”Va? Är det sant?”. En studie av medieskandalers förankring i vardagligt skvaller

Abstract

”What? Is it True?”. On the Anchorage of Media Scandals in Everyday Gossip

The article investigates the relation between modern media scandals and the public scandals that occurred during the eighteenth-century France and England. Previous research within the media field has mainly approached these scandals as a strict media phenomenon, which leaves a lot of questions unanswered, as to how the scandal gain its momentum, and how it is transported within the media system, both orally and in print. The author pinpoints the connection between the oral tradition and popular journalism of today by looking into the mediated transportation of words; how the written word often has its origin in the spoken word, and vice verse. The historical approach is interrelated to contemporary ethnