!) lèse majesté (Geheimes Staatsarchiv, Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin-Dahlem, Rep.89 4 I, Generalia Nr. 7). It would have been possible to clarify in a trial whether the characteristics attributed to Caligula also applied to Wilhelm II, but this would have easily brought the emperor into disrepute (Bösch, 2009, p. 397). On the basis of the laws that existed until 1894, the authorities were condemned to passivity, but they tried to draw the consequences from the events of the year when, at the end of the year, there was a lively discussion in the Reichstag about amending paragraphs 130 of the Strafgesetzbuch and 23.3 of the Reich Press Law to the effect that attacks against religion, monarchy, marriage, family or property would have made it possible to confiscate printed matter even without a court order (Stöber, 1998, p. 158–159). The consequences of the publication of the satire and the subsequent publicity storm were enormous for the author and can be placed in the realm of character assassination and attempted destruction of his respectability and livelihood (Taube, 1963, p. 64). There were no immediate charges, but Quidde spent the following years under surveillance and was ultimately sentenced to three months in prison for a remark made at a Social Democratic meeting in the Kindlkeller in Munich, despite a thin factual basis. For Quidde, the matter was all too clear; this was “revenge for Caligula!” (Quidde, 2001, p. 72–80). Above all, it was revanchism on a very contrived factual basis, clearly showing the effort that had been made to punish a critical author whose work could not be caught with the censorship regulations of the Kaiserreich (Franzen, 2016, p. 125–126). The “Deutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft”, Quidde had founded, was shunned by his peers as a result of the Caligula scandal. According to Quidde, he was cut and ostracized. He tried to save the journal, in which he had invested an enormous amount of time and money, by handing the editorship to other colleagues, renaming it and ostentatiously starting a “Neue Folge” (new series), with Quidde only in small print in the imprint. But that could not save it either, which is why there was another renaming within a short time (Quidde, 2001, p. 67; Holl et al., 2001, p. 26; Holl, 2007, p. 97; Taube, 1963, p. 61; Rürup, 1972).

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The Historical Class of the Bavarian Academy at Munich, Quidde had been an associate member of for several years, publicly denounced his “Caligula” as an abuse of scholarship, which Quidde felt was an overstepping of competence and a form of censorship (Quidde, 2001, p. 67). In 1896, two years after the “Caligula”, the Historical Commission withdrew his leadership of the edition of the Reichstag records, which resulted in a series of internal disputes because Quidde felt emotionally attached to this project, dubbed the decision as not conforming to the statutes and simply refused to hand over all related documents. In the end, a laboriously negotiated compromise was reached, which Quidde apparently agreed to mainly because of his staff (Quidde, 2001, p. 68; Holl, 2007, p. 98). The Prussian Historical Institute in Rome, which had been an important career step for Quidde, subsequently avoided mentioning him and his activities; worse still, they deleted him from the preface of the first volume of the Repertorium Germanicum, which he had launched at the time. In a sense, a kind of damnatio memoriae was imposed on him, for which Quidde held the Emperor himself responsible. The few colleagues who spoke out in public in his favour were not listened to, and he himself became the subject of vilification (Quidde, 2001, p. 69–70; Kohlrausch, 2005, p. 131). Socially, Quidde not only became a persona non grata, but an unperson: many colleagues asked not to be associated with him; he was disinvited from festivals and meetings in Munich. Meetings at which he was supposed to deliver a talk were recorded or immediately declared dissolved by the police officers present. In some cases, he was urged to leave a scholarly association, which Quidde repeatedly resisted: they would have to expel him. In sum, it was the forced termination of an academic career for political reasons (Quidde, 2001, p. 70–71, 79–80; Holl, 2007, p. 97; Rürup, 1972, p. 140; Bösch, 2009, p. 400). His situation only changed during the First World War, when he experienced real appreciation, especially from high-ranking military officers and some ministers and ambassadors. In his retrospectives of the years 1917 and 1926, he seemed to have come to terms with the events surrounding the publication of the “Caligula”, but now he stood by the dimensions and motives of his writing: He had wanted to warn the German people “[…] of the dangers that lay in the unpredictable personality of the Emperor, [who was] incapable of consistent politics and often bordering on mental abnormality” (“[…] vor den Gefahren, die in der unberechenbaren, einer konsequenten Politik unfähigen und oft an die Grenze geistiger Abnormität streifenden Persönlichkeit des Kaisers lagen”). It was a very personal fight against Byzantinism, lack of character and servility. The emperor’s excessive self-confidence, his glorification and his unpredictability were the fault of all those who had encouraged him, including not only those around him but also large sections of the population. He goes on to state that the parallels between Wilhelm II and Caligula were frighteningly numerous and the study so full of allusions that he himself could no longer decipher them all: the playfulness, the posturing, the desire to shine, the nervous haste, the contradictory volatility, the know-it-all attitude, the mania for having to regulate everything himself, the addiction to ostentation and extravagance, the pleasure in military parades, the proclivity for dramatic speeches, the theatricality, the comedic, the penchant for outward appearances, the claim to a divine mission,

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which was not far removed from the claim to god-likeness (Quidde, 2001, p. 81). It was not until 1926 that he bundled the thrust of his powerful study of Caligula into what I consider to be the decisive paragraph that reflected his profoundly republican views like no other: Die Hauptsache ist aber doch, aus dem Caligula und aus dem Rückblick auf die Kaisergestalt Wilhelms II. zu lernen, wie gefährlich es ist, in einem Volke ohne feste demokratische Tradition eine solche Summe von Gewalt in die Hände eines Mannes zu legen, den der Zufall der Geburt, der Abstammung, an die höchste Stelle im Staat stellt. Die furchtbare Gefahr liegt darin, daß jahrzehntelang Persönlichkeiten bestimmend für das Geschick ganzer Völker werden können, denen jede, aber auch jede Eignung dafür fehlt. Die Geschichte fast aller Dynastien in allen Ländern bietet dafür Beispiele. Daß Wilhelm II. nicht alleinsteht oder auch nur alle anderen Vertreter dieses Typus an Gefährlichkeit für das Gemeinwohl überragt, versteht sich von selbst. Der Wiederkehr solcher Möglichkeiten in Deutschland, der Wiederkehr der Monarchie gilt es vorzubeugen, nachdem uns der Zusammenbruch von 1918 unerwartet die Republik gebracht hat. (Quidde, 2001, p. 87) But the main thing one may learn from the ‘Caligula’ and from the retrospective view of Wilhelm II is how dangerous it is - in a nation without a firm democratic tradition - to place such a sum of power into the hands of a man whom the coincidence of birth, of descent, places him at the highest position in the state. The terrible danger lies in the fact that personalities may become decisive for the fate of whole nations for decades while lacking any aptitude for it. The histories of almost all dynasties in all countries offer examples of this. It goes without saying that Wilhelm II does not stand alone or even surpass all other representatives of this type in terms of danger to the common good. The return of such possibilities in Germany, the return of the monarchy, must be prevented after the collapse of 1918 has unexpectedly brought us the Republic. (Quidde, 2001, p. 87)

For its main protagonist, the scandal was only then, 32 years after the fact, closed. And yet he considered his study—by now long out of print—still so relevant that he published it again. One year later, he received the Nobel Peace Prize, together with Ferdinand Buisson, but for completely different achievements (Holl, 2007, chapter. V-VI).

5 Analysis and Conclusion It is a strange mixture of highly diverse sources and texts that gather on one’s desk: Next to ancient historians such as Tacitus, Suetonius or Cassius Dio lie editions of correspondences of German scholars from the imperial era. Next to Quiddes Caligula are polemical pamphlets against him. Next to autobiographies of Prussian diplomats are biographies of Caligula, Theodor Mommsen and Wilhelm II. New archival discoveries on the scandal around the “Caligula” have in recent decades led to a historical reassessment and to new questions, especially from scholars of literature and communication. Let us begin with a few observations that may have been somewhat neglected in the cursory presentation above. The abovementioned events of 1894 are a scandal, they fulfil almost all the requirements in this respect: they were a breach of norms, including the publication of

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the same, and they generated widespread indignation (Bösch, 2011, p. 33). Franzen (2016) and Kohlrausch (2005) have pointed out that this also was a calculated scandal. In the text, Quidde forces his readers to make analogies and comparisons with his manner in presenting his material, with the selection of his quotations as well as with the letter-spacing of certain passages. He wants to steer communication in a certain direction and deliberately violates conventions. But the performance goes even further, because the “suggestive scandalization strategies” of the “Kreuzzeitung” with their “feigned indignation” also consciously contribute to the escalation of the scandal (Franzen, 2016, p. 122; Kohlrausch, 2005, p. 126–127). Kohlrausch points to several decisions by the “Kreuzzeitung” that were effective in this regard: The review was placed on the front page (decidedly unusual for a study in ancient history) and it compared the “Caligula” with other scandalous pamphlets" such as that of David Strauß from the 1840s. It deliberately cited individual, potentially scandalous sentences and expressions out of context in order to emphatically point out to the reader the similarities between Caligula and Wilhelm II (Kohlrausch, 2005, p. 126). The escalation was caused by several components at once: on the one hand, by the satirical sharpness of the “Caligula”, which clearly stood out from others and broke with traditions and conventions as a direct attack on the emperor; on the other hand, by the mixing of scholarship, criticism of the system and political as well as personal confrontation on a large media stage that was still new in Germany at the time (Franzen, 2016, p. 122). It also involved ad hominem attacks and character assassination campaigns conforming to the recent research on character assassination (Icks & Shiraev, 2014, p. 4; Samoilenko et al., 2020, p. 11–24): Taking Quidde as an example, seven methods can be identified that are used in character assassination campaigns, including in particular name-calling, making allegations, ridiculing, exposing, disgracing and erasing (more recently re-baptized “cancelling”). However, for the purposes of the present study, the focus will be on the media and their impact. From an analytical standpoint, we are facing—according to Burkhardt’s typology—both a “medialized scandal” and a “media scandal”, that is a scandal with high publicity, a very diverse public, an enormously long attention span, a widespread effect and full of remarkable performances, that led to different and ambiguous statements, depending on the position (Burkhardt, 2006, p. 158–163; Burkhardt, 2011, p. 133–134). In addition to the scandalization strategies already mentioned, the details worth discussing include questions of unleashed mass communication, deliberate or clumsy taboo-breaking, discourse controls and proxy wars in a medium whose technical advancements at the end of the nineteenth century made newspapers increasingly easier to produce and larger in content—and generated new readerships with new needs (Wilke, 2008, p. 154, 288; Franzen, 2016, p. 123). The players in the—still new—media system of the Empire perhaps still acted somewhat uncertainly and oscillated between roles that are more firmly established today. However, in the sense of the scandal research of recent years they can certainly be differentiated into “scandal producers”, “scandal recipients” and “scandal objects”, who stood in complex relationships to each other as they both triggered and had to endure various interactions (Burkhardt, 2006, p. 139–146; Burkhardt, 2011, p. 136). Furthermore, we have a “scandal within a scandal”, because the ambiguity of the arch-conservative

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“Kreuzzeitung” was immediately exposed and denounced by various liberal papers. But the taboo-breaking comparison of Caligula with Wilhelm II was more effective in the long run (Kohlrausch, 2005, p. 128). From an intertextual point of view, Franzen has correctly described Caligula as a form of “factual Aesopian writing” identifying several elements of it, but also unmasking protective mechanisms and analysing its techniques (Franzen, 2016, p. 133–139; Bösch, 2009, p. 395). In particular, the annotation apparatus and the character as a historical study, but also the person and personality of the author as a scholar with his cultural and social capital had saved Quidde and his study from persecution. Against this background, it was enormously difficult to prove that the “Caligula” was not a study but a satire, given the prominent role of historical scholarship as a leading scholarship at the time. The “Deutungsmacht” (power of interpretation) of the author and his work was therefore all the greater; a historical narrative had an immensely high “Deutungsmacht” in the world of the Kaiserreich, shaped by historicism (Franzen, 2016, p. 137–139). The Caligula scandal illustrates how much society in the 1890s was in flux, how hard the different and ultimately irreconcilable currents clashed and taboos were broken. How divided not only large sections of society, but also colleagues in their own discipline reacted to this writing, its author, and the media scandal, sometimes undoubtedly with an eye to their own careers, sometimes out of political conviction. But it also shows how the windows and niches of political expression narrowed and how history could be argued and instrumentalized. For the majority of academics and scientists of the time, political satire in the guise of a scholarly study was just as unacceptable as it was to parts of the nobility, the conservative circles, the court or the public prosecutor’s offices (Kohlrausch, 2016, p. 25; Stöber, 1998, p. 158; Bösch, 2011, p. 38; Taube, 1963, p. 63).

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Kohlrausch, M. (2017) Loss of control: Kaiser Wilhelm II, mass media, and the national identity of the second German Reich. In: M. Banerjee, C. Backerra & C. Sarti (Hrsgg.), Transnational Histories of the ‘Royal Nation’. Palgrave Studies in Modern Monarchy, 87–107. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-319-50523-7_5. Kron, T. (2020). Trump’s “Geisteszustand”: Steroid-Psychose, Neuro-COVID oder auch Cäsarenwahn? [09.10.2020] https://www.univadis.de/viewarticle/trump-s-geisteszustand-steroid-psy chose-neuro-covid-oder-auch-casarenwahn-730777. Kohlrausch, M. (2016). Zu Wilhelm II. noch etwas Neues? Tendenzen der Forschung der letzten zwei Jahrzehnte. In J. N. Detering, J. Franzen & C. Meid (Hrsgg.), Herrschaftserzählungen. Wilhelm II. in der Kulturgeschichte (1888–1933) (pp. 19–37). Ergon-Verlag. Meinecke, F. (1969). Autobiographisches Schriften. In E. Kessel (Ed.), Friedrich Meinecke – Werke. De Gruyter. Meinecke, F. (2012). Neue Briefe und Dokumente. In G. Bock & G. Ritter (Eds.), Friedrich Meinecke – Werke. De Gruyter. Quidde, L. (2001) Caligula. Eine Studie über Caesarenwahnsinn (1926), cited in: K. Holl, H. Kloft, G. Fesser (Eds.),Caligula – Wilhelm II. und der Caesarenwahnsinn. Antikenrezeption und wilhelminische Politik am Beispiel des “Caligula” von Ludwig Quidde (pp. 40–53). Edidtion Temmen e.K. Quidde, L. (2001). Erinnerungen des Verfassers: Im Kampf gegen Cäsarismus und Byzantinismus im kaiserlichen Deutschland, cited in: K. Holl, H. Kloft, G. Fesser (Eds.), Caligula – Wilhelm II. und der Caesarenwahnsinn. Antikenrezeption und wilhelminische Politik am Beispiel des “Caligula” von Ludwig Quidde (pp. 56–88). Edition Temmen e.K. Röhl, J.C.G. (1989). Kaiser Wilhelm II. Eine Studie über Cäsarenwahnsinn (= Schriften des Historischen Kollegs. Vorträge, Band 19). Stiftung Historisches Kolleg. Rürup, R. (1972). Ludwig Quidde. In H.-U. Wehler (Ed.): Deutsche Historiker. Vol 3 (pp. 124–147). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Samoilenko, S., Shiraev, E., Keohane, J., Icks, M. (Eds.) (2020). The Routledge Handbook of Character Assassination and Reputation Management. Routledge. Schlange-Schöningen, H. (2003). Jenen Kaiser freilich schützt heutzutage kein Staatsanwalt": Theodor Mommsen über Ludwig Quiddes "Caligula. Historisches Jahrbuch, 123, 297–336. Schlange-Schöningen, H. (2005). Mommsen und die Hohenzollern. In A. Demandt, A. Goltz & H. Schlange-Schöningen (Eds.), Theodor Mommsen: Wissenschaft und Politik im 19. Jahrhundert (pp. 36–61). De Gruyter. Sittig, F. (2016). Caesarenwahnsinn, Professorenwahnsinn, Volkswahnsinn – Gebrauchsanweisung für eine historische Analysekategorie. In M. Schuol, C. Wendt, J. Wilker (Eds.), Exempla Imitanda. Mit der Vergangenheit die Gegenwart bewältigen. Festschrift für Ernst Baltrusch zum 60. Geburtstag (pp. 229–248). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Sittig, F. (2018). Psychopathen in Purpur: Julisch-claudischer Caesarenwahnsinn und die Konstruktion historischer Realität (Historia 249). Steiner Verlag. Stöber, R. (1998). Die erfolgverführte Nation. Deutschlands öffentliche Stimmungen 1866 bis 1945. Franz Steiner Verlag. Taube, U. (1963). Ludwig Quidde: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des demokratischen Gedankens in Deutschland. Lassleben. von Waldersee, A. (1967). Denkwürdigkeiten des General-Feldmarschalls Alfred Grafen von Waldersee. Edited by Heinrich Otto Meisner. 3 Vol. Biblio Verlag. Wannack, K. (2007). Hermann Dessau: Der fast vergessene Schüler Mommsens und die Großunternehmen der Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaften. Verlag Dr. Kovac. Wiegand, W.V. (1992). Walter Wilhelm Goetz 1867-1958: Eine biographische Studie über den Historiker, Politiker und Publizisten. Oldenbourg. Wilke, J. (2008). Grundzüge der Medien- und Kommunikationsgeschichte. Böhlau.

Having the Last Laugh: Scandalous Character Assassination in Comedy in Classical Athens and the Current-Day United States Martijn Icks and Eric Shiraev

Character assassination concerns attacks against the reputation and credibility of individuals. Character assassination has become an interdisciplinary field contributing to the most recent research into scandalogy (Icks & Shiraev, 2020; Samoilenko et al., 2020) and showing the ways and means by which character attacks are linked to scandals. The emergence and spread of new media environments creates new opportunities for character attacks and hence for scandalization. In this article, we explore these dynamics by focusing on political comedy. As is well known, lampooning can be a powerful weapon of character assassination (Icks & Shiraev, 2014). It has great potential to create scandal and thus damage the reputation of political leaders. This has only become more apparent in recent decades, when late-night comedy shows in the US and Europe increasingly started to combine humor with biting political commentary. In this emerging media environment, the boundaries between comedy, political campaigning, and journalism have become blurred (Lichter & Farnsworth, 2020). To start with an example, in 2016 German comedian Jan Böhmermann insulted Turkish President Recep Erdo˘gan in his late-night TV show Neo Magazin Royale. He did so by citing a mocking poem that was filled with profanities targeting the president personally. Among other things, the poem called Erdo˘gan “as dumb as a bag,” “perverted, lice-ridden” and “a zoophile,” claiming that he was “kicking Kurds, whacking Christians while watching child porn.” Böhmermann took this action in response to the diplomatic backlash that had come from Turkey after another German comedian, Martin Erdmann, had released a mocking song about Erdo˘gan and his human rights abuses. He wanted to make a point about free speech and censorship. His provocative poem was rebroadcast and reposted in many social network sites and online platforms. Within hours it caused an international incident, “Erdogate.” M. Icks (B) Amsterdam, The Netherlands E. Shiraev Fairfax, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Haller et al. (eds.), Scandology 3, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85013-5_9

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Turkish officials in Ankara summoned the German ambassador and demanded criminal prosecution of the comedian. The German government complied, as insulting a foreign head of state was forbidden by German law at the time and could even lead to a prison sentence. Moreover, Chancellor Angela Merkel issued an official apology to the Turkish leader. This prompted severe criticism from German civil libertarians who believed that she bowed to the whims of a foreign dictator and did not stand up for freedom of speech, igniting a public scandal that received global coverage. In the process, not only Erdo˘gan but also Merkel suffered reputational damage. Politics and comedy had become hopelessly entangled (Smale, 2016). In the following sections, we will further explore the links between political comedy, character assassination, and scandal. After offering some general reflections, we will discuss two clusters of case studies. The first concerns comedic drama in Classical Athens, in particular the play Knights by Aristophanes. The second concerns political comedy in contemporary US late-night shows. Finally, we will compare these two clusters and provide our concluding remarks based on their similarities and differences.

1 On Comedy, Character Assassination, and Scandal Comedy in a broad sense is a form of artistic communication that refers to information that is generally intended to be funny or humorous. Comedy as an art genre refers to acts that are supposed to produce humor. In the context of this paper, we focus on the function of humor that causes a basic human emotion of joy or pleasure. This reaction can also be combined with surprise or other affective states that occur when something appears as unusual, unexpected, erroneous, disturbing, or even threatening (McGraw & Warren, 2010). For centuries, comedy has been associated with and made use of character assassination. In our definition, the meaning of this term is twofold. On the one hand, it refers to the process of attacking the character of an individual in a public context with the intention to cause reputational damage; on the other, it refers to the result of such attacks if they are successful, i.e., the target’s reputation has been damaged (Icks & Shiraev, 2014). In our previous work on scandalogy we argued that many scandals were created by deliberate character attacks (Icks & Shiraev, 2020). Comedy and especially political satire are two obvious venues to generate scandal. Political satire usually employs a wide range of character attacks to portray persons of power as hypocritical, greedy, stupid, ridiculous, or corrupt. However, not all political comedy is meant to provoke and scandalize. The comedian may have no other goal than to make his audience laugh, without taking sides in an electoral fight or trying to score a political point. Parody, for instance—although it contains ridiculing— does not necessarily condemn or denigrate a ridiculed politician or public official. In practice, however, it is often hard to make a clear distinction between good-natured mockery and vicious jokes meant to damage the target’s reputation. Therefore, every person who writes and tells jokes should understand the context within which a comical act is taking place to determine which jokes are likely to be “funny” to

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the audience. As empirical psychological research suggests, laughing at a joke told by another person in most situations indicates that the interaction between these individuals is relatively safe (Bryant undefined., 2016). Only if a joke or a comedy skit is viewed as “bad,” offensive or inappropriate, they could generate a scandal. In this article, we focus on media environments in which comedy becomes truly politicized, by which we mean that comedians employ humor to advocate a political agenda and may damage or actually damage the reputations of political leaders. As we have already pointed out, such an environment has in recent decades emerged in late-night comedy shows in the United States and other Western countries. However, it was certainly not the first time something like this happened. As a point of comparison, we will discuss the political humor of Aristophanes, the first comic playwright from Classical Athens (fifth century BCE) whose works are extant. As we will see, Aristophanes was also living in a time when comedy was weaponized to attack the reputations of the prominent and the powerful. That is not to say that modern American late-night comedy and Classical Athenian comedy are comparable in every respect. Quite the contrary. The historical, cultural, and technological contexts are vastly different. Modern-day America and Classical Athens operate(d) according to different norms and have (or had) their own culture-specific forms of humor. Their political systems and population structures also significantly diverge. Most obviously, Classical Athens lacked modern mass media such as television and the Internet. Yet despite their many differences, both societies are (or were) organized according to democratic principles and set great value on free speech. Of course, it should be noted that voting rights in Classical Athens were restricted to male citizens and hence excluded women, slaves, and metics (freeborn non-citizens), so it was only a democracy in a limited sense of the word. In both societies, political leaders can (or could) be openly mocked in front of a large audience—either consisting of spectators who were physically present, as in Athens, or watching comedy on a television or smartphone screen, as many modern Americans do. Moreover, cross-cultural studies constantly discuss many crucial similarities in emotional experiences of people in different cultural and historical contexts. As these studies summarize, basic human interpersonal communications, as well as some general mechanisms of social perception—including humor as an act of interpersonal interaction—can share many universal characteristics (Stearns, 2017). What are the perceived similarities and differences between political humor in Classical Athenian drama and modern American late-night shows? How were both societies affected by changing media environments in which comedy became highly politicized? Which political jokes were likely to be viewed as offensive in ancient times compared to today? How would those similarities and differences be linked to resulting scandals? Of course, we cannot conduct a quantitative comparative study due to many vast differences in our samples. We can, however, attempt at a qualitative critical analysis of the facts with the help of historical and modern research into comedy.

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2 Cluster 1: Comedic Drama in Classical Athens The use of comedy as a political weapon has deep historical roots. Comedy as a dramatic genre first flourished in Classical Athens in the fifth century BCE. Both tragic and comedic plays, as well as a third genre known as satyr plays, were performed twice a year during religious festivals devoted to the god Dionysus. These festivals were state-sponsored and fulfilled an important civic function: they brought the people together and offered them an opportunity to reflect on their democratic values and institutions. Theatrical performances took place in the open air and were set up as competitions, with a jury awarding first, second and third prizes (Cartledge, 1990; Dover, 1972; Hughes, 2012; MacDowell, 1995; Revermann, 2010). The audience was probably composed of members of all classes and both sexes (Roselli, 2014). While it has been suggested that its composition became skewed in favor of conservative elites over the course of the fifth century (Sommerstein, 1998), this seems unlikely: not only would it go against the interests of the sovereign demos, the body of citizen-voters, to exclude the lower classes from this important communal event, it would also beg the question why the play’s heroes tend to be average Joes rather than aristocrats (Olson, 2010, p. 54–56). Unfortunately, few fifth-century comedies have survived the wreckage of time, but we do have a substantial body of work by Aristophanes (ca. 446–386 BCE). Eleven of his plays have come down to us virtually complete. Defining the genre of “Old Comedy,” they provide biting political and social commentary on the Athenian affairs of the day. Although the plays have fictional plots and protagonists, they also include contemporary public figures as characters, such as the philosopher Socrates and the tragic playwright Euripides. In this sense, they are not dissimilar to modern TV shows like The Simpsons and South Park, which likewise have real-life celebrities interact with fictional characters in absurd plots (Ruffell, 2011). Aristophanes’s earlier works in particular are characterized by harsh personal attacks on such public figures, while plays from the later part of his career are generally seen as less politically charged. One reason for this may be that the earlier plays were written during a particularly tumultuous period in Athens’s history, namely against the backdrop of the Peloponnesian War with archrival Sparta (Van Steen, 2007, p. 108–109). Fragments of other comedic plays appear to reflect the same trend. Although the sparse evidence does not allow us to draw any definite conclusions, it suggests that Athenian comedy only became emphatically “political” in the second half of the fifth century, especially during the last quarter, after which its political focus diminished again (Olson, 2010, p. 60–62). Aristophanes’s earlier plays, then—up to and including Frogs in 405 BCE—were probably part of a new media environment in which political criticism and fierce personal attacks on political leaders came to the forefront of Athenian comedy. Without a doubt, the desire to make his audience laugh and win the first prize in the competition was a major drive for Aristophanes. This would have motivated him to attune his works to popular sentiment to a certain degree, while still leaving him some room to express his personal opinions. Although it is dangerous to equate

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an author’s political views with those expressed by his characters, it seems likely that Aristophanes had a rather conservative outlook, in the sense that he probably favored the democratic system but would prefer the demos to elect and follow leaders of aristocratic stock (Spielvogel, 2003).1 Other than that, though, it is hard to discern a coherent political program in his plays. It has even been suggested that Aristophanes did not show any political commitment as a dramatist and wished nothing more than to create art and entertainment (Dover, 1972; Gomme, 1938). In contrast, some scholars have characterized him as a champion of democracy, giving voice to the wishes of the people or keeping them on their toes (Henderson, 1990, 1993; Ober, 1998, p. 122–155). For what it is worth, the playwright appears to present himself as a stern but well-meaning adviser of the people in several of his plays (e.g., Acharnians 628–664). However, there is no indication that his comedies ever affected political outcomes (Olson, 2010, p. 43–45).2 The Knights, performed in 424 BCE at the Lenaia festival, is without question one of Aristophanes’s most political plays. It tells the story of Paphlagon, a slave in the service of an elderly gentleman, Mister Demos of Pnyx Hill—an obvious personification of the Athenian demos which assembled on the Pnyx to discuss politics. Paphlagon is a vulgar, loud-mouthed jerk who sucks up to Demos, abuses his privileges as his master’s favorite and bullies the other slaves of the household. The play opens with two of these other slaves deciding that they have had enough. They call upon the aid of a sausage seller who happens to pass by and persuade him to challenge Paphlagon for Demos’s favor. The sausage seller, who appears to be an even more brazen and unscrupulous character than Paphlagon himself, competes with the latter in flattering and pampering the old slaveholder. The proceedings are commented upon by a chorus of knights who give the play their name and represent Athens’s aristocracy. After several rounds of contests, the sausage seller triumphs over his rival and becomes the new favorite. The play ends with him appearing side by side with a miraculously rejuvenated Demos, while the spurned Paphlagon is condemned to selling sausages at the city gates. Just like the audience would have no trouble understanding who old man Demos represented, they would have immediately recognized Paphlagon as Cleon, a wellknown figure who was often the butt of cruel jokes in Aristophanes’s plays. Cleon was a rich tanner from a non-aristocratic background who wielded much influence as a demagogue in the 420s, giving rousing speeches in the people’s assembly to influence the demos. He was a “hawk” in the Peloponnesian War, urging an aggressive policy toward Sparta (Lafargue, 2013; Lind, 1990). In the Knights, the identities of Paphlagon and Cleon are blurred: sometimes the character is presented as a slave in the household of Demos, at other times as an influential Athenian politician. The slaves conspiring to get rid of him describe him as “a tanner, an arch criminal, and a slanderer” who does nothing but “flattering and fawning and toadying and swindling” 1

Sommerstein (2014, p. 297) argues that Aristophanes supported an oligarchic agenda. Van Steen (2007) wisely urges caution in trying to pinpoint the playwright’s political leanings. 2 Olson (2010) provides an excellent overview of the scholarship on the matter of Aristophanes’s political intentions as a comic playwright.

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the unsuspecting Mister Demos (40–49).3 The sausage seller compares him to an eel fisherman: “When the lake is still, they catch nothing; but if they stir the mud up and down, they make a catch. You also make a catch if you stir up the city.” (p. 864–867) Similar sentiments are voiced by the chorus of knights, who hurl these insults at Paphlagon: You filthy disgusting shout-downer, your brazenness fills the whole land, the whole Assembly, the taxes, the indictments and lawcourts, you muckraker, you who have thrown our whole city into a sea of troubles, who have deafened our Athens with your bellowing, watching from the rocks like a tuna fisher for shoals of tribute! (p. 303-312)

Paphlagon/Cleon, in short, is portrayed as a troublemaker, someone who thrives by stirring up the base emotions of his audience. In modern terms, we might label him a populist. He is corrupt, flattering, and deceiving the demos for his own selfish ends. The character’s boorish manners, no doubt, ridicule Cleon’s common origins. The fact that Aristophanes could so openly and aggressively ridicule one of the most influential political figures of his time without causing scandal or suffering repercussions testifies to the great worth the Athenians set on parrhesia, free speech. This freedom was not absolute: we know that by the fourth century BCE, at least, and probably earlier, the law placed certain restrictions on slander, for instance on the denigration of the dead (Halliwell, 1991: 49–51). Other restrictions on parrhesia included criticism of the democratic constitution and insults to the gods (Henderson 1996: 14). In practice, though, there appears to have been considerable leeway to cross even these lines. It has been suggested that the Dionysiac festivals were extraordinary events which gave playwrights more room to mock and smear individuals than would normally be allowed (Halliwell, 1991). However, there are no compelling reasons to think that this was the case. It also seems unlikely that Athenians regarded dramatic mockery as harmless fun, since several contemporary sources indicate otherwise (Sommerstein, 2004, p. 154–159). Cleon, in fact, appears to have taken legal action against Aristophanes twice, although the evidence is sparse, and much is unclear about the details. It seems, though, that in neither case did the lampooned politician strike back on the formal ground that he had been personally slandered. After the performance of Aristophanes’s play Babylonians in 426 BCE, he apparently sought to have the playwright indicted by the Athenian Council for insulting the city in the presence of foreigners among the audience. The attempt failed. Two years later, after the performance of the Knights, Cleon indicted Aristophanes again, this time in all likelihood for exercising the rights of an Athenian citizen without being entitled to them. This was a serious charge, and apparently not entirely groundless, because Aristophanes agreed to settle out of court, promising to tone down his personal jibes in the future. However, he did not keep his word, gleefully launching new attacks on his favorite target in later plays (Sommerstein, 2004). Whatever Aristophanes’s personal and political motives may have been for his continuous and merciless lampooning of Cleon, especially in the Knights, it is clear that Cleon, at least, did not regard the jokes at his expense as a laughing matter, but 3

All quotations from the Knights are taken from the translation by Henderson (1998).

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treated them as a serious threat to his good name and honor. The theater audience, however, does not appear to have been scandalized by the playwright’s outrageous jibes and barbs. In fact, the Knights won first prize in that year’s competition. At the same time, we should not overestimate the play’s negative impact on Cleon’s reputation: just a few weeks after the performance, the demos voted him into the prestigious office of strategos, i.e., general. Apparently, the Athenian people could appreciate some very crass and outspoken humor aimed against their political leaders, but let other considerations prevail when it became time to pick the best man for the job. Many hundreds of years have passed… What would modern comedy bring to the study of comic character assassination and its impact on scandals?

3 Cluster 2: Late-Night Comedy in the Contemporary US In the twentieth century there was no longer a need to organize once-a-year festivals to gather everybody in one place. Although some stand-up comedians could tour and gather large audiences, such individuals were very few and far between. Major television networks were developing new entertainment strategies to keep people glued to television sets as long and often as possible. The standard design of latenight talk shows in the United States has been a common trend since the rise of this genre of late-night television comedy in the 1980s. Most of them were nightly shows running from Monday to Friday. Expectedly, the host would open the show with a monologue or opening interactive remarks with a side kick (a comedian assigned to a minor role in the show). After this opening monologue, one or several guests would appear for a friendly, jokes-filled banter. Occasionally, the host would present their own skits or interactive games involving the guest or the audience. The format and the names of the popular shows survived throughout almost four decades. Although women hosting afternoon television shows became very successful in the past twenty years, women do not dominate late-night comedy. Major national television networks in the 2020s feature the most popular comedians such as NBC’s Jimmy Fallon (11:35 pm) and Seth Myers (12:30 am); CBS features Steven Colbert (11:35 pm) and James Corden (12:35 am); while SNL is a weekly Saturday comedy show featured on NBC. All these shows have streaming capacities and YouTube channels (Table 1).

3.1 Politics in the Shows The 1980s was an era of “appointment television,” the type of interaction between the broadcaster and the audience in which the viewer was aware of the television schedule and was making their own “appointments” with a particular show, situating themselves in front of the television set, usually one per household. News, shows, and

142 Table 1 Overview of late-night shows and their political content

M. Icks and E. Shiraev Shows

Political content

Jimmy Fallon (NBC)

Generally avoided. Partisan character attacks are rare

Seth Myers (NBC)

Always present. Direct character attacks are frequent

Stephen Colbert (CBS) Always present. Direct character attacks are frequent James Corden (CBS)

Generally avoided. Character attacks are rare

SNL (NBC)

Always present. Character attacks are common

Sources Price (2017), Shevenok (2021)

other broadcasts would reach tens of millions of viewers. To repeat, cable television did not substantially change this “appointment” pattern and most broadcasters still attempted to reach a large bipartisan audience. Although campaign “spots” (or ads promoting political candidates) were highly partisan, they were clearly identified as sponsored by political parties and candidates, not by television networks. Occasional mockery of famous politicians was seemingly acceptable. Back in the 1970s, cracking jokes on the late-night SNL about President Ford, especially his clumsiness, did not cause scandals (maybe due to the fact that Ford was indeed clumsy in several public appearances.) References to and jokes on SNL and in the media about President Biden’s physical awkwardness and gaffes in his speeches did not generate a public scandal, not at least during an early stage of his presidency. Direct character attacks against presidents were somewhat rare in network-produced shows for the most part of the late twentieth century. It also appears that the impact of this rare form of political humor was very much noticeable decades ago. When comedian Dick Cavett on his famous show in 1973 constantly ridiculed president Nixon, the president was so affected and concerned about a fallout of the ridicules that he mentioned Cavett 26 times in the White House tapes and even asked his staff, “is there any way we could screw him?” (Ip, 2014). Today most kinds of mockery directed at a sitting president are unlikely to cause a raging, critical reaction. At least two reasons can explain this tendency associated with a new media environment. Firstly, the rapid decline of “appointment television.” One of the business models in performing arts and comedy has been, “avoid politics.” This business model requires that the comedian should try to reach as large an audience as possible and thus he or she should not be partisan on stage or in front of the camera. This model remained dominant during the “appointment television” era. It is true that some comedians embraced politics and used character attacks against public officials. For example, Johnny Carson, who was famously called “the king of late night,” constantly mocked politicians of all ranks and from both parties (Woodruff, 2005). Yet these comedians’ attacks involved mostly obvious cases of corruption or other well-known improprieties. In other words, their comedy did not cause scandal. It simply covered scandals that

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had already occurred or were unfolding. The Dick Cavett Show, mentioned earlier, in fact, was uncovering the massive Watergate Scandal involving a sitting president involved in a cover up exposed before the nation. Within the new media reality, late-night shows these days can be streamed and watched at any time according to the viewer’s choice. Yet the biggest success in the 2020s is seemingly achieved via YouTube where some political skits receive up to 20 million viewers, which is easy to see by searching for a particular comedian, such as Alec Baldwin and his parodies of Trump on SNL (while actual nightly shows can rarely draw even one-tenth of that number) (Farnsworth & Lichter, 2018). This selective viewing of selective shows and episodes should make sense: people tend to watch the skits attacking their political opponents, not necessarily the politicians they support. This is indicative of a new trend in broadcasting associated with the “echo chamber” phenomenon: people tend to watch what they prefer, not what is simply available on the Web (Edwards, 2013). By being within or joining an echo chamber, people are able to seek out information including jokes that reinforce their existing views without encountering opposing views. Because many character attacks by late-night comedians who adopt a partisan model reach a sympathetic partisan audience (the “other” side of the audience does not watch them), the chances for scandalization of the content are diminished: very few on the other side are offended because very few of them are watching (Sharot & Sunstein, 2020). Comedians, therefore, can be incentivized to go “personal,” which is another way to generate higher ratings: the most brazen attacks tend to go viral on YouTube and social networks generating “likes” about large crowds of supporters. Yet there are no scandals emerging. The second factor contributing to the decline of scandals in political comedy is the apparent diminished sensitivity of the public. The years of Donald Trump have been associated with the rise of “scandal thresholds” for character assassination in politics and social spheres. Trump’s avalanche of scornful attacks on others caused furious counter attacks targeting him as well as his supporters. The New York Times in a case study counted between 6,000 and 10,000 direct insults Tweeted by Trump during his presidency (Van Syckle, 2021). As a result, because of the increased sensitivity thresholds, American society at least for some period has become more tolerant to political smears. As a result of the possible rise of “scandal thresholds” the harsh rhetoric of comedians vis-à-vis a somewhat friendly audience remains mostly acceptable. In a study of late-night shows more than 90 percent of the jokes about Trump referred to personal matters, such as the president’s physical appearance, his celebrity status, his bluster, his rhetorical inconsistency, and his chaos-filled administration (Farnsworth & Lichter, 2018). Even harsh remarks were unlikely to generate a scandal. Even most direct name-calling directed against Trump (Seth Myers: “from one brazen lie to another…”; Stephen Colbert: “Donald Trump is a fascist”; Jimmy Kimmel: Trump “should have been arrested”; “a litany of lies, threats, just a despicable and incoherent attack on democracy…”) did not generate headlines. In addition, as critics noticed, because Trump in many ways appeared as a caricature in real life, the comedians often had a hard time portraying him in a comical way (Di Placido, 2020). Whether

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this trend is likely to diminish with a new political climate in Washington remains to be seen. And yet, scandals associated with comedy took place. What were their apparent common features?

3.2 Notable Scandals Let us consider just three of them. “A hit man in a porno movie,” this is how a SNL comedian Pete Davidson called a military veteran named Dan Crenshaw who ran for the US Congress in the fall of 2018. (Jensen, 2018) Crenshaw, a Republican, was wearing an eye-patch as a result of his injury. The National Republican Congressional Committee demanded an apology from both NBC and Davidson after these comments on Saturday’s show. Democrat Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who lost both legs while serving in Iraq, also said that the comedian owed Crenshaw an apology. The resulting debates on Twitter and on television networks were furious. People would defend (can one take a joke?) and condemn (how dare you to insult?) the public mocking of a veteran. In the end, the comedian apologized (Erin, 2018). In 2017, comedian Kathy Griffin posted a photo of herself holding up a Donald Trump mask styled to look like a severed, bloody head. She posted this picture on her Instagram and Twitter accounts. An avalanche of critical comments emerged from both sides of the political spectrum. Many Griffin supporters criticized her action. A scandal erupted. Griffin later took down the image, and apologized publicly for the photo, saying she went too far and adding, “I beg for your forgiveness” (Gonzalez, 2017). That was a clear sign of her moral defeat. Since the incident, she has been, according to her own account, blacklisted for a long time by major networks. In 2018, Jimmy Fallon, the sixth host of the Tonight Show franchise on NBC (Fallon, 2018), who preaches no politics on his show (“I don’t like to be so preachy. I don’t want to tell you what to do, what to think,” he said. “I’m not an authority.… I have my own opinions but I’m not going to shove it in your brain and the same with politics….”) was heavily criticized for seeming to normalize or even support Trump during a 2016-campaign appearance on The Tonight Show. During the broadcast Fallon at one moment casually mussed Trump’s hair. This has generated a miniscandal for Fallon’s seemingly non-critical approach to Trump. Fallon was accused of “kissing up” to the presidential candidate. As a sign of defeat, Fallon later publicly apologized about him being “soft” on Trump.

4 Comparison A brief structural and functional comparison between Classical Athenian comedy, as represented by Aristophanes, and current US late-night comedy shows yields some significant similarities and differences. We have listed them in Table 2.

Having the Last Laugh: Scandalous Character Assassination … Table 2 Comparison between clusters

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Classical Athenian comedy

US comedy shows

“Live audience”

Broadcast via tv and social media

Twice a year

Daily basis

Mocking public figures, including politicians

Mocking public figures, including politicians

Advocating a political message

Advocating a political message

Very few taboo topics

Some topics considered politically incorrect

Some targeted individuals retaliate

Some targeted individuals retaliate

Very few legal restrictions against slander

Some legal restrictions against slander

Political impact unclear

Political impact unclear

We have already touched upon the fact that Aristophanes’s comedies were only performed on special festive occasions before a live (and therefore limited) audience, while American comedians produce new content on a daily basis and can reach much larger audiences through modern mass media. Both types of comedy mock public figures, including politicians. In both cases, the politicization of comedy can be seen as part of changing media environments. As far as the available evidence allows us to say, Athenian comedy in the final decades of the fifth century BCE— roughly corresponding to the tumultuous time of the Peloponnesian War—had a much more emphatic political focus than it did in previous or subsequent periods. In the United States, the shift from appointment television to online streaming allowed comedians much more room to cater to partisan audiences. How do the effects of these developments on character assassination and scandalization compare? Firstly, let us consider taboo topics in both cultures. As we argued in our previous work, scandals are triggered when a society’s sensitivity thresholds are breached (Icks & Shiraev, 2020). Such thresholds are particularly low—and the societal sensitivity to a scandal therefore high—in the case of important cultural taboos. In Classical Athenian comedy, taboos appear to have been rare. While it was frowned upon to insult the demos or the gods, there was ample room, both legally and culturally, to slander individuals. Aristophanes did not hold back at all in his mocking insults of Cleon, accusing him in explicit terms of boorishness, corruption, and many other personal flaws. He even continued to ridicule his enemy after the latter had passed away, despite the restrictions that were probably already in place against posthumous denigration. Other deceased individuals attacked by Aristophanes and his peers include statesmen such as Pericles and Erasinides (Halliwell, 1991, p. 51). Modern US comedy, on the other hand, is more tightly regulated by legal and cultural taboos. There are legal definitions of “fighting words” in US law: such words, by their very utterance, inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach

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of the peace. In recent decades, racist, sexist and homophobic jokes that were once commonplace on the air have become increasingly off limits. Topics involving death threats are also taboo, regardless of the comedian’s political affiliation—as demonstrated by the storm of critique Kathy Griffin provoked by holding up a Donald Trump mask appearing like a severed head. Denigrating the dead is generally seen as distasteful, unless the jokes refer to a foreign enemy of the United States, such as former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Sexual harassment is another sensitive topic, although comedians have more leeway to joke about well-known or convicted offenders, such as Harvey Weinstein. In general, it has become less acceptable in the United States to ridicule social groups who are designated as legally protected classes based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, sexual orientation, or disability. Secondly, the differences in taboo topics and sensitivity thresholds between Classical Athens and the current-day United States result in different scandal cultures. In Athens, people of all classes and both sexes were likely present at comic plays, including members of the demos cherishing a wide variety of political views. The plays of Aristophanes and his fellow playwrights were certainly not performed before a partisan audience. Yet jokes about politicians and other public figures such as Cleon could be very offensive, without there being any indication that this led to scandalization. Evidently, the theater-going public—which must have included a sizable amount of people who generally supported Cleon—could appreciate the harsh lampooning of the demagogue in the Knights and several other plays. And while Cleon himself clearly felt offended, his attempts to censor Aristophanes failed on two occasions, again indicating that support for his moral outrage was limited at best. In the United States, on the other hand, late-night comedy now increasingly often caters to partisan audiences. Many current-day spectators do not expect to be embarrassed or offended by the jokes and character attacks against politicians and officials, because they tend to dislike these targets to begin with. Of course, political comedy via character attacks can still can become a trigger of scandals. Compared to decades during which appointment television was the dominant model, scandals in the era of social networks and streaming may appear to be diminishing in significance and scope. They are increasingly becoming, as we call them, “half-scandals,” especially in a polarized political culture where one side is outraged by a character attack, yet the other laughs. This assumption, however, should be empirically tested.

5 Conclusion The political nature of comedy matters. Both Classical Athens and the United States are democratic societies in which the powerful can be openly ridiculed. In both cultures, comedy has an important political dimension. Moreover, both cultures probably experienced a shift to a more politicized form of comedy—temporary in Classical Athens, still ongoing in the United States—defined by harsher and more frequent ridicule of political leaders. At first glance, one would expect these changing

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media environments in both societies to lead to a higher degree of scandalization. However, that does not appear to be the case. In Classical Athens, the public watching the plays of Aristophanes and his contemporaries seems to have had a high tolerance for fierce character attacks against prominent statesmen, regardless of the political leanings of individual spectators. In the current-day US, the fact that comedians increasingly target partisan audiences, as well as the possible rise in scandal thresholds induced by the Trump presidency, provide plausible explanations for the relative lack of public outrage. The differences between both societies hint at a difference in the function fulfilled by political comedy. Although the political motivations of Aristophanes remain a contested issue in modern scholarship, it is clear that the comic playwright did not shrink back from confronting his audience with explicit and uncompromising criticism about Cleon and other public figures who enjoyed at least some degree of renown or popularity. Current late-night comedians in the US, in contrast, generally prefer to aim their jokes at targets that are already unpopular with their partisan audiences. At the risk of overgeneralizing, we might say that Classical comedy in the vein of Aristophanes used its platform to (sometimes) criticize the political choices of the demos, while late-night comedians in the US tend to employ humor to confirm the political beliefs of their spectators and set them up against “the other side.” In a way, a character attack dressed in a humorous frame becomes a tool of political mobilization: by mocking an opponent, comedians can consolidate the like-minded political base. Are scandals caused by comedy declining? Two arguments provided in this paper support this thesis. To summarize, “echo chamber” broadcasting is linked to many character attacks by late-night comedians turning to a partisan model. By reaching out to a sympathetic partisan audience, the chances for scandalization of the content are diminished. In addition, the years of Donald Trump have been associated with the rise of “scandal thresholds” for character assassination in politics and social spheres. On the other hand, the emergence of so-called cancel culture, which became noticeable in the second half of the 2010s, may suggest an increase in scandals linked to comedic performance. Cancel culture generally stands for dismissing, rejecting, denying, or silencing an individual or a group for what they have done or said. Comedians, in the context of cancel culture, may become an easy target of attacks for the content of their jokes, or may become themselves social amplifiers of scandals, toward which social thresholds are significantly lowered due to political trends of the day. Whether the number of comedy-induced scandals will rise or fall therefore remains to be seen.

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New Media, Scandals in Culture, and Public Protest

Hips Don’t Lie: Visual Resistance to Discoursal Normalization of Sexual Violence in the Israeli SlutWalk Movement Anna Kleiman

1 Introduction: Israeli SlutWalk Scandal This article analyzes the role of the feminine visual in discourses normalizing sexual violence, and visual strategies used to counter such discourses and assumptions. For this, I explore comments on Facebook surrounding images from the Israeli SlutWalk movement (“Tze’adat HaSharmutot\HaMufkarot”) that consists of annual marches against sexual violence, rape culture and social, interpersonal, and institutional victim blaming. I analyze the visual strategies to counter-discoursal normalization of sexual violence taking place in the SlutWalk, precisely body inscriptions and revealing clothes. The question regarding the reasoning of this public outrage, beyond the banal explanation of self-scandalization by fictitious public exposure of feminine nipples and sexual organs, more precisely regarding the social power structures negotiated by the marchers and commenters, will be answered in this article. The global SlutWalk movement of which the Israeli one is part arose in response to a controversial statement of a Canadian police officer during a lecture at the University of Toronto, in spring 2011: “I’ve been told I’m not supposed to say this— however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized” (Rush, 2011). As a response, the first SlutWalk took place in Toronto, gained high media attention, and was followed by similar protests throughout the United States, Central and Southern America, Asia, Europe, Australia, and in four cities in Israel. As a young social movement in historical terms, SlutWalk in Israel has not yet been directly and publicly addressed by high profile elected officials. Nevertheless, Yoav “HaTsel” (in Hebrew: The Shadow) Eliasi, a rapper and self-identified rightwing political and social activist, criticized the movement on his Facebook account followed by over 400,000 users. Since 2014 Eliasi has expressed himself on Facebook on various topics in a highly flagrant manner that makes him appropriate for the A. Kleiman (B) Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Haller et al. (eds.), Scandology 3, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85013-5_10

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title “provocator”. It is therefore possible to frame his online activity as that of an opinion leader, functioning as an interpreter of social reality to his many supporters (Kuwashima, 2018). On 6 May 2018, following the SlutWalk in Tel Aviv, Eliasi criticized the movement as hypocritical, left-wing, and selective via a post on his Facebook profile, to which he attached selected photos from the protest event (Eliasi, 2018a). The Facebook page of the Jerusalem SlutWalk replied with a sarcastic post, written by the author of this chapter, taking advantage of the attention to advertise the three upcoming marches in Jerusalem, Haifa and Be’er Sheva (Kleiman, 2018). On 19 May 2018, a day after the Jerusalem march took place, Eliasi replied with additional critique. This exchange has gained wide attention and was even covered by the Israeli media (Mako, 2018). Eliasi’s posts received thousands of comments, shares, likes, and other emoticons. For the first time, a stage was created for messages against the movement in the virtual public sphere of Eliasi’s own socio-political circles, enabling hundreds to gather, respond to the pictures he chose and to each other, constituting a small-scale civic mobilization against the march and its messages. The mass of comments below Eliasi’s two posts allows a transverse discourse analysis of the movement’s opposition, as well as a classification of its key and salient anti-feminist stances on the role women’s appearances play in the social phenomenon of sexual violence. Many comments referred to the appearance of the SlutWalk participants as necessarily being part of the feminist message they seek to convey, proclaiming the visual resistance practices inefficient and even counterproductive to the endeavor of destablizing the phenomenon and to the feminist movement as a whole. Many commenters directly address the marchers’ choice of wardrobe and levels of beauty, attractiveness, and sexiness, exposing the tight interconnection between the visual practices the movement uses—that is, the medium of conveying their feminist messages against sexual violence—and the content, the feminist ideas and demands themselves. This article analyzes the normalizing discourses pertaining to sexual violence, as formed in the comments sections of Eliasi’s posts, as well as the participants’ visual tactics of resistance to those very discourses. In the first subchapter, I review feminist revisions on Foucauldian power relations consolidated by the gendered economy of gazes, as well as its effects on the construction of socio-political discourse on social media. The second subchapter describes the methodology of the research and elaborates on the Foucauldian Panopticon. The third subchapter extracts panoptic themes from the comments below Eliasi’s two posts via a close reading and classification by tactics of discourse construction: Feminization, value negation, and alienation. The fourth subchapter examines visual tactics of resistance to such discourses, by close reading of photographs of participants uploaded to the four Israeli SlutWalks’ Facebook pages throughout 2011–2019. These are photos both from the marches themselves, as well as from preceding virtual campaigns. I attend to the bodily inscription tactic as problematizing phallocentric seeing that I suggest breaks up into five categories: subject inscription by personal story and by direct address; shocking the viewer by bringing forth the phallocentric meanings; addressing women and

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survivors; embodying exaggerations in reference to feminists; and lastly, reclaiming feminine sexuality, aiming to change its meanings into empowering ones. The conclusion then maps the visual action of the SlutWalk as problematizing phallocentric seeing, by means of recombining existing signifiers of “to-be-looked-at-y” femininity with subjective visual features, shaking off the always-desiring “asking for it” subject read from women’s bodies under rape logic. Yet, I point to the Facebook visual presence of the protest as slightly attenuating the overall resistance approach.

2 Theoretical Basis: Sluts, Rape Logic, and Facebook Comments SlutWalks globally have adopted both the derogatory title of the march, and the emphasis on clothes and appearance as a self-scandalizing strategy, following Toronto SlutWalk that responded to the officer’s reference to clothes as the visual feature distinguishing righteous women and sluts. The word “Slut” was in use at least since the fifteenth century with meanings somewhat changing according to sociocultural and discursive shifts, but overall remaining its role as a gendered inferiority marker, baring connotations of filth, dirt, and loose sexual morals (Wilson, 2015). Although it is difficult to point to a coherent, present-day definition of the word due to its colloquial register, the common ground of most “sluts” is 1. They are a specific “type” of women, separated from the “righteous” women; 2. Sluts choose to be included in this category, or mistakenly identified with it, thus could choose not to be and generally control their own classification; 3. They are identifiable by a visible behavior that exceeds what is “right”, “good”, “appropriate for”, or “worthy of” “righteous” women, what is considered the local and contemporaneous codes of behavior of “true womanhood” in its broad sense (Hewitt, 2002; Roberts, 2002; Walters, 1966). Existing research on the formation of scandals aims to unravel the different players in the unfolding of a scandal: its objects, mediation, narration, and formation on different platforms of circulation, and the surrounding dynamics of communication. Burkhardt (2018) reviewed varied research approaches to scandalization: the chronological stages of the unfolding of a scandal, with distinctions regarding different roles the media plays in it; models of interaction analysis and the derivative formation of discourse and moral meanings; analysis of scandals as drama, by mapping protagonists, villains, and plots. This case study looks at a social scandal, however, which complicates these approaches, as it cannot be as systematically deciphered, due to the intersectionality at which its participants stand: Participants consciously and routinely march with the aim of gaining media and social attention by using a derogatory title wearing revealing and performative costumes, and publicly discussing topics that are considered private or personal, such as sexuality, nudity, boundaries, and vulnerabilities. Thus, marchers both embody the object of the scandal and act as the

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scandalizing agents, as well as, I shall argue, constitute the very medium by means of which the scandal is provoked. Hill (2015) introduced the concept of “Rape Logic”, a discoursal justification of sexual violence toward women (and not women alone) placing responsibility on the victim’s appearance for provoking assault. This is because the body of a woman is an extremely strong signifier of essential sexuality in Western culture.1 According to rape logic, women choose to appear to men as sexual objects, by means of clothes, physical gestures, and postures (Hill, 2015, p. 27), and men cannot be expected to be able to prevent channeling the act of looking or gazing at a woman to an overt sexual response; The social perception is therefore that it is the responsibility of every woman to control her body’s unavoidable effect on those who are looking at it, to make sure the message being conveyed from the choice of wardrobe and behavior contradicts the inherent message of her visible body, which is necessarily a message of a sexual invitation, to the point of the body being addressed as a speaking subject (Hill, 2015). Ironically, sexual violence survivors are portrayed as active agents, feminine subjects that have consciously and actively transmitted non-verbal sexual messages and brought upon themselves what has occurred naturally, unavoidably, and innocently. This logic, deeply anchored in Western thought, has prevailing and devastating effects on all women, beyond those who have been sexually abused: The very fear of being exposed to sexual violence, and the fear of the sense of responsibility attached to it, leads de facto to limiting the freedom of movement and employment, undermines mental health and the general sense of freedom, thus reaffirming women’s inferiority to men in the local social hierarchies. As I will argue below, the clash between anti-SlutWalk comments below Eliasi’s post and the protesters’ visual strategies not only reflects an action and its perception, but constitutes the very struggle over the narrative of sexual victimization and the behavior ought to be changed in order to prevent it. Despite the rapid pace of technological development and frequent changes in formats, online commenting is a rapidly growing research topic in media and communication studies that seek to examine the role of the commenters in the shaping of public opinion and social discourse and analyze their constructed dynamics in the virtual sphere. A recent example of research about online commenting was carried out specifically on comments of Israelis on social media platforms, referred to as “Tokbekim” (Talkbacks), examining discourses mostly on security and state affairs, while introducing the transliteration into the academic jargon (Marmorstein & Sclafani, 2019; see also Kohn & Neiger, 2007). Although Eliasi and his supporters frame their 1

When I write “feminine body” or “a body of a woman” I might come across as addressing the patriarchal oppression as operating in similar ways on bodies of all women, without referring to the different shapes it takes on different women. Obviously, there are significant and substantial differences in the patriarchal meanings read from women differentiating by ethnicity, socio-economic status, age, size, ability, biological sex characteristics, etc. I wish to clarify that the very application of the patriarchal power that oppresses women by means of and upon their visual bodies, and not the specific meanings that are prescribed to different bodies, is my object of study and criticism. I will address the unique layers in the resistance to phallocentric looking by different women, specifically trans* women, below.

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positions as those of the nation, “the People”, and the right, “Talkbacks” clearly cannot be analyzed as representing general public opinion or common social sentiment. This particularly applies when taking into account the confirmation bias in media consumption, according to which people have a cognitive tendency to search, prefer and remember information that reaffirms their prior beliefs and prejudices (Ling, 2020; Nickerson, 1998). Since social media is based on hidden algorithms that identify users’ preferences and offer them customized content, the mechanism of confirmation bias has shifted from the human cognition to an external digital algorithm (Bozdag, 2013). Hence, it is difficult to examine the talkbacks to Eliasi’s posts as a conscious audience with free and unaffected choices that contribute to social discourses, such as on the status of women and their bodies in the public sphere. Noam Gal (2019) adds that discourses that take place in the material public sphere are dominated and dictated by those with physical strength rather than those with the socio-economical or class privileges, while discourses taking place in the virtual public sphere perpetuate wit, intellect, sophistication, and irony. Her study points to inconsistencies between socio-economic hierarchies and hierarchies of the voices heard in public spheres. In other words, the discourses taking place in the public sphere, both corporal and virtual, are not necessarily dictated by the most privileged. Commenters below Eliasi’s posts themselves constitute one prominent branch of social discourse, whose proximity to the “normative social discourse” regarding the social status of women and their bodies in public, is in question. Nevertheless, the commenters are mostly anti-feminist, holding on to sexist views on the gender power relations in society, that are still echoed from state and public institutions.

3 Methodology: Patriarchal Panopticon For this study, I apply the Foucauldian Panopticon of visible surveillance to the hyper-visual world of social media. The Panopticon is an ideal array of a prison Foucault (1995) used as a metaphor for the relations constructed between the modern institutions and its agents of power and the individual. The panopticon disciplines the prisoners automatically, de-individually, with no need of a corporal person to impose direct authority on them. Prisoners discipline themselves to the mere possibility of the supervisor’s presence in the observation tower standing in the middle of the cells’ ring, becoming “the principle of [their] own subjection” (Foucault, 1995, pp. 202– 203), not being able to point to the villain responsible for their oppression. The exertion of modern power is not being put through as a rigid and ruthless constraint but in a subtle, soft, allegedly voluntary way. Bartky (1997) has criticized visual standards of femininity as a panoptic subjection of feminine bodies to varied disciplines. According to her, women internalize both the meaning of local and timely beauty ideals as social and personal value when being positively rewarded for expressing “correct” femininity, as well as the inherent fear of social consequences if they deviate from these ideals. Thus, they are not positioned at a mental distance that allows criticism and opposition. Deveaux (1994) criticized

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this approach as necessarily leading to blind spots concerning different resistance practices, as it assumes total false consciousness amongst women thus deeming any expression of femininity, womanhood, or girliness, chosen fully consciously or not, as part of women’s self-disciplining (p. 228). This tension is notably echoed in the discoursal exchange over SlutWalks visual strategies and will be closely analyzed further. Regarding resistance, Foucault argued that in order to create political, cultural, and social change, opposers ought to divert the spotlight away from their constructed-asinherent sexuality rather than demand its acceptance and normalization. He praised the contemporaneous feminist movement, that sought to transcend the unique individualization power creates among them when it lights women’s bodies’ allegedly inherent sexuality as justification of their social inferiority (Foucault, 1980, pp. 219– 220). Following him, Butler (1993) argued that attempts of reclaiming a “deviant” biological element attributed to a social minority only reaffirm, perpetuate, and preserve the artificial dichotomies that justified the oppression the protestors seek to abolish. She called to undermine this dichotomy, resist the social dictates constructing our identities and allow ourselves a new identity construction, independent from the meanings formulated by power (1993, p. 314). The question of how to do so remains all the same. This shines light on an important built-in paradox within Foucault’s theory: The patriarchal panoptic power is on the one hand total and indisputable, and on the other hand is constantly challenged and undermined. This paradox is critical to understand the way in which feminist movements resist sexual violence by resisting the sexualization of the visible feminine body. Butler’s theoretical standpoint opens a window not only to examine everyday practices of gender construction as choices of agency, but also to prevent dichotomic moral judgment of women and their choices of appearance. If gender construction is a constant repetitive performance, an imitation of a non-existing ideal gender, then all choices of gender expression—including those that seek to resist the gendered visual dictates of power—are nothing but negotiating with it (1993, pp. 312–316). Women carry out repetitive considerations of advantages and disadvantages of different appearances in relation to the visual gendered rules, the personal and social consequences deviation from them holds, the degree of the sense of self fulfillment, as well as to the feeling of self-worth they draw subjectively from their distance from local and timely beauty ideals. Thus, choices of appearance are neither completely and radically resistant to nor are an ignorant and crude cooperation with the patriarchal power, driven from false consciousness, weakness, or submission. The prima facie paradox in Foucault’s writings resolves itself and puts forward universal grounds that allow the understanding of the widest influences of patriarchal power on the most subtle nuances of the human experience (Hekman, 1990, p. 176). Facebook was studied as a space where new types and means of subjectivation emerge and put forward by both top-down and reciprocal watch-surveillance (Siapera, 2012, pp. 172–174). The platform allows not only practices of selfaffirmation by allowing users to fabricate their own ideal representation, but makes

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social discourses on standards, values, and fashions much more accessible to individuals. Thus, “offering the opportunity of reflection and […] confronts ourselves with global discourse and force[s] us to rethink ourselves in relation to specific new media” (Öngün & Demirag, 2014, p. 29). This notion intensifies the patriarchal panopticon discussed above as it expands the variety of visual social expectations regarding femininity as well as the variety of means by which women are disciplined specifically addressing their interconnected appearance and identity. Deviating appearances of women are therefore simultaneously harder to produce and circulate and are disciplined and punished more freely and potentially by more gazers.

4 Panoptic Themes in Comments to Eliasi On 6 May 2018, after the Tel-Aviv SlutWalk took place, Eliasi published a post on his Facebook page and so he wrote: Dear participants of the SlutWalk first of all let me start by saying that in my opinion it is important and necessary to protest against the light punishments rapists receive. I also know that provocation is an important and efficient tool to awaken the sleeping and the indifferent. But I looked at the videos and photos, and I must say that you are hypocrites! Where is your cry for the 80-year-old elderly woman in Southern Tel Aviv that went out on a walk with her dog and an infiltrator viciously raped her and smashed her hands, so she won’t be able to lift her underwear !?2 Where is the inscription on the stomach of the young lady in the central station area that an infiltrator caught on the street and violently pushed his genitals into her mouth!? Where are your signs against the rape terror and the unceasing sexual harassments of jews [feminine conjugation] by Arabs [masculine conjugation]?! Where do you cry out about the Arab that pretended to be a doctor and raped women who just gave birth, and the court gave him a light punishment because he came fast!? Why are you silent? Because it does not fit Meretz’s political agenda?3 I’ve seen the signs, I’ve heard the chants, and I am in favor of castrating rapists, to be absolutely clear! But be honest, you are not marching against rape, some of you march because it’s cool to tell that you marched topless and that you’re cool and using the event to expose nipples in public.

2

Asylum-seekers, mostly from Sudan and Erteria, were being caught along the Israeli-Egyptian border and jailed for many years. Upon release, they were given a free one-way ticket to the Tel Aviv Central Station, right outside of which is Levinsky park, a small urban park in the south of the city. Many stayed right there, due to no further financial or social support and derived poverty and homelessness, thus the area has become associated with the sector over the years. 3 Meretz is a left-wing social-democratic and green political party in Israel, existing since 1992.

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Same as the people who slept in tents at Rothschild4 just to feel like Woodstock for a moment and just as the demonstrations against corruption are just a social gathering of bored and grumpy leftists so enough with the hypocrisy! Be honest and not hypocritical, and march for everybody, not only for those who align with you politically. Stop the Hypocrisy! Stop men hate! Stop cheapening the term rape! Enough! (Eliasi, 2018a) [author’s translation]

The Jerusalem SlutWalk was quick to respond to Eliasi in a post on their Facebook page, in their typical sarcastic manner, hoping to leverage the attention given to the Tel-Aviv SlutWalk by a celebrity and opinion leader to advertise the three upcoming marches in Jerusalem, Be’er-Sheva and Haifa (Kleiman, 2018). Two weeks later, on 19 May 19, right after the Jerusalem SlutWalk took place and social media was flooded by pictures and videos, Eliasi criticized the movement once again via a post, attaching more photos of his choosing: Ahhh so much hypocrisy… The same people that yelled last week that the Flag Dance in Jerusalem is a provocation walked naked yesterday in the streets of Jerusalem… But this is how Meretz is, hypocrisy and nothing more, and talking about sluts, how come Zandberg didn’t march there?5 (Eliasi, 2018b) [author’s translation]

Both posts received around 1800 comments, 850 shares, around 4000 likes as of this writing. The arguments Eliasi made were repeated in different versions and in a less restrained manner in the comments, where his followers mocked the attached pictures of protesters, brought his allegations further, swore and called for violence, i.e., sexual violence. This descriptive address, with the patriarchy-as-panopticon concept in mind, is supported by many comments below Eliasi’s posts. According to user Star (2018), a woman’s body is under her ownership as long as it is covered, hence when exposed it becomes public. Wills, desires, fantasies that arise in a man allegedly in the presence of an exposed feminine body have the power to sexually master, and those who look at it are allowed to do whatever they please to it. This argument is noticeable in the comments of Zada (2018) and Lubnan (2018), two out of many women who commented on Eliasi’s posts with a similar gist. Both are referring to the marchers as to women who actively “display” and “show” their bodies with the sole goal of summoning the male gaze. Zada and Lubnan express what the film theorist Laura Mulvey coined as to-belooked-at-ness (1975, p. 11)—a prominent, often single personality characteristic, common to women in popular film: As to-be-looked-at-y, women characters are expected to bring about visual pleasure to the male heterosexual viewer, and the feminine body is styled according to his fantasies, desires, and expectations. I suggest applying the term to the inevitable effect of the patriarchal panopticon on all women 4

Eliasi refers here to the 2011 Israeli social justice protests, opposing the rising cost of housing and living in general. The series of demonstrations sparked when hundreds of people, organized in a protest Facebook group, put up tents in the Rothschild Boulevard, in center Tel-Aviv. 5 The Flag Dance is an annual parade taking place on the Day of Jerusalem, celebrating the reunification of the city under Israeli sovereignty after the war of 1967.Tamar Zandberg is an Israeli Politician, a member of the Knesset for Meretz party.

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that fits and further explains rape logic: Women are to-be-looked-at-y, therefore they are responsible for the messages being read from their visible bodies, which they comprise, as Butler claimed, of an existing visual lexicon. If so, following Zada’s and Lubnan claims, women’s bodies being to-be-lookedat-y within patriarchal relations is simply a given, a fortiori when women make themselves even more to-be-looked-at-y by wearing exposed clothes and protesting in the public sphere. Under such social perceptions of body politics, as noted by Deaveux (1994), exposing bodies cannot fall into a pattern other than that which the panopticon suggests and is reflected in Zada’s and Lubnan’s comments: A prisoner that “gives” herself to be looked-at is nothing but endangering herself with a more severe disciplining. In a patriarchy-as-panopticon society, women are an object of gaze for men, and there’s no way for a woman to exist corporally without cooperating with this dogma. Within those given power relations, there is no and cannot ever be a body of a woman that does not seek to be an object of a sexualizing gaze and taken under masculine patronage in that way or another. Haber (1996) analyzes patriarchal responses to appearances that deviate from essentialist perception of femininity and feminine sexuality, thus undermining their essentialist framed-as-natural validity. Focusing on the appearance of bodybuilders, she points to two possible reactions: Nonacceptance, which I wish to address as value negation: i.e., social banning, negating the very belonging of the woman to the visually pleasing—hence feminine—hence human category; And Feminization. According to Shabaev (2018), Lykov (2018), Elfasi (2018), and Peretz (2018), the marchers unsuccessfully look for masculine patronage using their appearance, as they are not visually pleasing, thus deviating from the feminine category and losing their human value to the point of being redefined as jellyfish. Amar’s comment (2018) further expresses the unambiguous, almost obvious boundary between the “correct” ways of exposing the body and the wrong way of exposure. From Joelle’s comment (2018), it can be understood that a demonstration is legitimate only if the protestors are exposing their bodies in accordance with the contemporary phallocentric visual scheme, while deviating appearances are defined as a worthless provocation. The second response Haber points to is Feminization: An expansion of what is worthy to be a sexual object, by which the deviating appearance is described as sexy, desirable, and “still feminine”, while attraction to it is framed as evidence of masculinity, at times as a fetish, too. By a seemingly positive and complimentary comment, Cohen (2018) has perpetuated the marchers as the object of a sexualizing gaze and nothing more, contradicting all their messages. His response to the deviating appearance seems nonchalant, as if the image has no power to subvert his contentment and peace but is evident of a deep agitation within him at the same time, simply due to the need to consume the women as sexual, pornographic objects in public. While pornography is to be consumed in the private sphere, far from strangers’ eyes, Cohen consumes the images of SlutWalk participants online as sexually pleasing pornography publicly and communally, as leading a group denunciation practice of the mere attempt to undermine the patriarchal power relations of gazes. I wish to widen the perception model presented by Haber, based on additional data from the comments below Eliasi’s two posts. Beyond the beauty measure, value

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negation is also carried out by the intersections of arrays of social signs that reaffirm hierarchical, unequal power relations on different layers. Salmoni (2018), for example, refers to femininity that is solely for the sexual masculine pleasure, thus he wonders if there is a tariff for the sexual services those women surely can provide. This common type of commenting indicates an intersection of sexism and the commercialization of sexuality, where women’s bodies in the public sphere are perceived as necessarily presented to be bought or rented. This assumes that every woman visible in the public sphere is searching for a man, and that the search for a romantic and\or sexual relationship is in fact a strive for masculine patronage with a sexual barter. Jeffreys and others (2008, pp. 39–44) explain prostitution as one of many patriarchal capitalist institutions by means thereof men preserve and impalement their right of sexual access to women’s bodies, a right that stands in the basis of the marriage institution. Perceptions of the different options of accessing women’s bodies for sexual pleasure as a form of mastery reflect and reaffirm a blur of social boundaries between perceptions of women who offer paid sexual services and of women who do not. As the users Azulai (2018) and Tibi (2018) demonstrate, due to every woman’s to-be-looked-at-ness, women in the public sphere are perceived as commerce, looking for men’s patronage in the form of a groom/ buyer/ client. Her appearance—whatever it may be—necessarily falls within the scope of display and spectacle, the means of finding this patronage. Negating value is also expressed in its intersection with a racist social hierarchy of men in a given society. If women are necessarily commerce, Jacobs (2018) and Morad (2018) reflect that within the world of commodities, among women with different monetary values, the SlutWalk marchers have none whatsoever. The more expensive goods are, the higher they are valued; the cheaper the goods are, the less they are worthy of the proper customer. Rather, only inferior, men of low social classes with the least social power, the “other” of the Israeli-Jewish, mostly white, masculine citizen, are worthy of such damaged goods: Arabs, the ultimate sign of the enemy, and asylum-seekers, both claimed to threaten the Jewish supremacy in Israel. Interesting to note, Elfasi’s comment (2018) reflects that blind men also fall within this “other” category of men. Their only feature in this context is their lack of a gaze and therefore—a potent phallus. Blind men are men whose sexual attraction to a woman has no capability to grant her socio-class value, because their attraction is not derived from her appearance. The perception arising from those comments is that all women offer sexual services in one way or another; The inferior ones are those who purportedly don’t demand payment for it, such as the bodily exposed SlutWalk marchers that “give” themselves, free of charge, to the sexualizing gaze. Another type of response of the patriarchal power to deviating appearances I wish to add to the two presented by Haber is alienation. With this approach, commenters try to explain the deviation itself, which lies beyond the appearance and choice of wardrobe, by pointing to a deviation of women’s character from the norm, the collective national “us”. Ironically, this response type seems to address subjective features of the women, even if fabricated. I spotted two types of alienation: treason and madness.

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In his first post, Eliasi accuses the participants of selective leniency toward acts of sexual violence whose perpetrators are Arab and asylum-seeking men. He proceeded to connect the march’s messages to the Meretz left-wing political party and chose to attach a photo of a protestor wearing a Meretz sticker covering her nipple (Eliasi, 2018a) as an illustration of his claims. Shar’abi (2018) and Ezra (2018) blame further the SlutWalk for selective leniency toward sexual predators from the leftist political wing. The choice of the commenters to append additional identities from the opposite socio-political wing to Eliasi’s “us” as well as the sincere belief in it, if such exists, could be explained as part of a social ritual dynamic in the comments’ section that reaffirms the boundaries between the opposing camps and enhances their contrast by means of ready-made declarations (Dori-Hacohen & Shavit, 2013). This explanation joins the demonization of the Israeli left and their marking as traitors, even as auto-anti-Semites, about which much ink has been spilled over the past decade (see, for example, Sher et al., 2019; Bar-Tal & Salomon, 2006). Cohen (2017) defines the traitors as citizens from the national collective, who have metaphorically crossed the social boundaries and now are standing between appropriate and even subversive behavior and behavior that is unequivocally inappropriate: “The traitors of the nation (…) are signifying and emphasizing the boundaries of the allowed hegemony and discourse, defining the loyalty required from members of the national group to which they belong” (2017, p. 343) [author’s translation]. The marchers themselves haven’t committed treason in the criminal sense, and the cooperation with political parties and left-wing non-profits is a baseless claim: The organization teams insist not to identify with any political party, and explicitly ask not to arrive wearing any parties’ symbols on the event pages (Tse’adat Hasharmutot, 2019). Nevertheless, the wide labeling of the marchers as traitors tells us a different story: Fair and decent Jewish women and the sexual pleasure they exist to bring about are to be exclusively and expensively offered to “our” Jewish men. Even if intercourse is taking place not solely with the aim of reproduction, when “others” penetrate “our” women, occurs a symbolic assimilation6 of the collective. This can be interpreted as a subversion of the homogeneity and the wholeness of the nation, which is especially troubling in the Israeli society that finds itself in incessant demographic, political, ethnic, state, and military struggles. Thus, it is understandable how a woman demanding ownership over her own body is perceived as advocating for equality in the rights of access to her body and to all women’s bodies, which is essentially an equality between legitimate citizens and the “others”. Another type of alienation diagnoses the marchers with madness, referring to them as stricken with psychological and psychiatric disorders. Mizrahi (2018) ponders on the marchers’ past, as if all marchers, beyond the few shown in the pictures Eliasi chose, share a clinical common denominator of differentiated symptoms. Sidi (2018) and Bracha (2021) diagnose the marchers with unrest, suggesting not only treatment 6

I translated [Hitbolelut], coming from a Hebrew word for “stirring” or “mixing”, to assimilation, due to no closer equivalent. While integrating and assimilating has somewhat of a neutral connotation, the word “Hitbolelut” and its negative connotation has become associated with far-right socio-political groups who oppose mixed marriage between Jews and Goys, non-Jewish people.

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with sedatives, but also admission to a closed institution for the mentally ill. This reveals the perception of the marchers as dangerous to society (or, rather, of the treatment as punishment or revenge). What the commenters identify here is what Ussher (2013) defined as symptoms of “difficult women”. Dissatisfied women or those who express signs of distress have been diagnosed with different gendered medical definitions for hundreds of years. Those illnesses were anchored in their femininity itself, deriving from the essentially defective female anatomy. Thus, writes Ussher, any expression of dissatisfaction, refusal, and resistance to sexist assumptions is absorbed into a wide and ramified layout of psychiatric diagnoses that allegedly explain the “difficulties” those women experience. One of the major symptoms of Hysteria was an “‘unnatural’ desire for privacy and independence” (2013, p. 63), along with experiences of sadness, rage, nervousness, a tendency to cry, tiredness, and eating disorders. The title of this compilation of symptoms, argues Ussher, has been updated in the following editions of the DSM to what is called today, among other diagnoses, “border personality disorder”. If so, the normal, healthy woman is one that accepts her social inferiority, is not dis- or unsatisfied by it, and does not feel the need to change or resist it. Even with the diagnoses’ names changed, and the treatment methods somewhat upgraded, this unbalanced social array that allows to absorb any expression of resistance, opposition, or dissatisfaction from the gendered status-quo as a symptom of a disease or a mental disorder, has not changed dramatically. The “healthy” state of women, and in parallel the normal state of society, are conditioned to women’s dehumanization to this day. It seems commenters express their criticism of the SlutWalk while standing on an extensive sexist ground of a long intellectual, social, and institutional discourse, under the same cultural patriarchal dichotomies the march opposes. While looking at the marchers on the pictures, the commenters do not allow themselves to become passive addressees of messages. In order to reaffirm their power over them and their control of the public virtual sphere, they collectively comment in humiliating and policing manners, actively countering the movement’s demands. Ironically, they keep giving priority to the meanings they insist to read from women’s bodies over the uncountable textual messages the marchers convey—by body inscriptions, signs, chants, testimonies, Facebook posts on behalf of the production teams and posts written by participants. It is relevant to mention the research of Brooks-Gardner (1990) in this context. She analyzed popular safety manuals published between 1970 and 1990 in the United States, instructing women on how to avoid unwanted sexual attention in public. Gardner divides her findings into three types of advice: Deception, where women are advised to pretend to be already under a patronage of a man, by wearing a wedding ring and answering the home phone using a deep masculine voice; dependence, where women are advised to run to any man if they feel they’re being followed, and even to create an array of accompanying men beforehand, which will allegedly assure their desired freedom of movement in the public sphere; and self-profanation, calling women to give the impression that they are found beyond the boundaries of sexualization, by acting “mad” or claiming they carry a venereal disease. The dependence and the deception strategies are based on the same social reading, as they assume men

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in patriarchy will respect and acknowledge men’s ownership over a woman—even if it is only ostensible—over an independent refusal of a woman. Both are panoptic strategies altogether, advising women to accept being permanently condemned to a sexualizing gaze and to make efforts to receive the protection of one supervisor from another. Those pieces of advice, promising that playing “right” and obeying the patriarchal rules will motivate the power to acknowledge their human value, subjectivity, agency, and independence, definitely do not ensure actual protection. I have mentioned Gardner’s research as it can be juxtaposed with the expanded model of patriarchal responses to deviating images I suggested. In Gardner’s study object, the “feminine madness” and the “venereal illness” are brought about as excuses for women to exclude themselves from the panoptic patriarchal domination, to deviate themselves from the definition of femininity that is necessary for the pleasure of men, visual of physical, therefore to make themselves un-sexualize-able if you will, or at the very least frame their sexualization as being not without risks for the sexualizer: she becomes “not worth it”. In my study object, these are brought about as the strategy of alienation of the SlutWalk marchers from that “normative” or “healthy” femininity. This paralleling is not a coincidence. It proves the existence of a contradiction, or a double standard, that women faced throughout at least a century and by which all responsibility for preventing unwanted sexual attention is theirs. Gardner’s research and the suggested classification of the criticizing comments to the SlutWalk are expressing the same content: once as an advice, once as an accusation; as a technique to avoid the dangers of oppression or as its justification. Hence, the visual practices taking place in the SlutWalk could be read as a fourth category, a demand to place the social responsibility of bringing sexual violence to an end upon predators themselves, those who legitimize it and are then part of its social normalization. The marchers refuse to accept their to-be-looked-at-ness as a given and to accept “femininity” as a category that in all its existence is for the pleasure of the upper, masculine class.

5 Counter-Discoursal Visual Protest Strategies How can women take control of embodied signification, of the way she is read and the way she reads herself? One possibility is (…) to problematize phallocentric seeing and readings of women’s bodies. (Haber, 1996, p. 139).

As each woman is choosing and assembling her appearance from the existing cultural lexicon, Haber argues (1996) the recombining of images is that which creates the fourth option and undermines the dichotomy, as well as the meanings of the familiar signs and their “natural” validity. She hopes that the subversive body of the bodybuilder, by placing together the masculine and feminine, will slowly reshape our reading of physical force and muscles as a masculine trait, and maybe, with time, strength will be read as softness and softness as power. I suggest reading the body inscription tactic as posing a similar challenge to the sexualizing gaze.

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Women and girls write messages against rape culture, sexual violence, and victim blaming on different parts of their bodies—chest, stomach, back, arms, and legs—and march, knowing they will gain personal and media attention. The marchers choose not to avoid the sexualizing gaze, nor to back away from it into the constructedas-safe private sphere or cover oneself against it. Rather, they use their allegedly inherent to-be-looked-at-ness, their physical bodies that are already read as sexual objects, as bait. The sexualizing gaze is replaced with a reading one, having no choice but to be exposed to verbal messages that cannot be interpreted as a nonverbal sexual invitation. The SlutWalk marchers are to-be-looked-at-y as women are on any weekday; However, they pour new content into what is seen, which explicitly contradicts their perceived as essentialist sexually inviting nature, undermining the whole patriarchal power structure and provoking angry responses from those who wish to preserve it. The route of the march in central streets of the city, combined with the inscriptions tactic, gives the participants control over how they are looked at: bypassers are to stand and look at the women as they pass. The observers become passive message receivers, while the looked-at become the creators and active conveyors of the messages, if not the literal carriers of the messages. The use of physical presence as part of a protest that demands to change the meanings read from a body is now understood as using an already existing message-conveying medium. This medium is the visible bodies of women that are inherently to-be-looked-at-y, constructed by men as carries essentially sexual meanings, and are now reconstructed through the action of epistemological construction, reclaiming the action itself en route. Most body messages used in the Israeli SlutWalks inscribe a subject upon it. Figure 1 is a photograph from the Facebook campaign preceding the Tel Aviv SlutWalk of 2017, where the participant wrote her subjective narrative on her body: “I’m Lillou, 29 years old, Single Mother, I was raped at [the age of] 11”. Another also chose to tell the story of her trauma: “It hurts only when it suits you, he said and continued”. With this tactic, the sexualizing gaze is exposed to its own logic, which stands in the root of the described violence acted upon the subject itself. Using this practice both in preceding campaigns alongside texts written by the photographed, and in the corporal reality while marching, screaming, chatting, laughing, crying, and existing in general, makes the women’s subjects present on/in their bodies. It visually connects the body, which was used to be read as a sexual object, with a human, empathy-evoking narrative. When the sexualizing gaze ignores the face and its expressions of subjective feelings, the decision to let the already to-be-looked-at-y body to tell the story of hurt is not allowing it to be sexualized as easily. Another way to challenge the sexualizing gaze under the same category is a direct address to the observer: “no means no” (Fig. 2) reminds the viewer that the woman has full authority over her sexuality, and not her body or whoever looks at it and interprets it. “Don’t think like a rapist” shifts the responsibility for the argued miscommunication to those who interpreted their appearance as a sexually inviting subject. One participant chose to pose for the campaign on a pole, a performanceexercise genre that seeks to shake off its cultural association with stripping.

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Fig. 1 “I’m Lillou, 29 years old, Single mother, [I] was raped at [the age of] 11” Preceding campaign of Tel-Aviv-Jaffa SlutWalk 2017 [author’s translation]. Credit Luba Fein

Fig. 2 “No means No”, protestors in the Jerusalem SlutWalk of 2019 [author’s translation]. Credit Mooli Goldberg

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Fig. 3 “Not your fetish”, a protestor at the Tel-Aviv-Jaffa SlutWalk of 2017 [author’s translation]. Credit Michal Eisenstein-Herrman

Her posture, culturally associated with visually pleasuring the male gaze, is inviting to read what is written across her leg: “Not asking for it”. A trans* marcher (Fig. 3) wrote “Not your fetish” on her stomach, referring the sexualizing gaze as directed toward trans* women. In the preceding Facebook campaign, she wrote: My first acquaintance with trans women (…) was through pornography. (…) that which is created by a masculine industry, for masculine needs, to please men’s fantasies. (…) The only impression I had about the life experience I want for myself, is that I need to play a role in a fantasy that turns me into a sex toy. (Tse’adat Hasharmutot Tel-Aviv-Yaffo, 2017) [author’s translation]

The sexualizing gaze directed at her and at other trans* women exemplifies Haber’s (1996) feminization response: it broadens the definition of femininity into that which includes women that deviate from the “right” and “real” femininity, applies the same sexualizing gaze to it, and frames being attracted to her as a fetish. The body inscription thus addresses this particular gaze and directly resists it. These examples of body inscriptions are undermining rape logic Hill described: If justifications of sexual violence point to the appearance of a corporal feminine body as a speaking, desiring subject, it is now being visibly reconnected with the woman’s human subject; the two alleged subjects now speak as one. The observer can no longer claim to innocently read a desiring subject from a body that verbally refuses sexual attention. Instead of insisting on prioritizing that subject over the appearancesubject, the marchers coordinate the messages of the two, merging them into one visual-textual message. Thus, the tactic presents the artificiality of the patriarchal “divide and rule” approach toward women, giving expression and recognition to women’s human experience, where they are simultaneously a human subject and a corporal body. Moreover, this tactic functions as a performative speech act, a

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linguistic term referring to verbal statements where the act of communicating them carries out what they describe: writing the subject on the body de facto inscribes the body with a subject; reading a subject from the body also inscribes it de facto with a subject as well. The repetitive circulation of these images online functions as a visual education or training, seeking to engrave feminine bodies as carrying a human subject in the observers’ visual memory, throughout the year, temporarily carrying inscribed words or not. Shocking the viewer is another tactic used in the Israeli SlutWalk to counter discourse normalizing sexual violence: “Object”, “whore”, “fuckable”, “attraction”, “cheap commodity” (Figs. 4 and 5) are inscriptions that seek to expose the meanings the sexualizing gaze reads from women’s bodies. The practice of voluntarily applying injustices on one’s own body for emphasis is highly popular and widely used in many social and political struggles in Israel and across the globe; many animal liberation activists, for example, voluntarily and performatively apply the animal production mechanisms, usually functioning far from the public eye, on themselves publicly. This tactic used in the SlutWalk makes present the severity of the sexualizing gaze, which cannot but be exposed to its own destructive meanings of phallocentric femininity. Fig. 4 “Woman, sucking dick, fucking, bitch, slut, whore, opening, giving”. Preceding campaign of Tel-Aviv-Jaffa SlutWalk 2016 [author’s translation]. Credit Luba Fein

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Fig. 5 “Cheap commodity”, Preceding campaign of Tel-Aviv-Jaffa SlutWalk 2017 [author’s translation]. Credit Luba Fein

Marchers are using their to-be-look-at-ness also to address other women: “[I] believe you” (Fig. 6) and “You are not alone”, mostly written in their feminine conjugations, are inscriptions seeking to give recognition of sexual traumas of women exposed to the messages, resisting the separation and differentiation that the panoptic patriarchal power exerts on women. This bodily protest practice, compared to the aforementioned ones, does not refer to the subject of the woman carrying it but to the subject of its reader. The protestors’ bodies direct a humanity-recognizing-gaze at readers, while using a generalizing second person; hence, they are not able to refer to any of their specific visual features. Seemingly, it is a subject-to-subject address, but when made public via the march this statement fights off the cultural normative manner of referring to survivors as bodily inviting sexual attention. The same way Cohen (2018) directed a sexualizing gaze toward one of the marchers as some sort of public objectification, aiming to reaffirm the sexual meanings of women’s to-belooked-at-ness as well as the masculine supremacy and the patriarchal order, a public recognition of survivors’ subjects creates a similar communal effect, seeking to be set and assimilated as the new, non-patriarchal norm of perception and behavior. The fourth practice used by SlutWalk marchers is exaggeration embodiment: “Witch” (Fig. 7), “feminist terror” (Fig. 8), and “Feminazi” are terms used to delegitimize feminists and feminist struggles. Ironically, this delegitimization is carried out

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Fig. 6 “[I] Believe you”, protestor at the Jerusalem SlutWalk of 2018 [author’s translation]. Credit Jennifer Poliakov Borowitz

by referring to their great power, automatically putting the objects of the protest— sexual violators and their justifiers—as helpless victims of this power. This practice does not embody reclaiming the terms, as it might be perceived at first glance, but mocking and ridiculing them and whoever uses them. It emphasizes the degree to which changing meanings of women’s bodies disturbs those insisting to reaffirm sexist gender hierarchies. Further, it emphasizes the degree to which they fear of undermining their supremacy or their familiar place in it, and simultaneously the degree to which these hierarchies may prove unstable. After all, what undermines them is a legal, non-violent protest, approved and secured by local police authorities. A protestor declaring herself a feminist terrorist or some feminist fascist, while chanting rhyming chants, holding a sign, or just marching, emphasizes the gap between the non-violent character of the protest behavior and the opposing framing of it as murderous intentions, malicious use of supernatural elements, and the aim for a systematic extermination of all men. Lastly, a fifth practice I recognized is a visual reclaiming of sexuality. Interestingly, I found only one example of it in the Israeli SlutWalks’ Facebook pages throughout the years, although with the alluding title of the march, one would assume that it would be the most frequently used tactic. The protestor on Fig. 9 wrote on her stomach

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Fig. 7 “Witch”, protestor in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa SlutWalk of 2018 [author’s translation]. Credit Luba Fein

the Hebrew equivalent of—“Not [a] slut— [a] Stud!” [Lo sharmuta, zayenet!], a positive term for a sexually active man, who’s sexual activity is justifying his social supremacy. Many protestors chose to write on themselves the word “Slut” [Sharmuta] alone, a practice that should be read as part of the march’s recent historic context: To identify oneself as a slut became popular as a brand, being part thereof creates a sense of communal belonging and shared destiny. The Arabic term as is widely used in Hebrew slang, is amid a controversial process of acquiring new social meanings,7 similarly to processes the word “queer” and the N*-word have been throughout the end of the twentieth century. The Panopticon model allows examining the patriarchal power as based on directing a gaze. Therefore, using the visual and stretching its acceptable boundaries 7

In Israel and elsewhere, the word slut was also reclaimed by queer men as an expression of empowering sexual objectification and as criticism, what surely effects the changing of social meanings of the word; research of queer men using the concept of feminine sexual promiscuity in general and specifically the word Slut is highly relevant, but the space frame does not allow to further widen on this topic.

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Fig. 8 “Feminist terror”, protestor in the Be’er Sheva SlutWalk of 2018 [author’s translation]. Credit Nofar Eyni

Fig. 9 “Not slut—Stud!” protestor in the Tel Aviv SlutWalk of 2015 [author’s translation]. Credit Amit Zinman

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in society and law, constitutes, to use Audrie Lorde’s timeless metaphor, applying the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house (1984). Although this metaphor could put SlutWalk’s efficiency into question, I argue that combined with Mulvey’s terminology, it allows a more complex analysis of its resistance strategy: The march puts emphasis on the visual, the very tool the master grants the participants, because the master’s tools are all they have got. The body usage in protest tactics is blurring the boundaries between legally legitimate appearance and deviant appearance that could trigger the authorities to disperse the demonstration and/or arrest participants. The visual becomes a protest strategy: It is hard to police and prevent its efficiency in undermining sexist social norms. As Butler said in one of her interviews, “This is not freedom, but a question of how to work the trap that one is inevitably in” (1992, p. 84). Vis-a-via Lorde’s statement, we are reminded that the master’s hammer is still a very much usable hammer. Although explicitly self-scandalized, it would be superficial to call the visual way women express their subject in the SlutWalk “self-objectification” or “voluntary self-policing”, stemming from false consciousness, as some of the commenters do suggest. As Butler argues, women have no choice but to choose their appearance from a global wardrobe designed, marketed, and sold under the patriarchal power and its influence, and draw a sense of self-worth from their choice. Thus, any piece of clothing a woman picks to wear to the SlutWalk or on any weekday—whether it’s culturally associated with policed feminine sexuality as lingerie or fishnet stockings, or is considered an “everyday”, “casual”, “summer” piece of clothing such as jeans or a T-shirt—will be perceived as the means by which she is marketing herself as commodity, as the body-subject speaking louder than the woman herself, which the sexualizer dubs according to his interests. In fact, I argue, there is no essential difference between choosing clothes and appearance on a weekday and choosing appearance for marching in the SlutWalk: The negotiations with the patriarchal lexicon of visual signs and meanings are essentially the same. All women’s clothes in the public sphere are “provocative”, that is, provoke and invite sexual attention, as long as feminine bodies are read as a desiring subject, whatever they may look like; Any existence of a woman in the public sphere is a scandalous SlutWalk, in which she chooses her appearance from the existing and expects to be treated as a human subject no less. I have described five categories of body inscriptions taking place in the SlutWalk marches in Israel since 2011, and their visual activist action against the patriarchal panoptic power. Nevertheless, another layer ought to be examined to fully understand the visual activist action, i.e., its mediation by social media. While these women wish to take full control of the meanings read from their bodies, being exposed to these messages via the Facebook platform may alter this control on several points. Firstly, when SlutWalk takes place, mostly in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, the mainstream social media is overflown with pictures; The uploading and the tagging of the participants’ Facebook users in the pictures not systematic nor consistent whatsoever, which in fact turns the women into images of women, and presents less subjectivity, compared to the possibilities of the medium.

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Moreover, the medium does not allow change in power dynamics the same way the corporal public sphere allows it, as every Facebook user exposed to the images is individually active. When a user scrolls down the many images, an element of movement in space is added to the still photos, alluding to the physical marching on the streets. On the other hand, the control remains completely in the hands of the observer: Users could zoom into pictures and focus on different body parts of the marchers, undermining the wholeness of their visual messages; they could repost the photo into their own social media circles, separating a single marcher from the multiplicity and gather to mock her; photos and even the inscriptions themselves could be altered and changed. It seems that marching on the corporal streets makes the statement of corporal subjectivity more intensive to the observer, as the marchers’ bold human presence is emphasized by their multiplicity and movement, while the infrastructure of social media somewhat flattens the visual action into a passive image, undermining to some extent the means of resistance.

6 Conclusion I sought to examine visual resistance tactics to panoptic perceptions of sexual violence and rape logic, taking place in the Israeli feminist SlutWalk movement. I unraveled perceptions of the march among thousands of commenters below Eliasi’s posts, revealing what meanings are derived from the marchers’ physical appearance, in what ways the patriarchal perception generates counterclaims to the marchers’ demands, and how the discursive feminist strategies are made visual and taken to the streets and online. I have also suggested a three-section model of patriarchal responses to deviating appearances of women that allows a complex treatment of opposing reactions to feminists’ demands of social change regarding normalization of sexial violence: Value negation by beauty denial, by commercialization of sexuality, and by invoking racist social hierarchies between men; Feminization; And alienation, specifically by accusations of treason and by madness diagnosis. Furthermore, I have analyzed the practice of body inscription as direct resistance to rape logic and its deeming of women as forever to-be-looked-at-y, and pointed to the tactic potential weakening when mediated on social media. My theoretical conclusions expose the social dichotomies of “right” and “wrong” womanhood and femininities as false. While the right femininity is a complaint-less existence for visual and\or physical pleasure of men, full co-operation with our own sexual slavery, a woman that expresses pain, dissatisfaction or grievance from the patriarchal power relations and its prices is denounced from what is worthy of visual sexual consumption and declared a provocative slut, i.e., “wrongfully” existing for the sexual pleasure of the masculine gaze. As no human truly exists for the pleasure of another, “Slut” is better understood as a non-existing gendered and racialized marker, a platonic idea or a visual genre, that women are expected to estrange themselves from and thus is efficiently used to discipline their behavior.

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hashuv vehechrechi…’ [Dear participants of the SlutWalk first of all let me start by saying that in my opinion it is important and necessary to protest against the light punishments rapists receive…] [Facebook]. 6 May. https://www.facebook.com/TheShadow69/posts/101560642040 45255. Accessed 28 Apr 2021. Eliasi, Y. [The Shadow (Hatzel)]. (2018b). ‘Achh kama tzvi’ut…otam anashim shetza’aku shavua she’avar sherikud hadgalim beyerushala’im hu provokatzia halchu etmol arumin berechovot yerushala’im’ [Ahhh so much hypocrisy… The same people that yelled last week that the Flag Dance in Jerusalem is a provocation walked naked yesterday in the streets of Jerusalem]. [Facebook]. 19 May. https://www.facebook.com/TheShadow69/posts/10156093865715255. Accessed 28 Apr 2021. Ezra, A. (2018). ‘Chayavim. Lehotzi. Et. Meretz. Michutz. Lachok. Hem. Sakana. Lamedina. Velachevra’ [[We] Must. Outlaw. Meretz. They. Are. A. Danger. To. The. Society. And. To. The. Country]. [Facebook comment]. 6 May. https://www.facebook.com/TheShadow69/posts/101560 64204045255. Accessed 28 Apr 2021. Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Random House Inc. Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 1972–1977. In C. Gordon (Ed.). Pantheon. Gal, N. (2019). Ironic humor on social media as participatory boundary work. New Media and Society, 21(3), 729–749. Garnder, C. B. (1990). Safe conduct: Women, crime and self in public spaces. Social Problems, 37(3), 311–328. Haber, H. F. (1996). Foucault pumped: Body politics and the muscled woman. In S. J. Hekman (Ed.), Feminist interpretations of Michel Foucault (pp. 137–156). The Pennsylvania State University Press. Hekman, S. J. (1990). Gender and knowledge: Elements of a postmodern feminism. Northeastern University Press. Hewitt, N. A. (2002). Taking the true woman hostage. Journal of Women’s History, 14(1), 156–162. Hill, A. (2015). ‘SlutWalk as Perifeminist Response to Rape Logic: The Politics of Reclaiming a Name’. Communication and Critical\Cultural Studies, 13(1), 23–39. Jacobs, T. (2018). ‘Ma atem mechapsot lechu ta’amdu bakvish atem zonot al teyapu et ha’ikar zonot bli kesef haknisa chofshit aravim atem muznanim bo’u behamonim’ [What are you looking for go stand at the intersection you are whores don’t sugarcoat what’s important [you are] whores no money needed [it’s a] free entrance Arabs you are welcome come one come all] [Facebook comment]. 6 May. https://www.facebook.com/TheShadow69/posts/10156064204045255. Accessed 28 Apr 2021. Jeffers, S. (2008). The industrial vagina: The political economy of the global sex trade. Routledge. Joelle, J. (2018). ‘Ma nisgar itam? Mitzad echad hem neged ones veze beseder gamur, rak chaval shehem spesifiot legabei ha’anas. Umitzad sheni hem mevazot et guf ha’isha?? Ma haketa shel ha’erom haze vehaktovot hamecho’arot ha’ele?? Kacha nir’a guf ha’isha? Ma ze hazilzul haze? Mecha’a shelo metziga shum davar, milvad provokatzia mag’ila vedocha, shemamash ko meyatzeget nashi mela mevaza otam. Vechaval shelakachtem et ze lemakom afel vemecho’ar.’ [What’s up with them? On the one hand they’re against rape, and that’s completely fine, too bad they’re specific about the rapist. And on the other hand they degrade the woman’s body?? What’s up with this nakedness and these ugly inscriptions?? Is this how a woman’s body looks? What is this contempt? An ugly protest that doesn’t present anything but a disgusting and revolting provocation, that’s really unrepresentative of women but degrade them. Shame you took it to such a dark and ugly place] [Facebook comment]. 6 May. https://www.facebook.com/TheShadow69/ posts/10156064204045255. Accessed 28 Apr 2021. Kleiman, A. [Tse’adat Hamufkarot Yerusalaim 2021]. (2018). ‘Mar Hatzel hayakar, o hatzel, tzeli. Karanu et hapost shelcha ve’anachnu nirgashot she’ata tomech bamesarim shelanu! Gam betse’adot beYerushala’im (18.5), Be’er Sheva (7.6) veHaifa (4.7) anachnu namshich, mamash kmo shekatavta…’ [Dear mister The Shadow, or Shadow, Shadi. We have read your post and we are excited that you support our messages! In the marches in Jerusalem (18.5), Be’er Sheva (7.6)

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and Haifa (4.7) we will keep, just as you wrote…’ [Facebook]. 7 May. https://www.facebook. com/SlutWalk.JLM/posts/2162185490464949. Accessed 28 Apr 2021. Kohn, A., & Neiger, M. (2007). To talk and talkback: Analyzing the rhetoric of talkbacks in online journalism. In T. Altschuler (Ed.), Online Newspapers in Israel. Jerusalem, Israel Democracy Institute, pp. 321–350. Kuwashima, Y. (2018). ‘The strength of an opinion leader’s Supporters’. Annals of Business Administrative Science, 17(6), 241–250. Ling, R. (2020). Confirmation bias in the era of mobile news consumption: The social and psychological dimensions. Digital Journalism, 8(5), 596–604. Lorde, A. (1984). The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. Sister outsider: Essays and speeches (pp. 110–114). Crossing Press. Lubnan, L. (2018). ‘Metumtamot sheka’ele rotzon tzumi velo me’ever. “Haguf hu rak sheli”-Ah walla? Az lama la’azazel at mar’a oto lechol ha’olam?? Busha lamin ha’enoshi titkadmu’ [Such idiots [that] want attention and nothing more. “My body is only mine” – oh really? So why the hell do you show it to the whole world?? [You are] A shame to humanity move along]. [Facebook comment]. 6 May. https://www.facebook.com/TheShadow69/posts/10156064204045255. Accessed 28 Apr 2021. Lykov, A. (2018). ‘Ani dei batuach shehaguf shelahen hu rak shelahen.. Gever shafui lo yetze ‘im hapustemot ha’ele.’ [I’m pretty sure their body is just theirs… a sane man wouldn’t go out with those morons]. [Facebook comment]. 6 May. https://www.facebook.com/TheShadow69/posts/ 10156064204045255. Accessed 28 Apr 2021. Mako. (2018). Editorial: Hatsel neged Hasharmutot, 21 May [online]. https://www.mako.co.il/ women-agenda/Article-413ff86ae918361006.htm. Accessed 22 Dec 2020. Marmorstein, M., & Sclafani, J. (2019). The TalkBack genre: Practice and the cultural construal of online commenting in Israel. Discource, Context & Media, 31, 1–11. Mizrahi, M. (2018). ‘Hahafgana Hameza’aza’at shel hasharmutot zo busha vecherpa nashim meshu’amamot sherotzot tzumi lo yoter mize aluvot sheratzot lehitgarot begvarim shelo mistaklim al tipus kaze mag’il le’an aten rotzot lehagi’a ma hasipur shelachen yaldut kasha yeladot lo mekubalot vezo hatotza’a sharmutot aluvot metuskalot ze ma she’aten zbala sdom ve’amora’ [This outrageous Sluts protest is a shame [you are] bored women who seek attention and nothing more lame women that want to tease men who won’t look on such a disgusting type where do you want to go what’s your story a difficult childhood unpopular girls and that’s the result miserable frustrated sluts that’s what you are garbage Sodom and Gomorrah]. [Facebook comment]. 6 May. https://www.facebook.com/TheShadow69/posts/10156064204045255. Accessed 28 Apr 2021. Morad, G. (2018). ‘Pachei zevel bli tipa shel kavod mamash go’al nefesh cholot min af gever ba’olam sheyesh lo kavod lo ‘iga bepach zevel kaze rak ha’ele belevinski yecholom laga’at bezevel kaze’ [Garbage cans without a drop of respect really disgusting sex maniacs no man in the world who has respect will touch garbage cans like these only those from Levinski can touch this garbage]. [Facebook comment]. 6 May. https://www.facebook.com/TheShadow69/posts/101 56064204045255. Accessed 28 Apr 2021. Mulvey, L. (1975). Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. Screen, 16(3), 6–18. Nickerson, R. S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of General Psychology, 2(2), 175–220. Öngün, E., & Demirag, A. (2014). Are we digital masters or captives? A critical Evaluation of Panoptic Versus Synoptic Effects of Surveillance in Social Media. In Digital Communication Impact International Academic Conference. Istanbul, October 16–17. Istanbul: ˙Iskenderiye Kitap, pp. 23–33. Peretz, K. (2018). ‘Ze mochi’ach shehaya po yam venish’ar rak hameduzot she’anu ro’im lila tov sharmutot meduzot’ [This proves there was a sea here and the jellyfish we see remained good night jellyfish sluts].[Facebook comment]. 6 May. https://www.facebook.com/TheShadow69/posts/101 56064204045255. Accessed 28 Apr 2021. Roberts, M. L. (2002). True womanhood revisited. Journal of Women’s History, 14(1), 150–155.

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Rush, C. (2011). Cop apologizes for ‘sluts’ remark at law school. The Star website, 18 February 2011 [online]. https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2011/02/18/cop_apologizes_for_ sluts_remark_at_law_school.html. Accessed 22 Dec 2020. Salmoni, D. (2018). ‘Ani choshev shebachru mila mat’ima beyoter lamitz’ad. Hen kulan onot al hahagdara, lelo yotzet min haklal. Me’anyen ‘im yesh mechiron’ [I think that [they] chose the proper word for the march. They all meet the definition, without exception. I wonder if there’s a price list]. [Facebook comment]. 6 May. https://www.facebook.com/TheShadow69/posts/101 56064204045255. Accessed 28 Apr 2021. Shabayev, A. (2018). ‘Tse’adat sharmutot sababa… Aval lefachot kusit achat! Lo ha’iti mezayen af achat mehem gam ‘im hazain sheli haya metzil otan mimavet!’ [Slut walk ok… But [there should be] at least one babe! I wouldn’t fuck any of them even if my dick could save them from death!] [Facebook comment]. 6 May. https://www.facebook.com/TheShadow69/posts/101560 64204045255. Accessed 28 Apr 2021. Shar’abi, H. A. (2018). ‘Hatzvi’ut shel meretz chogeget karagil!!! Kshesudani o aravi ones – ze beseder!!’ [Meretz’s Hypocrisy is overflowing as usual!!! When a Sudanese or an Arab rapes – it’s ok!!] [Facebook comment]. 6 May. https://www.facebook.com/TheShadow69/posts/101560 64204045255. Accessed 28 Apr 2021. Sher, G., Sternberg, N., & Ben-Kalifa, M. (2019). The delegitimization of peace advocates in Israeli society. Strategic Assessment, 22(2), 29–41. Siapera, E. (2012). Understanding new media. Sage Publications. Sidi, S. S. (2018). ‘Kol Hamachlaka hapsichi’atrit ochrot Israel Kadima shetelechna lekabel trufot ulai ze ma sheyargi’a otan’ [All the psychiatric department [are] Israel haters they should go get medicine maybe that’s what will calm them down]. [Facebook comment]. 19 May. https://www. facebook.com/TheShadow69/posts/10156093865715255. Accessed 28 Apr 2021. Star, Y. Y. (2018). ‘Haguf shelah. Hamoach shelo. Ma she’at osa hagud shelah tsiburi she’at chosefet oto. Ze kvar lo shelah stuma’ [Your body. His brain. Whatever you do your body is public [when] you expose it. It’s no longer yours idiot]. [Facebook comment]. 6 May. https://www.facebook. com/TheShadow69/posts/10156064204045255. Accessed 28 Apr 2021. Tibi, B. (2018). ‘Im haguf shela rak shela madu’a hi metziga ota be’erom ‘im lo kedei limtzo kone?’ [If her body is only hers why is she presenting it naked if not to find a buyer?] [Facebook comment]. 6 May. https://www.facebook.com/TheShadow69/posts/10156064204045255. Accessed 28 Apr 2021. Tse’adat Hamufkarot Yerusalaim. (2019). Slut Walk JLM [Facebook]. May 24. https://www.fac ebook.com/events/2300574650155180/. Accessed 22 Dec 2020. Tse’adat Hasharmutot Tel-Aviv-Yaffo. (2017). Ella Shoko Amir: Ani Ella [Facebook]. 9 April. https://www.facebook.com/SlutWalkTLV/photos/a.1445224729137732/180959277936 7590/?type=3&theater. Accessed 22 Dec 2020. Ussher, J. M. (2013). Diagnosing difficult women and pathologising femininity: Gender bias in psychiatric nosolgy. Feminism & Psychology, 23(1), 63–69. Walters, B. (1966). The cult of true womanhood. American Quarterly, 18(2), 151–174. Wilson, N. E. (2015) ‘Dirty Talk: A History of the Word “Slut”’. In A. Teekah, E,J, Scholz, M. Friedman, A. O’Reilly (Eds.) This is what a feminist slut looks like: Perspectives on the SlutWalk movement (pp. 46–62). Demeter Press. Zada, S. (2018). ‘Tffffu alechem zvalim, haguf letetzuga. Nim’astem kalbot, lema’ase leklavim yesh yoter kavod mimchem.’ [Spit on you [you] garbage, the body on display. [We are] fed up bitches, actually dogs have more respect than you]. [Facebook comment]. 6 May. https://www.facebook. com/TheShadow69/posts/10156064204045255. Accessed 28 Apr 2021.

Scandalogy Meets Field Theory Utilizing Scandal Theory for the Analysis of Journalistic Practices Over Time Christina Krakovsky

1 Introduction The preoccupation with scandals presented in media is often closely related to people in positions of power and to political figures and intentions. In this respect, it naturally seems appropriate that a focus on the political sphere can be discerned in the research literature, which also takes into account that media coverage of political scandals has increased in recent decades (von Sikorski, 2018, p. 135). However, when understood as a phenomenon deeply rooted in journalistic practices, the interest in mediatized scandals (Burkhardt, 2018; Thompson, 2000) goes further. Existing research literature barely grasps how processes around scandalized media coverage are embedded in the complexity of journalistic procedures, sense-making processes, and institutional dependencies (Školkay, 2020). Comprehensive approaches that illuminate mediatized scandals in a system of journalistic practices and also include organizational preconditions at the meso level are rare. This paper, thus, aims to explore a theoretical framework for the (long-term) analysis on social practices of journalists within the mostly unconscious, however strongly structuring and intervening constraints of the journalistic field that influence and organize the journalistic value system by means of mediatized scandals. For the purpose of broadening the understanding of scandal reporting holistically, this paper engages with the theoretical approach of field theory, following sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, and juxtaposes his conclusions and insights from scandal theory. The complexity of field theory allows to look at the meso level in journalism in a broad manner (Benson & Neveu, 2005) by highlighting “processes of change, both how the media field itself is transformed and how a reconfigured media field affects other major societal sectors” (Benson, 1998, p. 463). Therefore “field theory has its C. Krakovsky (B) Institute for Comparative Media and Communication Studies, Austrian Academy of Sciences/Alpen-Adria University Klagenfurt, Vienna, Austria e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Haller et al. (eds.), Scandology 3, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85013-5_11

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strength in taking into consideration the relations between the newsroom and the journalistic field and between the journalistic field and the field of power” (Schultz, 2007, p. 192). The study of scandals, on the other hand, introduces a relatively precise but interdisciplinary phenomenon (Haller & Michael, 2020, p. 7), through which the possibility of clear delimitation is offered and thus becomes feasible for research. Accordingly, I propose that field theory enables a theoretical and empirical way to address the discursive nature of journalistic practices toward scandals, in which media as a product and as a practice can be understood to a fuller extent. Finally, this paper offers an attempt to explain how media change alters journalistic practices in scandal reporting and which powerfully influences within and outside of the journalistic field become decisive. The result provides a theoretical foundation that aims to gain insights into the complex set of rules of (mass) media production by means of long-term observation of journalistic practices with regard to conditions of production in the course of scandal reporting, which eventually reveals changes over time.

2 Field Theory and Mediatized Scandals: Four Arguments Illustrated by the Case of “Art and Revolution” In the following, the interconnection of findings from research on scandals, primarily from the field of communication and political science, with Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological field theory is introduced along with four main arguments. First, I discuss how the successful presentation of scandals in media refers to an active and constructivist role of journalists as agents, which is based on judgment and thus refers to the journalistic value system. This, secondly, leads to the implication that mediatized scandals point to the scope of journalistic practices by exploring the professional habitus in terms of value judgments revealed in the media coverage. In doing so, it seems to be valuable to draw on a profound examination of Bourdieu’s approaches, particularly the usage of the terms field, habitus, habitat, and capital, from the perspective of communication studies. Furthermore, I shed light on the largely unconscious, structuring variables in the journalistic field doxa and illusio, which become explicit (to a certain extent) in the reporting of scandals. These key concepts have been rather neglected in the literature so far, which makes it necessary to address these ideas precisely. Finally, it is explained how the specifications of subfields in the semi-autonomous journalistic field provide information about cultural production in general and therefore can be used for the examination of mediatized scandals. By means of an analysis of scandals through time, processes of change in the journalistic value system can thus be identified, which provide reliable statements about the changes in journalistic subfields. To illustrate the theoretical line of reasoning, I present an example that became known in Austria under the term “Uni-Ferkelei” (Uni-Ribaldry), a term that was

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introduced by the local press. The data collected for this purpose included contemporary Austrian print media and followed the course of the scandal: The first newspaper article was published on June 9, 1968, with the topic receiving media attention until the end of the month. At the end of July through August 4, however, there was another burst of coverage in the wake of the trial. A complete analysis is still a work-in-progress, but first impressions from the source corpus can be helpful to comprehend the argument. The performance—actually titled “Art and Revolution” (Kunst und Revolution)— took place on June 7, 1968, in a building of the University of Vienna and was primarily held by the performance artists Günter Brus, Otto Mühl, Peter Weibel, Oswald Wiener, as well as Franz Kaltenbäck and Malte Olschewski or “Laurids”. The loose collective which also included Hermann Nitsch and Rudolf Schwarzkogler later became to be known as “Vienna Actionists” (Wiener Aktionisten). According to an article by Michael Jeannee, an eyewitness and journalist for the tabloid Express (“Beispielloser Skandal” 1968; Jeannee, 1968a), the show lasted about half an hour. The course of the demonstration can be reconstructed as follows: Mühl read a pamphlet against the U.S. politician Robert Kennedy, who had been assassinated the day before. Synchronously, Weibel insulted the then Minister of Finance, Stephan Koren. The volume of the microphone amplifier through which the speech rang out could be controlled by the audience. Eventually, Brus began to perform an act called “body analysis”: he undressed, injured himself with a razor blade, urinated, smeared himself with feces, vomited, masturbated, and sang the Austrian national anthem. Wiener and Kaltenbäck, unperturbed by the noise surrounding them, gave lectures on the topics “thought and language” and “information and language”. All this happened simultaneously and under flickering light sequences. Meanwhile, Mühl whipped a person announced as Laurids with a broad, leather military belt. Laurids head was covered with bandages. Later he read pornographic literature aloud. Then a competition was staged in which four of the men, three of them by now completely undressed, vied to see who could urinate the farthest and simulating their ejaculation with effervescent bottles of beer. In between, Weibel gave a speech on Lenin’s pamphlet “What is to be done?”, holding the manuscript with burning gloves and the paper bursting into flames (according to some sources, the “fiery speech” was already part of his first lecture against Koren). At the end of the performance, the hooded “Laurids” dropped his mask and revealed himself as Dr. Malte Olschewski, who was, among other things, a lecturer at the philosophical faculty of the University of Vienna. He proclaimed a masochistic inclination and handed out his phone number to interested attendees (Dreher, 2009; Green et al., 1999, p. 223; Raunig, 2005, p. 179). Despite the spectacle, the audience’s reactions remained unimpressed or at most amused. There were even calls for the performance to be staged in Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral (the landmark of the city), if the intention was to shock (Raunig, 2005, p. 179). Nevertheless, the event served as the basis for a scandal that was widely covered by the media and ultimately led to legal consequences for the artists. The media response was consistently negative. Demands for criminalization and psychiatric treatment (see below for details) were made. The artists faced angry phone calls and even death threats. Some of those involved had to stand trial, with Brus

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sentenced to six months of strict confinement for disparagement of state symbols (he escaped imprisonment by fleeing into exile in West Berlin); Mühl, Wiener, Weibel, and two other co-actors, Herbert Stumpfl and Otmar Bauer, served shorter sentences of confinement (Weibel & Export, 1970, p. 292). The negotiation over the possibilities of radical art practice was carried out in all its severity through media coverage.

2.1 Argument 1: Successful Presentation of Scandals in Media Refers, Among Other Things, to an Active and Constructivist Role of Journalists as Agents To evaluate, as intended, scandal theory for its compatibility with field theory, it is possible to draw on a recently advanced scholarly interest and examination of scandals. Even at first glance considerations of scandal theory offer beneficial elements for the analysis of the journalistic field: Mediatized scandals provide sufficient coverage that seems conducive to analysis. Furthermore, they present moral principles, which contain elements that point to journalistic practices around their inherent value system, and finally they are in exchange with other fields of journalistic relevance—be it specifically political, economic or societal—and thus refer to essential criterions for the journalistic field that will be discussed in detail below. Central definitions of successfully mediatized scandals provide a starting point for the analysis. Essentially, they point to an event not only presented in media but also perceived as a misconduct by the public (Esser & Hartung, 2004, p. 1041; Entman, 2012, p. 5). In addition they generally focus on the violation of social norms and/or values, whether alleged or not, for which public figures or institutions are presumably responsible. They are furthermore accompanied by a high density of news coverage compared to previous reporting on a topic and finally lead to a widespread public outrage or anger among the audience (Kepplinger et al., 2012, p. 659; Kepplinger, 2018, p. 8f.; Thompson, 2000, p. 13f.; Bösch, 2011, p. 33). As stated before, a large number of studies focus on political and economic arenas and related fields in western and democratic societies (Oehmer, 2011). In addition, studies explore the functions of the scandal, and its impact and effects for democratic society or media (Kepplinger, 2020; Verbalyte, 2020) as well as the democratic public (Verbalyte, 2020). This focus of scandal research on the political sphere in democratic societies is comprehensible, not least because “the news media is increasingly reporting about (alleged) norm transgressions in the form of political scandals” (von Sikorski, 2018, p. 135). Historical studies, in turn, show that scandals are particularly associated with upheavals in media systems or politics, as well as with shifts in the cultural value structure (Bösch, 2011; Icks & Shiraev, 2020). In addition, the works that are considered fundamental, and thus are referred to regularly, all touch on aspects of scandals, politics, and media (Burkhardt, 2011; Entman, 2012; Kepplinger, 2018; Thompson, 2000). It is not least this reappraisal of scandals in political and communication sciences that has made it interesting also as a unit of

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analysis because “scandal is an invariant that follows quite stable communicative schemata” (Haller & Michael, 2020, p. 8). In this context, considerations on the processual nature of scandals are instructive (Burkhardt, 2018, p. 28f.; Thompson, 2000, p. 24). These models reveal typical patterns of scandal sequences, each based on journalists’ exchanges with the protagonists of the scandal and the audience. Not least, the active role of journalism becomes apparent: taking up an event as a scandal, introducing the protagonists, sounding out the moral state of the public, selecting and presenting contextualizing content. Examining scandals shows further that the scandalous moment does not necessarily have to be perceived as scandalous by the population, but that there are powerful influences inside and outside the newsroom that promote or suppress scandals (Coombs & Holladay, 2020; Entman, 2012, p. 5). It can be reasonably assumed that the appearance of a political scandal in media is not only based on facts (Ehrat, 2011, p. 7), but that, in addition, dynamics become relevant in the respective newsroom that (co-)decide on the coverage. It is therefore worthwhile to closely inspect and concentrate on the journalistic work. A more interdisciplinary part of the research on scandals, on the other hand, is devoted less to political scandal than to its emergence through artistic intervention and social movements (Gegner, 2011; Holzner, 2011; Wischermann, 2005). Attacks on social values and their societal significance are addressed. In the realm of art, breaking the rules can even be interpreted as a sign of quality, referring to the rebellious gesture of the artist (Holzner, 2011, p. 249; Wagner-Egelhaaf, 2018). The relationship between society and avant-garde, particularly related to art and literature (Hesmondhalgh, 2006, p. 212), has received a great deal of attention from Bourdieu himself (Bourdieu, 2006), also with special consideration of media (Bourdieu, 2018; Bourdieu & Haacke, 1995). Specifically, mass media journalism is critically discussed and seen as an obstacle that stands between the intellectual activities of the artist (and incidentally also scientists) and the public. But it is especially the artist who can remedy the situation by attracting attention (Bourdieu & Haacke, 1995, p. 34). The question of deliberately provoked scandals by artists and activists who see their work as a provocative wake-up call to what they address as social ills becomes critical here. For the evocation of a scandal through artistic performance can be understood as a desired form of recognition. In addition, media attention could be sought. However, these reasons are not unique to art scandals, but are also not foreign to politics. In both cases, deliberate attempts at causing scandals can backfire and bring unintended consequences or of course simply fail to attract the desired attention of journalistic media or the public. So, regardless of the thematic context, the substantive topic of the scandal, an active journalistic role must be seen as an essential component in the making of a public scandal. And consequently, the mediatized scandal not only touches the moral sensibilities of the outraged public, but also provides information about the journalistic system within which the scandal is identified as such. Just as it can be stated that a scandal discloses the moral guiding code of the specific societal reference system because it is presented in the sense of a discourse practice (Bergmann & Pörksen, 2009, pp. 8, 32; Burkhardt, 2011, p. 136; Haller, 2013, p. 59), it similarly

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applies to the moral guiding code within the newsrooms. What scandals reveal are insights into journalistic practices, especially around their professional value system because a judgment must be made in the newsroom that an event is defined as a scandal or seems proper for scandalous reporting. Of course, this is not to say that media logic is the only decisive factor. Scandalized media coverage arises as a result of “complex social interactions, i.e., the interplay of social structures and actor constellations in a certain place and at a specific point in time” (Karidi et al., 2018, p. 130). This means that scandalous news is constructed in accordance to “the news media’s orientation frame of action” (2018, p. 130). However, this gives the journalistic behavior toward scandals a constructivist momentum that functions independently of specific subject matter but provides a turn to established logics that are carried out by journalists. Such phenomena can also be identified in the 1968 scandal described above. Although no unified political orientation can be assigned to the artists collective, art historians interpret their performances as a protest or resistance against the prevailing civilization, against normative and moral boundaries as well as against the then dominant social and cultural conception of reality (Jahraus, 2001, p. 315; see also Fischer & Jäger, 1989; Klocker, 1990; Kupczy´nska, 2012; Oberhuber, 1989). But the intention of the artists to provoke had remained unfulfilled for a long time. The first public performance is dated to 1953 (Stanka, 2012, p. 11) while the most creative phase, which included 184 events, took place between 1963 and 1970 (Jahraus, 2001, p. 49f.; Klocker, 1989). This background suggests that the scandal surrounding the performance “Art and Revolution” is a journalistic construction because very similar spectacles had taken place before, but without such widespread resonance in the press or among the population. It was not until June 1968 that media addressed the artists’ work. Even then, there was hardly any reference to their earlier artistic activities. The leftist newspapers Volksstimme and Arbeiter-Zeitung, both, reported on the occasion of the 1968 event “Art and Revolution” about a similar performance from the year before (“‘Happening’-Spezialisten,” 1968; “Rektorwahl: Studentenaktion,” 1968), but did not evoke a scandal. Nor was it broadly mentioned in the Austrian press, when the Actionists caused an international stir two years earlier. Following an invitation to the “Destruction in Art Symposium” (DIAS) Günter Brus, Otto Mühl, Hermann Nitsch, Peter Weibel, and the experimental filmmaker Kurt Kren, partly in collaboration with the U.S. avant-garde artist Raphael Montañez Ortiz, were performing in London in 1966. The performances that the group staged during the event, which lasted several days, prompted representatives of the London press to call in the police. The organizers of DIAS, Gustav Metzger and John Sharkey, were charged by the Director of Public Prosecutions for an indecent exhibition contrary to Common Law based on a performance by Nitsch. A fine followed (Dreher, 2009; Weibel, 1979) but no Austrian scandal. The fact that similar performances had already taken place, but were not discussed publicly, suggests that other reasons contributed to why the “Art and Revolution”-event became a scandal. This sequence of events supports the theoretical argument that the mediatized scandal is not necessarily triggered only by the particular scandalous event, but that a journalistic decision-making process determines whether coverage takes place or not.

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2.2 Argument 2: Mediatized Scandals Point to the Scope of Journalistic Practices by Exploring the Professional Habitus in Terms of Value Judgments Revealed in Media Products One can therefore state that mediatized scandals are by definition complex phenomena due to the combination of value transgressions, reporting and audience reaction, conceived as an aggregate of cultural production, political power and a mediatized public sphere. In the journalistic treatment of the mediatized scandal, however, schemas of discursive and performative practice in journalism are revealed beyond the prevailing canon of societal values (Bulkow & Petersen, 2011, p. 9; Oehmer, 2011, p. 158). Journalistic production behaves according to certain patterns that refer to the selection and presentation of events as scandalous (Haller & Michael, 2020, p. 8). In principle, media professionals constitute and preserve a specific space of action, which Bourdieu describes in the concept of habitus and habitat (Bourdieu, 2010a, p. 72) that also applies to scandal reporting and its specifics. In the journalistic field, habitus defines, among others, the biographically developed disposition of journalists, that is, how they perceive and judge the social reality, what values they consciously or unconsciously represent, how they act, etc. (Meyen & Riesmeyer, 2012, p. 388; Maurer & Riedl, 2020). Habitat refers to the physical components, in which effects of social processes of production and reproduction (Schroer, 2006, p. 111) are mapped. For the journalistic field, habitat includes, for example, the editorial location, equipment, and the like, where, of course, these physical elements cannot be considered independent of subjective behavior and perception. For example, it makes a difference whether the media company and thus one’s workplace is located at a more or less prestigious address. These two entities, habitus and habitat, intertwine. Bourdieu sees habitus as an experience-dependent construction that can be changed over time. He thereby aligns the acting individual with his social and physical environment, insofar as the acting subjects have a system of structures at their disposal. This allows them to act as subjects and typically for the particular situational environment (Krais & Gebauer, 2017, p. 32). The habitus enables and produces actions that are consistent with individual behavior. Thus, it becomes possible to act as an individual subject and still behave in a socially correct way, meaning in accordance with other subjects. This is the basis for a set of social rules that are not formalized like a contract, that do not even have to be expressed or be conscious, but that the people involved follow. These supposedly self-evident behavioral codes are consolidated in the interplay of social confirmation and correction, becoming a dynamic process of generation by individuals (Bourdieu, 2015, p. 123). How far-reaching such understandings of roles are is shown by international comparisons, in which journalists act according to similar ethical norms or are similarly affected by changes in working practices, for example in dealing with media change (Hanusch & Hanitzsch, 2019). At the center is the subject and its personal production of structures that can be conceived neither as immutable nor as independent of other subjects and the rules created.

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In consequence, language—and thus writing—does not function as a sole memory (Bourdieu, 2015, p. 127) but is an active element in the formation of individual-level actions that further constitute social practice. Now, habitus and habitat allow for differentiated forms of action by journalists through different social, cultural, and economic capitals, thus bringing flexibility to the practice of action (Bourdieu, 2010b, p. 107, 2005, p. 30). Journalists accumulate different capitals in different emphasis—i.e. “professional experience”, “‘formal’ organisational position”, “news beat”, “journalistic prices, etc.” (Schultz, 2007, p. 194)—and thus consolidate their position in the newsroom and in the journalistic field. This means that a journalist‘s standing in the newsroom determines how she or he can behave and how far she or he can push habitual boundaries (Bourdieu, 2005, p. 39). Communication studies tend to draw attention to the concept of capital, despite the difficulties of methodological evaluation, since challenges such as precisely locating and correctly assigning capitals should not be underestimated (Maares & Hanusch, 2020). So, the question arises what insights can be gained with Bourdieu’s field theory beyond the predominant focus on capitals. This leads back to scandal theory and a focus not so much on the agency of individual journalists, but on the larger level of habitus that constitutes agency as an overall construct. By exposing value violations, mediatized scandals refer to schemes and dispositives of discursive and performative praxes (Bulkow and Petersen, 2011, p. 9; Oehmer, 2011, p. 158). Successful scandal reporting thus not only indicates the general level of social outrage but also points to the habitus of journalistic action on an individual level, referring to the “behavioral rules“ with in the newsroom (Karidi et al., 2018). Accordingly, journalistic practices can be read on the basis of scandal reporting because the normative structures of what is considered sayable and doable (even beyond written corporate or legal rules) are mapped by the habitual behavior of journalists in reporting. Referring to the example of “Art and Revolution” habitual boundaries in the newsrooms become apparent in the way reporting is carried out. Especially journalists of the tabloids launched verbal attacks on the artists involved calling them “sexual neurotics”, “degeneration”, “child molesters”, or “sex murderers” suggesting they should be in “prisons,” hospitals,” insane asylums,” and “labour camps” (“Das freie Wort,” 1968; Staberl, 1968). The then Minister of the Interior, Franz Soronics, was called upon to take strict action against the “six pigs” (ibid). Other newspapers took a similar line. The artists were called “sex communists” (“Die Polizei jagt,” 1968) and radical revolters (Jeannee, 1968b) who should have been arrested. They demanded that Malte Olschewski, who had appeared as Laurids be stripped of his doctorate and journalists questioned the mental health of the artists (“Sex-‘Studenten’ zum Psychiater!,” 1968). Furthermore the private addresses of Günter Brus, Otto Mühl, and Oswald Wiener were published (“Rädelsführer der Stoffwechselparty,” 1968). The announcement of the exact addresses contributed significantly to the threatening mood against the artists, which also affected the everyday lives of relatives (Roussel, 1995, p. 26f.; Weibel, 1979, p. 65). In contrast to blunt insults, milder attitudes and somewhat rather balanced reporting were found in more sophisticated newspapers. Nevertheless, the tone remains negative. Here, too, the artists are falsely described

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as left-wing extremist students (“Beispiellose Szenen,” 1968). For the most part, however, there are no harsh insults or threats. These examples illustrate the extent to which habitual boundaries were drawn in newsrooms. Offensive attacks on artists were doable, just as insults were sayable or printable. Criminalization and threats refer to a journalistic practice in which the journalistic actions of individuals coincide with the scope of action opened up in the newsrooms. Seen as a journalistic practice, the articles are part of the journalistic behavioral rules that arise from subject and organization—they result as an interaction of journalists and possibly the pursuit of professional capital gain together with the limits set by media companies. For example, journalist Michael Jeannee who was the only journalist attending the event was able to strengthen his position with the exclusive report. However, the Express newspaper created the framework of what could be said within the policy of a tabloid.

2.3 Argument 3: The Largely Unconscious, Structuring Variables in the Journalistic Field Doxaand IllusioBecome Explicit (to a Certain Extent) in the Reporting of Scandals So far it can be concluded that media content can be seen as the discursive result of habitual actions that depend on or in constant exchange with the habitat at a specific time and date. The analysis of scandal reporting can be used to infer normative structures within the newsroom from journalistic practices, i.e., to examine verbalized habitual action (reporting) with regard to the institutional space of action (what can be said and done). It can be assumed that a large part of practices that help shape habitus consists of unconscious behavior from which underlying social structures become inferable (Hallett, 2003, p. 132). The effects of habitus and habitat converge here and can be interrogated in terms of their capital through the integration of moralizing and debates dubbed as scandalous. To this end, the journalistic field implies an expedient peculiarity: the logic, or rules (doxa), according to which the journalistic field is organized, that contributes, to a certain extent, to the framework of action (and thus also the limits of individual flexibility of action albeit changeable over time), is drafted in media reporting. Bourdieu refers to the recognition of doxa by the participating subjects as illusio (Bourdieu, 2015, p. 122). These concepts of doxa and illusio have unfortunately received little attention in journalism studies (Maares & Hanusch, 2020, p. 9), although a close inspection would be worthwhile and probably necessary to thoroughly understand the principles of the field. Illusio is the “acceptance of the fundamental premise that the game […] is worth being played, being taken seriously” (Bourdieu, 2006, p. 333). In this process, individuals do not consciously decide to adopt this system of rules and do not consciously

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carry on the specific field structures, but rather slowly adapt to a process of professional performance. The further the doxa is adopted, the more unconditional the belief, the illusio, within becomes (Bourdieu, 2015, p. 123). So doxa describes a principle of collective experience and leads to the perception that the world seems self-explanatory and self-evident (Bourdieu, 2010a, p. 164). This principle is considered to be the seemingly self-evident in social practice, which usually is hardly ever made explicit and is consequently rarely questioned. It is described as “the universe of the tacit presuppositions that we accept as the natives of a certain society” (Bourdieu, 2005, p. 37). The doxa is the habitual, the everyday order that constitutes unaskedfor and self-evident social predispositions to which individuals are more and more committed. Accordingly, “the journalistic doxa is a set of professional beliefs which tend to appear as evident, natural, and self-explaining norms of journalistic practice” (Schultz, 2007, p. 194). It is precisely these unquestioned and unconscious “rules of the game”, as it is often referred to (Maares & Hanusch, 2020, p. 11), according to which the social world is constructed. In that sense “[j]ournalists are caught up in structural processes which exert constraints on them such that their choices are totally preconstrained” (Bourdieu, 2005, p. 45). They form part of the “professional behavior” of journalists and the associated classification, assessment and presentation of situations including scandalous events. This also means that the implicit program of the doxa is revealed in the activities of habitus (Bourdieu, 2018, p. 668). Therefore, it becomes theoretically approachable why there are “no scandalous or non-scandalous facts” (Ehrat, 2011, p. 19) per se popping up in social reality. However, there are indeed “facts that catch a scandal’s interest and those that scandals choose to ignore. There exist states of affairs that the media do in fact turn into scandals” (Ehrat, 2011, p. 19). The occurrence of a scandal in media thus becomes a tangible construct of habitual actions of journalists, recognized according to the rules of the field, maintained by the doxa, and represented by journalists in the illusio, which is the assumption of the doxa. The journalistic field becomes, as it were, flesh and blood, a reality of life that produces the scandal in such a consistent form that it evolves into a detectable phenomenon in terms of scandal theory and, in turn, the regularity of scandal reporting (albeit culturally dependent) can be analyzed. A further specification of the journalistic field shows why it is particularly well suited for studying scandal reporting in a methodological sense: it is the textualization of content, whether in written, spoken, or pictorial form. By representing lines of argumentation in media coverage, journalists explicate categories with which they construct social reality (Bourdieu, 2005, p. 37; 1998; see specifically for scandal reporting Oehmer, 2011, p. 158). In addition, the lines of argumentation also provide information about the negotiation process within one’s own professional environment, which declares the argumentation to be legitimate (Bourdieu, 2005, p. 37). The concept of doxa and illusio flows into the reporting remains unconscious as a practice of action, but must be made explicable through the construction of the narrative “scandal”. Such journalistic narratives (e.g., “story lines”) are created (Keller,

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2019, p. 235) to make events comprehensible and narratable. Thus, when a performance is staged as a scandal in media, those aspects of doxa and illusio that describe the media phenomenon “scandal” and point to implicit field structures that are taken up argumentatively. This goes hand in hand with the observation that “the press as a whole—both as product and as practice—is oriented towards themes” (Ehrat, 2011, p. 15). Journalistic doxa is oriented toward themes and narratives, whereby known markers that are considered scandalous are recognized and as such are incorporated and described in the reporting. The professional habitus that journalists as individuals adopt in the newsroom thus contains the doxa according to which the habitus is guided and can be taken from the reporting. When an event appears in media as a scandal, the rules of the journalistic field become clear because explanatory practices become explicit (e.g., Why is it a scandal? Who is used as a proponent/opponent? Who gets to speak?), which point to implicit field structures. Not least because of its extensive coverage and focus on moral justifications, the scandal offers a phenomenon that seems ideally suited to the analysis of these underlying structural powers precisely around the published value system. At this point at the latest, an in-depth analysis becomes necessary in order to identify the concepts of doxa and illusio in the coverage from the 1968 example. The course of the scandal should be analyzed attentively to see what narratives are being picked up. Nevertheless, one can already take first clues from the data when the question is asked which voices are included in the reporting. The category of criminalization has already been addressed. However, the focus shifts from the question of what content is being published to the question of what work processes may be inferred as acceptable professional practices. For example, a psychiatrist was asked for a remote diagnosis. In an interview analyzing the performance, the doctor speaks of “severely disturbed personalities” (Jeannee and Eibensteiner, 1968). The artists are summarily declared mentally impaired, or at least a mental impairment is implied. With the help of a medical authority, a classification is made and presented to the readers. Such strategies serve to legitimize narratives with which social reality is constructed. If one considers, for example, the generally negative tone of the reporting, in which the artists themselves or possible advocates were hardly given a chance to speak, then journalistic patterns of action become comprehensible.

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2.4 Argument 4: The Specifications of Subfields in the Semi-Autonomous Journalistic Field Provide Information About Cultural Production. By means of an Analysis of Scandals Through Time, Processes of Change in the Journalistic Value System can thus be Identified, Which Provide Reliable Statements About the Changes in Journalistic Subfields The last item that should be considered for theoretically linking scandal theory and field theory is the nature of the journalistic field itself. To briefly recapitulate the points made so far: considerations of scandal theory stress processes of media reporting, whereby precisely the focus on value representation in expounding a scandal in media outlets point to the underlying characteristics of doxa and illusio, according to which the journalistic field is organized. Regardless of the factual cause of the scandal, the course of the scandal starts in the reporting, which can be read in models like the scandal clock mentioned above, and makes the journalistic negotiation of values in dependency on the journalistic field understandable. What is of further interest when working comprehensively with the field theory, however, is the inclusion of influential fields that are in touch with the semiautonomous qualities of the journalistic field and furthermore the study of the different subfields within the journalistic field itself, each of which develops its own characteristics in relation to each other and to other fields. It is necessary to pay particular attention to this interlocked constellation because to holistically comprehend the journalistic field “one has to understand the degree of autonomy of the field and, within the field, the degree of autonomy of the publication that a journalist writes for” (Bourdieu, 2005, p. 44). Two levels are addressed here: On the one hand, Bourdieu describes the journalistic field as semi-autonomous, and on the other hand, he adds to its inner complexity by dividing it into different subfields. To begin with, it is worth taking a look at the semi-autonomous quality of the journalistic field and for the purpose of this paper to address how this applies to mediatized scandals. The “very low autonomy” (Bourdieu, 2005, p. 41) is based in a battle between economic and political powers for media outlets (Bourdieu, 1996, p. 124; Hanitzsch, 2007, p. 247; Hesmondhalgh, 2006, p. 213), whereas a distinction becomes efficacious “between those who are ‘purest’, most independent of state power, political power, and economic power, and those who are most dependent on these powers and commercial powers.” (Bourdieu, 2005, p. 41). Media companies can be divided into two segments: Those that are dependent on the state and those that are commercial enterprises. Now, it follows both of these two segments that media agents cannot focus completely on their intellectual (here, one could probably also cite democratic) work (Champagne, 2005, p. 50f.). The journalistic field thus stands between two contradictory poles, between “economic (heteronomous) and cultural (autonomous) forces” (Couldry, 2003, p. 657). Media companies as well as journalists are therefore confronted with economic and political demands, requirements, and

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even attempts to exert influence and must find a way to deal with this troubling situation. Dealing with such claims in turn shapes the habitus of journalists and, vice versa, the doxa and illusio of the field. Here too, the agents act in ways that cannot be consciously reflected upon according to the logic already described. The problem of political and economic dependencies in democratic media systems is of course a well-known phenomenon that finds its expression in field theory in the explanation of the degree of autonomy and is also evident in journalistic interaction with scandalous events. Of course, scandals are also spectacles that are gladly received to push ratings and to secure the company financially; therefore, they are actively fabricated for higher circulations and thus serve the economic interests of media enterprises (Champagne, 2005, p. 55; Mincigrucci, 2020). Apart from that, elitist interests are not to be underestimated in the development of scandals, as evidenced not least by the intense scrutiny of political scandals (Entman, 2012). This circumstance is also not surprising when the sometimes drastic consequences of scandals for the political landscape in particular are taken into account (Kepplinger et al., 2012, p. 659). However, following field theory, the underlying struggle is “not the opposition elitism/democracy, but autonomy/heteronomy” (Bourdieu, 2005, p. 45). And this brings up the second level, which addresses journalistic subfields, i.e., the individual media sectors, media companies up to media outlets and products. Here the just mentioned confrontation of autonomy and heteronomy is seen as a “struggle over […] positions, which often take the form of a battle between established producers, institutions and styles, and heretical newcomers” (Hesmondhalgh, 2006, p. 215f.). This means that on the one hand, the journalistic field is thus dependent on the political and economic fields; on the other hand, the individual subfields, i.e., the relationship between individual media producers (Bourdieu, 2005, pp. 44, 45) within the journalistic field are in a hierarchical power relationship with each other. A simple example especially suited for tracing hierarchies within the journalistic field could be the investigation of the phenomenon of “story pick-up”, i.e., the observation at which point in time which medium reports on a scandal event, which lines of argumentation are adopted, which become established, etc. (Champagne, 2005, pp. 58–61; Lingard & Rawolle, 2004, pp. 366–369). The resulting positions and dependencies should be seen in the textual work provided by journalists in relation to their production conditions, which is for western democracies either existential dependence on state subsidies or on commercial success (Bourdieu, 2005, p. 41; Champagne, 2005). This interplay of different power relations can provide important insights in times of convergence and media change. The multifaceted nature of the field theory enables “to make sense of a whole series of everyday actions and discourses in the making of symbolic goods” (Hesmondhalgh, 2006, p. 217). By analyzing scandal reporting and production conditions, the nature and dependencies of the individual mass media subfields can be brought to light. Thus, mass media subfield logics, including dependencies, can be examined on a structural level for print media, audio and audio-visual media, and on a content level for quality media or tabloid media.

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Economic reasons can already be assumed behind the publication of the first article on the “Art & Revolution” performance. The event took place on Friday, June 7, while the first report appeared on Sunday, June 9, and thus on the day of the week with the highest circulation. The publication date and the lurid presentation suggest that the article was intended as a sales pitch as well. Tendencies toward political dependence or political affiliation also become apparent. In Austria, the party press was still an essential part of the media landscape in 1968 (Steinmaurer et al., 2002, p. 14). As a result political alignments were openly addressed, not least because the first article already talks about “radical left-wing elements” (Jeannee, 1968a). The left-leaning press, such as the Arbeiter-Zeitung, financed by the Social Democratic Party, and Volksstimme, published by the Communist Party, immediately distanced themselves from the art performance mainly because they saw the politically democratization debate at the universities impaired (“Hochschülerschaft: Rechtsruck,” 1968; “RFSDebakel bei Hörerversammlung,” 1968). In addition, the struggle for market power increased as the hierarchical structure of the subfields changed. The social upheaval after "1968" was accompanied by a permanently changing media landscape and, in Austria, by a dramatic process of concentration and tabloidization in the media market (Melischek et al., 2005, p. 248). The 1960s heralded the decline of daily newspapers; on the one hand, party newspapers systematically lost their reach and importance and, on the other hand, regional media were absorbed or discontinued by their competitors (Kaltenbrunner, 2019, p. 180). Even the press subsidies introduced starting in 1975 could not prevent the downfall of the party press (Bruck & Melcher-Smejkal, 1993, p. 62; Kaltenbrunner, 2019, p. 192; Steinmaurer et al., 2002, p. 17). In parallel, Hans Dichand and Kurt Falk, as editors of the Kronen-Zeitung, heaved their tabloid into the highest-circulation newspaper in Austria (Kriechbaumer, 1980, p. 44). The number of journalistic units (i.e., organizationally independent daily newspapers with full editorial staffs) decreased from 36 to 15 between 1946 and 1991, with a relatively stable phase between 1971 (with 19 journalistic units) and the end of the 1980s (Bruck & Melcher-Smejkal, 1993, p. 58; Melischek & Seethaler, 1999, p. 109). At the same time, the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) gained in importance. The entry of television into households during the 1970s entailed reorganizing social, gender, and cultural differences in a national context (Bernold, 2000, p. 52). The mass media logic changed rapidly from the printed or spoken word to the moving image. The obvious increase in television’s reach illustrates the transformation of the media at that time: In 1967, the reach was about 42%, with only 38% of the population owning their own television set, while in 1985 it was more than 95% and more than 74% of the population had already purchased a TV set for their homes (Signitzer, 1986, p. 86). At the same time, the ORF held monopoly status, based on the 1974 Broadcasting Act, according to which the ORF alone was assigned the task of broadcasting (Luger & Steinmaurer, 1993, p. 177). The dissolution of the ORF monopoly was slowly implemented starting in 1986 (1993, p. 179). The new medium of television has led to a change in the journalistic field that can be analyzed on the basis of individual practices (and thus at the level of journalistic reporting) because “any changes in organizational culture will ultimately

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occur through the practices and interactions that take place within the organization” (Hallett, 2003, p. 146). By looking at the past, it is possible to show, for example, the development of the entanglement of different subfields but also different influencing fields. A long-term comparison of scandal reporting should reveal those elements, starting from journalistic practices, the change of the journalistic habitus, the journalistic field doxa in change for the respective subfield, and finally the mass media cultural production. Following Pierre Bourdieu one must probably speak of a turnaround in journalistic practice. Such a turnaround entails considerable consequences for the journalistic field, which can only be grasped in a long-term observation (Vos & Craft, 2017, p. 1506; Schudson, 2001; see also Hepp, 2017). The exploration of scandal reporting over time seems promising for observing effects of media change on the totality of journalistic practices. Mediatized scandals, as could be shown, allow for quite explicit reporting. Moral judgments are openly made and sometimes fiercely defended. Especially in times of increasing market competition or political pressure, the analysis of scandals could therefore provide profound information about the journalistic system.

3 Conclusion This article has developed a proposal to intertwine field theory and scandal theory. The aim has been to outline a theoretical framework useful for examining basic concepts for the journalistic field by means of an analysis of mediatized scandals. This has shown how necessary but also how rewarding a deeper look into Bourdieu’s field theory can be when dealing with theoretical concepts such as the journalistic field. In order to present the theoretical focus, four key arguments were offered. First, it was possible to point to the active journalistic role in reporting on the basis of contributions to scandal theory and definitional principles. The complex interactions that form the basis of scandal reporting also refer to the invoked moral sensibilities that exist in the editorial offices. The decision to portray an issue as scandalous— regardless of whether the facts support it or not—shows that the editorial process identifies the event suitable for scandal reporting. In spite of the reporting topic a focus toward journalistic practices provides a constructivist momentum referring to underlying social and professional rules carried out by journalists. Following this, secondly, it was possible to show that journalistic production behaves according to certain patterns that refer to the selection and presentation of events as scandalous. In principle, media professionals constitute and preserve a specific space of action. By focusing in particular on the concept of habitus, journalistic practices can be captured at an institutional level. While the much-cited concepts of capital explain the distribution and power relations of agents in the journalistic field, habitus reveals normative structures and is therefore suitable to direct the view to the organizational level. Thirdly, the illumination of the terms doxa and illusio served to capture the intended meta-level. These strongly structuring concepts, which usually do not

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become explicit, can be implicitly inferred because of the journalistic necessity of reasoning. Not least because of its extensive coverage and focus on moral justifications, the scandal offers a phenomenon that seems ideally suited to the analysis of these underlying structural powers precisely around the published value system. Finally, the embedding of all these factors in the specifics of the journalistic field was discussed. The low autonomy of the journalistic field is followed on the one hand by a relevant dependence on political and economic powers and on the other hand by an inwardly directed struggle for positioning of the individual media companies up to media products. A long-term analysis of scandals in media that takes into account the conceptual terms of the field theory could comprehensively show changes in (1) value concepts, (2) journalistic habitus for different subfields in the journalistic field, and (3) their respective social rules, especially with regard to dependencies and hierarchies.

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Newspaper Articles Beispiellose Szenen in der Wiener Universität, 1968. Presse 5. Beispielloser Skandal vor 500 Personen Freitag abend an Wiener Uni, 1968. Express 1. Das freie Wort. Das Happening, 1968. Kronen-Ztg. 10. Die Polizei jagt nun die Teilnehmer der Sex-Orgie, 1968. Express 1. “Happening”-Spezialisten traten auch vor dem CV auf., 1968. Volksstimme 1. Hochschülerschaft: Rechtsruck, 1968. Arbeiter-Ztg. 4. Jeannee, M., 1968a. Sex-Orgien radikaler Studenten. Express 3. Jeannee, M., 1968b. Die Polizei ist hinter ihnen her! Express 3. Jeannee, M., Eibensteiner, F., 1968. Ein Fall für den Psychiater. Express 5.

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“The Voice Kids” Scandal in Russia: How the Voiceless Found Their Voice Galina Lukyanova and Arkadii Solovev

The notion of scandals as factors potentially damaging to the image of public figures, politicians, and the sustainability of political regimes has evolved since the mid20th century (Bowler & Karp, 2004; Castells, 2007; Dimock & Jacobson, 1995; Fernández-Vázquez et al., 2016; von Sikorski, 2020). As aspects of social capital, reputation and trust are becoming increasingly valuable resources in the context of the development of the Internet. Despite researchers’ close attention to scandals in the American and European context (Jiménez, 2004; Markovits & Silverstein, 1988; Schudson, 2004; von Sikorski, 2018; Vorberg & Zeitler, 2019), there still has been little discussion of the scandals beyond liberal democracies and the cultural differences conditioning the reaction to violations (Lee, 2018; Oates, 2019; Toepfl, 2011; Wishnevsky, 2006). The study of scandalous events in different contexts makes it possible to change the theory of a scandal’s nature, its phases, and the mechanisms of its impact. In April 2019, one of the most high-profile scandals in Russian media history took place. The most striking point is that the scandal was triggered not by political or economic events but by the results of a famous Russian TV talent show. The daughter of a Russian pop star and a wealthy banker won a landslide victory in the contest’s finale. The unexpected success of a singer who did not lead in audience sympathy provokes claims on social media that the vote had been manipulated. This case is dramatically different from all other scandals in Russia as characterized by the high level of emotional tension both in the offline and online media. Moreover, Russian TV viewers’ passivity in their manner demonstrated solidarity in the struggle with corruption and voting fraud. What had occurred in politics for many years did not cause as many reactions as did the case of the children’s competition. This paper examines how public concern about the dishonesty of the voting procedure for determining the winner of a famous TV talent show «Voice Kids» rises to G. Lukyanova (B) · A. Solovev St. Petersburg State University, 7/9 Universitetskaya nab., St. Petersburg 199034, Russia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Haller et al. (eds.), Scandology 3, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85013-5_12

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the status of a full-blown scandal and allows us to make a judgment on the political guidelines and behavioral patterns of Russian citizens.

1 Scandals in the New Media Environment Becoming central actors of a scandal, political and public figures can lose some of their followers, since there may be a potential discrepancy in the minds of voters between the ideal image of a political leader and the image of a disreputable politician. However, it would not be fair to argue that only politicians are eager to change their ways and communication styles to elicit a rise in popularity. Goffman’s theory of self-presentation (Goffman, 1990) suggests that a desire to create a positive image can influence the strategies a person uses in order to manage well their public image. Goffman makes an important distinction between the back region, presenting aspects of human personality not subject to conscious control, and the front region, formed in communication with other people and providing information about how a person should behave so as to get approval. A person builds a front region in which they project the behavior that seems most appropriate in a particular context trying to hide imperfections of his/her behavior and attitudes. Nowadays, the context of interpersonal interaction is transformed due to virtual communication in social media (Bernhold & Rice, 2020). Currently, a scandal cannot occur in a limited environment of interpersonal relations; it unfolds on display before a massive active audience, culturally homogeneous for the most part, that undertakes the role of censors of public figures’ behavior. Since then, a larger number of intermediaries in communication have appeared, and a maximum permissible number of communicators in a group discussion have increased to almost infinite. Thereby, uncontrolled deeds or beliefs can be stored indefinitely and remain accessible to many people. Given the conditions of the interconnection of the private and public sphere (Habermas, 1989) and the shift from anonymity—as one of the leading values of the Internet community—to open frankness, many public figures have chosen to deliberately demonstrate their vulnerability as well as some aspects of their private life, just like most Internet users (McGregor, 2018; Miller et al., 2016). The influence of social media also makes it possible to trace users’ greater functional capacity to present themselves and their position online (Bazarova & Choi, 2014). It can be asserted that scandals today take place mainly within the online space of social networks, which, according to Dahlgren, are currently a representative space of the public sphere where an essential function of a modern society member—to be heard—is implemented (Dahlgren, 2005). Thus, we argue that when analyzing activity of actors and an audience experiencing a scandal, one should take into account characteristics of social media as one of the modern platforms for the spread of scandal. Scandalous actors can use social media deliberately in order to improve their image or mitigate consequences of a scandal, while social media users want to express their opinion in the form most appropriate for discussion of the scandal.

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The definition of a scandal—“actions or events involving certain kinds of transgressions which become known to others and are sufficiently serious to elicit a public response” (Thompson, 2000, p. 13)—obviously demonstrates the importance of the process of discussing the scandal as a concept, and the ways of disseminating information about it. A scandal exists as long as the exchange of opinions about the event continues in the public space, while the event needs permanent supplementation of facts about itself and new revelations. A person’s attention cannot focus indefinitely on the same event, which is a significant relief for scandal participants; fading of a scandal can end in mitigated liability for the perpetrators. Thus, the public sphere is a prerequisite condition for the scandal’s existence; it requires open space to spread information, assessments, personal statements, and public court hearings. Scholars offer a different interpretation of particular stages of a scandal. Kantola and Vesa applied Turner’s theory of social drama to explore scandals in Finland and outlined four phases of a scandal: violation of social norms; a crisis involving the extension of the breach; reparation actions; and reintegration of a social group or recognition of irreparable split-off (Kantola & Vesa, 2013; Turner, 1982, 1988). This approach has much in common with considering scandal as an event that changes a social order within a group. Scandal emerges as a violation of the normative order in society, following certain human deeds; the moral codes of the society are tested in the process of a scandal; the outcome is either a change or a more definite notion of what is permissible and inadmissible. Meanwhile, specifics of a mediated scandal in terms of social media impact still remain important. According to Thompson, “mediated scandals are not simply scandals which are reported by the media and exist independently of them: they are, in varying ways and to some extent, constituted by mediated forms of communication” (Thompson, 2000, p. 31). New media environment suggests a high rate of information spreading among mass audience and an instant opportunity to express one’s opinion about a scandal, coupled with a great impact of influencers and of the general context on expression of a personal opinion (Barkemeyer et al., 2020; Kintu & Ben-Slimane, 2020). To counteract accusations, a public figure may act along one of two directions: deny the blame in order to place the accusation in doubt and rely on the fact of mistreatment, or admit their fault and handle the issue in such a way as to mitigate the violation of corporate values. An essential complement is the “legal response” strategy: the public figure does not make statements and prefers to act through legal procedures (Brown et al., 2019). Of course, the differentiation between these strategies does not oblige public figures to stick to only one of them; they can be combined depending on the situation’s development. Thus, when exploring the concept of scandal, one can see that it is the context that determines most of the factors influencing the scandal’s growth and the consequences.

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2 Case Background “The Voice Kids” is a children’s version of a popular singing competition television series that has won over the audience by its unbiased treatment of the contestants. The “blind audition” was initially positioned as an innovation allowing the coaches to concentrate only on the contestant’s vocal talent and exclude other factors in decision-making. The show was first launched in 2010 in the Netherlands, and after its launch in Russia, it immediately became popular, gaining the audience’s high level of trust due to the opportunity for talented singers from all regions of the country to prove their mettle and achieve an honest victory. It should be noted that throughout most of the show, only the coaches decide the fate of the participants: a limited number of participants are admitted to the subsequent stage of the contest. In the show’s finale, the participants compete not only for the jury’s sympathy but also for the viewers’ votes that are counted based on telephone calls or SMS sent in favor of a particular participant. The procedure for selecting the project winner was tested many times and almost never gave rise to unfavorable criticism. Still, in 2019, a scandal took place that affected the viewers’ perception of electronic voting. The TV rating of the final stage of the sixth season of “The Voice Kids,” which took place in 2019, was the lowest in the show’s history, but it provoked an enormous round of discussion in comments, since Mikella Abramova, a daughter of a famous Russian singer Alsou and a businessman Yan Abramov, won the competition by a wide margin. Most users noted that the procedure was fraudulent, and the victory should have belonged to Mikella Abramova’s rivals. It is also worth noting that the contestant’s tutor decided not to admit Mikella Abramova to the finale; however, the participant was returned to the show as a result of the viewers’ vote. Subsequently, this fact was highlighted by the viewers of the program who used this situation as a confirmation of the “unfair” victory. The outburst of negative reaction influenced both the scandal’s main actors—the participants, the producers of the Russian version of the show, and the Russian pop scene’s public figures who also expressed their opinion about the scandal. This paper attempts to study the social media users’ reaction to the violation of the voting procedure and formulate several hypotheses regarding the perception of electronic voting procedures and social justice in Russian society.

3 Research Design To study the scandal in detail, we chose the process-tracing method, which makes it possible to trace the cause-and-effect relationships through detailed empirical analysis of the scandal’s development (Beach, 2017). As a rule, this method is used in case-studies since it requires a lot of information describing the context in detail. The analysis will be accompanied by a formulation of causal mechanisms that influenced it. To determine the actors’ behavioral strategy within each

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of the cases, we used Benoit’s image restoration theory (Benoit, 1997). This theory includes several strategies: denial (simple denial, shift the blame), evasion of responsibility (provocation, defeasibility, accident, good intentions), reducing offensiveness of event (bolstering, minimization, differentiation, transcendence, attack accuser, compensation), corrective action, and mortification. It is also worth emphasizing again that every scandal has its duration. The time frame was defined with the help of the Google Trends service, which makes it possible to evaluate the interest of the search engine users toward the key players: the number of queries within each specific time period is compared with the number of queries regarding the previous and future periods, i.e., this service allows us to observe the dynamics of growth and decline of interest in a case through the keywords. Since this scandal emerged in the online space, we selected three posts, published immediately after the announcement of the voting results, to reveal the viewers’ emotional reaction. Posts were selected from the video-sharing platform YouTube and Russian Social Networking Site (SNS) VK, which, according to Mediascope agency, were the third and the fourth most popular web-platforms in Russia in April 2019, trailing only the search engines Google and Yandex (“Mediascope WEBIndex,” 2020). Among the posts, the following were chosen: 1.

2. 3.

The publication of a photograph of the first-finale winner—Mikella Abramova in the official group of “The Voice Kids” show in VK (https://vk.com/wall-551 57869_999422); The repost of the same publication in the official group of Pervyj kanal (Channel One) in VK (https://vk.com/wall-25380626_2142488); The publication of a part of the finale where the winner is announced on “The Voice Kids” channel in YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsBBV2 inA64).

In total, the users left 17,804 comments, which were downloaded and compiled into a corpus. A Python script was developed to detect the expression of the viewers’ emotions, capturing the number of characters with a particular emotional load, namely exclamation marks, closing, and opening brackets (a kind of substitutes for emojis on the Russian-language Internet), caps lock, various emojis. We carried out a network analysis of emojis in Gephi (layout Force Atlas) based on the obtained data. Then we conducted a collocation analysis of comments and topic modeling, using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) analysis with R package “Quanteda” (Benoit et al., 2018). This method allows for finding similar topics across different documents and grouping different words together. During the pre-processing stage, the whole corpus was stripped of punctuation and other symbols and was lemmatized. We intentionally did not include in the stop-word dictionary words with “ne” (not), since this particle in the Russian language is used to express negation and disagreement.

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4 Results The research results will be presented as follows. First, we use the Google Trends service to check the duration and intensity of the scandal. In the second subchapter, we identify main actors and strategies of their behavior in terms of a scandal. In the third subchapter, we analyze emotional reactions of users through Emoji-word Network Analysis. The fourth and fifth subchapters will deal with the users’ reactions to a scandal that they express in comments.

4.1 Scandal Trending Google Trends service was used to identify the temporal boundaries of the scandal. This service makes it possible to track the popularity of a particular topic at different time intervals. Starting from 01 February 2014, the year when the first release of “The Voice Kids” was displayed, up to the end of 2020, the show’s popularity steadily increased in April of each subsequent year. However, starting in 2017, a negative trend is noticeable—decreased public attention to the keywords “goloc deti” (The Voice Kids). There is only one peak in the popularity of the query that stands out from the general trend—April–May 2019, the period of the scandalous procedure of choosing the project winner. When we change the time interval from 01 January 2016 to 12 December 2020, we clearly see the scandal itself and the change in the level of interest. These observations are also confirmed when checking the changes in the level of popularity of the phrase “goloc ckandal” (The Voice scandal) during the same period. The highest level of popularity of the query “goloc ckandal” is fixed between 25 April 2019 and 04 May 2019; this period coincides with the season finale broadcast date—26 April 2019. It is also noticeable that the attention to the scandalous topic slumps after the finale; a slight peak in attention coincides with the broadcast date of the second episode—25 May 2019. After that, the attention to the scandal and the program fades completely. Thus, we can conclude that the scandal’s peak took place between the two broadcast sessions of the show’s finale: from 26 April 2019 to 25 May 2019.

4.2 Process Tracing The analysis highlighted 72 events within the time frame of the scandal. Most of them (60 events) represent the posting of public comments of different format on Social Networking Sites (i.e., VK, Facebook, YouTube) and media. It can be asserted that this scandal took place mainly online. Any participant has an opportunity to question the actions of the media and public actors. Using social media resources

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(the possibility to write an unlimited number of comments, adding emojis, and press like/dislike buttons), the scandal’s main actors expressed their attitude to the events. We can highlight two significant dates that bring together most of the events: 27 April 2019 (the date of expression of the first reaction to the contest results comprises 15 events) and 16 May 2019 (the date of recognizing the fact of violation of the procedure and subsequent response to it contains 16 events). The main actors in the scandal are (1) Pervyj kanal press service—participation in 8 events; (2) Mikella Abramova—participation in 6 events; (3) Group IB press service (the company in charge of the voting verification procedure)—participation in 4 events; (4) Konstantin Ernst (director-general of the channel broadcasting the show)—participation in 3 events; and (5) Maxim Galkin (Russian showman)—3 events. The involvement of press services as main actors demonstrates the openness of corporate structures and their willingness to engage in a dialogue regarding the events in question. An important feature is that the key figure of the scandal, Mikella Abramova, did not discuss her position through social media and gave only one interview to a major Russian media channel, already when the scandal was over, on 31 May 2019. Although the comments in traditional mass media and social networks played an essential role in the scandal, some other actions that influenced the course of events were also highlighted. Benoit’s image restoration theory was used to assess the behavioral strategies of the scandal actors (Benoit, 1997). In addition to the traditional strategies, the analysis included the strategy of information sharing that was used when a scandal participant conveyed information to the public through the mass media or social networks, while using neutral/conventional concepts. A strategy of public disapproval was used as well, which included commenting on events in a negative way. Information sharing proved to be the most common strategy, which was used 28 times. This strategy was used by the press offices of the main corporate actors, Pervyj kanal and Group-IB, in communicating information about the investigation and possible consequences and for denial of widespread online rumors. Overall, this demonstrates that the main actors adopted an open posture at the outset of the scandal and expressed their willingness to take corrective actions in order to avoid similar incidents in the future. The public disapproval strategy allowed to include eight comments of some Russian pop-stage personalities in the analysis, who criticized the results of the finale and called for a review of the competition results. Seven actions were also recorded under the compensation strategy. One of them was the donation of the prize money by Mikella Abramova to a charity foundation; two other events are related to the program’s second finale (special episode), where all of the show finalists were declared winners. Besides, as part of the compensation strategy, the film about the backstage life of season-6 participants was withdrawn from the viewing grid; three other actions include public personalities’ comments about the special episode. The corrective action strategy was used by Pervyj kanal only and aimed at remedying the situation: the press service of the channel announced an additional finale on the day when the investigation results were made public.

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Further corrective action involved the press service commenting that the incident “was closed” and that the voting system for determining the winner would be changed. The minimization strategy was registered seven times, and simple denial was fixed two times—both characterized the actions of Mikella Abramova, her family representatives, and her mother, singer Alsou. Throughout the scandal, the family representatives did not provide any detailed comments on social networks and mass media; they did not consider themselves responsible for the events even after the results were announced. Thus, one may distinguish two main strategies of the actors: the first is openness and willingness to rectify the situation, which was demonstrated by the corporate actors (Pervyj kanal, Group IB); the second strategy was avoiding publicity and ignoring the scandal, as shown by the members of the Abramov family. It is also worth mentioning other aspects that influenced the public’s attention to the event. The dynamics of the popularity of the keywords connected with the scandal suggests that it was crucial for the viewers of the TV show to be heard, to express their disagreement with the injustice; however, no institutionalized forms of impact on the situation, such as the dissemination of information with a request to join a petition, to hold a rally or a demonstration of protest, were observed. As soon as this need for self-realization and -achievement of the dissenters’ unity faded, search queries “goloc deti” (The Voice Kids) and public attention toward the scandal decreased. An additional factor that contributed to the fading of the scandal, in our view, was the public recognition of the vote kickback. This action was a logical reaction to viewers’ outrage. It became an initial step toward restoring the show’s impartiality and fairness—the qualities that initially excited the popularity of the vocal program “The Voice.”

4.3 Emoji-Word Network Analysis Today, social media platforms provide a great number of tools for creating one’s digital twin and expressing different emotions. Most often, people use not only text but also emoticons (so-called emojis) to express feelings and emotions. Emojis are highly expressive and allow for more precise communication of emotions online in the conditions of absence of non-verbal cues that would convey the other person’s mood offline (Ge & Gretzel, 2018; Tang & Hew, 2019). Due to the wide variety of emojis and each cultural context’s specificity, it is not always possible to unambiguously attribute a particular emoji to an emotion experienced by an online user. However, before describing emoji usage patterns, researchers may determine which emotion is dominant in comments relating to a particular publication. To study the users’ emotional attitudes, three posts were selected from the social platforms YouTube and VK. When identifying the commenters’ main emotions (positive or negative), it should be noted that a YouTube user can use the “dislike” button to express a negative attitude toward the content of the video, whereas VK does not have such a function. Table 1 clearly shows the unequal distribution of likes and dislikes under the YouTube publication.

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Table 1 Distribution of views, comments, likes, dislikes, reposts Post

Link

“The Voice Kids” (Golos Deti VK)

https://vk.com/wall55157869_999422

Views 372,316

Comments Like 2802

3648

139

Pervyi kanal (Channel One) VK

https://vk.com/wall25380626_2142488

157,615

1824

1310

25

“The Voice Kids” https://www.youtube. 1,654,486 13,178 (Golos Deti YouTube) com/watch?v=AsB BV2inA64

Dislike Repost

5424 58,372

The emoji-network analysis makes it possible to find out VK and YouTube users’ attitudes toward a post’s content. In this case, the network users used the symbol “thumbs down” most frequently. Thus, most commenters evaluated Mikella Abramova’s victory on “The Voice Kids” negatively and clearly expressed this through the symbol “thumbs down.” Figure 1 presents the results of network analysis of emoji in the comments to the publications about the show’s first winner. We can distinguish four groups of emojis that describe the dominant attitude of the users. The first group of emojis that were used most frequently comprised symbols of smiles, laughter, support: rolling on the floor laughing, thumbs up, smiling face with smiling eyes, face with tears of joy, clapping hands, thumbs up, and others. Despite these emojis’ outward positive nature, the users used them in one of two strategies: emotional support and discreditation through sarcasm. The first one was to support the previous commenters, laughter at users’ jokes. In general, according to the Unicode Consortium, the symbols “face with tears of joy” and “rolling on the floor laughing” are among the five most frequently used emojis worldwide (“Emoji Frequency—Unicode,” n.d.). Their role is indeed important in online communication, and therefore they rather characterize the style of communication between the users than their attitude toward the publication. Another subgroup—discreditation through sarcasm—is more specific for the case. This is the expression of sarcastic attitudes toward the publication, mocking the results and Mikella Abramova’s victory. The second emojis group combines the symbols used to express a negative emotion—dissatisfaction with the voting results. This group includes the most frequently used emojis: pouting face, person facepalming, thinking face, fearful face, pensive face, etc. The third group of emojis includes different symbols for support of the finalists preferred by the users, considered as true winners; these symbols were also often used: red heart, rose, kiss mark, victory hand, heart with ribbon, and others. The fourth group of emojis was used to supplement the emotional component in the comments which discussed the intervention of illegal financial mechanisms that allowed Mikella Abramova to win first place. These symbols are money-mouth face, money bag, money with wings, dollar banknote, yen banknote, euro banknote, and pound banknote. The theme of corruption remains an essential element of the political discourse in contemporary Russia. Moreover, the discussion of electoral

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Fig. 1 Emoji-word network analysis of the comments

processes stirs the debate of corruption and its impact on the distribution of political posts in the country. Having no evidence or proof of involvement of illegal financial mechanisms, many commenters still coalesced around the accusations of corruption in respect to the show. The fact that Mikella Abramova belongs to a high-income family allows the commenters to assert that one of the family members influenced the show’s outcome, being capable of using the family’s financial assets for bribery. Simultaneously, both the Abramov family and Pervyj kanal, the Russian producer of the show, are blamed for the breach.

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4.4 Collocation Analysis This analysis identified the most popular word combinations. Among the predominant combinations, the following were identified: 1.

2.

3.

“daughter of Alsou” [doch Alsu]—the most popular combination. The frequent mentioning of family ties, along with ignoring the winner’s name, provides evidence that the commenters did not assess the winner as their favorite, interpreting the reason for the victory as the artist’s family ties; “do not watch” [ne smotret]—a combination used in the context of a call for action—to stop watching the show because of the disagreement between the viewer sympathies and the final result; “no one” [nikto ne]—in order to check the context of the keyword, we have performed an additional study of how the phrase is used in context (± three words). The combination of two negative speech figures, in this case, characterizes the frequent mentioning of unambiguous and obvious facts: “no one voted,” “no one supported,” “no one deserves,” used in the comments to substantiate the position about the unfairness of the vote.

In the context of describing the results of the collocation analysis, it should be noted that the particles, including the Russian particle “ne” (not), can negatively affect the representativeness of analysis and distort the original meaning of statements. We argue that, in the case of expressing negative emotions and discontent, the particle “not” should be taken into account in the analysis since it allows to emphasize the opposite characteristic of the object. In the Russian language, two seemingly identical semantic constructions—“non-winner” and “the loser”—have different connotations. The first one, “non-winner,” is used to emphasize the unrighteousness of being called a winner because of some procedural (unfair voting) or personal (not possessing the character traits necessary for the winner) characteristics. Whereas the second category, “the loser,” fixes the actual result of the contestant’s struggle to win. It was the need to express the fact that Mikella Abramova was not worthy of the status of “winner” that determined the frequency of mentioning and the importance of the particle “not” in the analysis of comments. Among the additional contexts of use, the following were also identified: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Evaluative judgments of the fairness of the vote: “not deserving,” “not fair,” “it was not she who is the winner” The emotional reaction to the voting results: “isn’t it disgusting?”, “don’t agree,” “don’t like it,” “don’t believe it” Call for a boycott of the show: “don’t watch the project,” “don’t vote anymore” Assessment of Mikella Abramova’s personal characteristics: “not talented,” “has no ear for music,” “not the best vocal abilities,” “should not have made it [to the finale],” “undeserved victory,” “falls short”

The fixation of calls for boycotting the show, on the one hand, suggests that the participants are ready to take organized action, but, since they have no command

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of sustained mechanisms of transforming discontent into group- and institutional activity, the action is replaced by even more emotional assessment of the situation, while the main steps are taken by the actors involved in the conflict. Among the most popular combinations, those with the particle “not” occupy the leading position; however, some other frequently mentioned combinations can also be met. For example, the names of other finalists are often found in the comments: Maxim Yerzhan—mentioned most often in the context of worthy winner, Robert and Nino, while instead of mentioning the name of the official winner, Mikella Abramova, the phrase “the daughter of Alsou” is used. The combinations “money talks,” “the matter of money,” “money-money” are also worth mentioning—they confirm the popularity of the assumption of the fact of bribery in the selection of the winner. The combinations with the word “disgrace” are often used: “disgrace channel,” “disgrace sham,” “Alsou disgrace,” and “the Voice disgrace.” All combination groups confirm the primary assertion of negative assessment of the first finale, the negative attitude toward Mikella Abramova’s family, and the show’s producers. The emotionality of comments is indirectly confirmed by the moderation and deletion of comments made by authorized moderators. Therefore, the remaining comments provide an overall picture that could have been considerably more emotionally charged if the deleted comments were included in the analysis.

4.5 Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) In order to test the grouping of the main combinations within the collocation analysis, LDA analysis was applied. The results of the distribution of words into three categories let us form the following topics (Table 2): (1) the desire to shame the perpetrators of the scandal for violating the winner-selection procedure; (2) discussion of criteria for selecting a winner and proposing candidates for the winner’s position; and (3) emotional expression of discontent, supported by evaluation on the part of opinion leaders. The results of the analysis allow us to treat the comments under the posts declaring Mikella Abramova the winner of “The Voice Kids” as a public discussion of a critical violation, of injustice, which led to the victory of a candidate who was not much worthy, but who had significant image-forming and financial resources. The character of the discussion, its emotional content, and the intensity of negative emotions— which is largely specific to the political system as well—provides evidence of the willingness of Russian-speaking users of social networks to persist in their opinion and to condemn scandalous personalities. However, when the people’s principal need to express their opinion was satisfied, the users’ activity significantly decreased; still, the implementation of remedial actions shows that the public reaction was not ignored and that it significantly influenced the actions of the country’s largest TV channel.

“The Voice Kids” Scandal in Russia … Table 2 The results of topic modeling (first 17 lines)

213

Topic 1

Topic 2

Topic 3

Money

No

Channel

Shame

Mikella

Money

Yerzhan

Victory

Buy

Buy

Winner

Delete

Channel

Alsou

Doubt

Alsou

Girl

Child

Daughter

Final

Help

Million

Watch

Regret

Know

Sing

Resentment

Corrupt

Yerzhan

Good

Lisa

Win

Really

Beloshveika

Parent

Disappointment

Russia

Good

It is clear

Cry

Nino

Expect

Reaction

Vote

Pugacheva

Maxim

Daughter

Galkin

Mikella

Loboda

Prove

5 Conclusion Talking of this scandal’s features, we should note that the public debate and condemnation sparkled not after the announcement of kickback-vote investigations but immediately after the finale. In order to carry out electronic voting on a large scale, the channel’s representatives were supposed to secure vote verification and fail-safe cybersecurity of the procedure. However, the verification procedure was initiated only after a growing flow of negative comments on social media. In the present conditions of substantial availability of information and a possibility to express one’s position openly on social media, the importance of public disclosure of a violation may lose its role as a necessary stage in the development of a scandal. In this case, the scandal was created without the involvement of the traditional mass media outlets or independent experts. In many ways, this reflects the growing influence of social media as space where people’s actions can provoke significant changes, even despite the barriers complicating the transformation of online actions into offline activities. In the case concerned, social media response triggered an investigation of the final vote, involving a company specializing in cyber-attacks prevention and digital investigation, and as a result the rules of vote counting were amended to prevent compromised voting in the future. Another feature of this scandal was the actors’ behavior—some of them took a proactive position and promoted dissemination of information about the investigation and the remedial actions. In part, this open position contributed to the fading of the

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scandal, as far as the viewers who were dissatisfied with the voting results could see that the scandal’s actors accepted their opinion. A more characteristic pattern of behavior was shown by the Abramov family who preferred a closed position of ignoring the events while occasionally resorting to joint actions with the other finalists of the show in order to demonstrate the absence of reciprocal grievance and more than that—the move toward mutually advantageous cooperation with the finalists of the show. The shut-out position is largely recognized by the researchers as not to be beneficial in all cases, since it generates a large number of versions of the event, along with negative reactions of the public interested in the details of the event. Therefore, we can observe the preponderance of negative assessments in relation to the Abramov family compared to the extent of negative assessments toward the show and Pervyj kanal. We can assume several reasons why many social network users gained their own voice and stood up for the talented participants of the entertainment show. First, Russian citizens’ cultural values principally accept the important role of the family and children in one’s life. For this reason, the unfair treatment in the competition between children caused such a strong negative reaction and condemnation. Moreover, the discordance between the spectators’ expectations and the actual winner is an essential factor. As the show’s final episode was approaching, the viewers formed their preferences and voted for the contestants, anticipating the victory of the frontrunner and the joy of sharing this emotion with them. But when the expectations of the greater part of the audience are not met, the contestants’ emotions and grievances were conveyed to the viewers since the latter had formed certain emotional bonds with the performers. It is also worth mentioning there is a high level of distrust in the public perception of wealthy families, relating to their illicit enrichment during the 1990s in Russia and the overall involvement of politicians and prominent businessmen in illegal activities (Lyalikova, 2021; Mareeva, 2018). The fact that the finalist belonged to a wealthy family was a significant factor increasing the firm belief in the unfair victory. The distrust of electoral procedures can be highlighted as an additional factor— despite the presence of foreign observers, they are still recognized to be nontransparent and involving falsifications (Gabdrahmanova, 2015). Even the chairperson of the Central Election Commission of Russia is considering challenges to the electoral process, focusing on the necessity to move toward an electoral system that is transparent to the public and open to public scrutiny as “[p]eople must have absolute trust in the voting system” (Pamfilova, 2016, p. 8). We also mentioned the lack of trust in transparency of e-voting procedures as caused by the general distrust of information and communication technologies in Russia: Since modernization and digitalization processes often involve a high level of conservatism, along with lots of publicly disclosed facts of breach, the possibility to interfere in the voting process becomes evident for many citizens and is not questioned (Belokonev & Chistov, 2017). Therefore, people express dissatisfaction with the organization of voting through social media. This is paradoxical in a sense. Obtaining support and feeling cohesion within their social groups, many users get involved in the discussion process, expressing their personal position, which might

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be dissonant with the dominant one only in nuances. Thus, the modern voting procedures may result in loss of public trust due to possible negative associations between voting procedures and transgressions (for example, voting fraud). Even transgressions which are non-political in nature, as in the case of The Voice Kids, may aggravate the social deprivation, cause dissatisfaction with the distribution of resources in the society, and even disrupt the overall level of trust in the political system. With respect to the scandal of “The Voice Kids”, it should be remembered the channel broadcasting the show is the largest TV news media in Russia. Revelations of any further transgressions involving this channel could irritate the public and set it against the channel, which subsequently might cause more noticeable political consequences. This can also explain the open position of the channel, as demonstrated in the scandal. To sum up, we identified the following factors affecting the audience’s reaction to the scandal. First, a general low trust in electoral procedures. Second, we believe that the spreading scandal was affected by a negative image of wealthy people who can use financial resources to obtain privileges and benefits. Third, standing up for the rights of minors and fair treatment of children are core cultural values of modern Russians. We suppose that in Russian mentality unfair treatment of children should not be tolerated, that is why users of social media joined the scandal discussion so actively. The above factors confirm the existence of certain patterns of reaction to abuse cases in Russia, namely the ability of the Russian-language Internet users to organize, consolidate, and clearly express their negative attitude toward the facts of abuse. Thus, in the future, we can expect the same reaction toward violations within the political system, and the reaction might be supported by already existing negative attitudes. However, in order to form more general and universal statements about the nature of a scandal, researchers need to follow similar events and pay great attention to their course, the mechanisms influencing them, and their social context. Acknowledgements The reported study was funded by RFBR according to the research project № 18-011-00705 “Explanatory Potential of Network Theory in Political Research: Methodological Synthesis as Analytical Strategy.” The authors would like to thank Platon Lukyanov for writing a Python script.

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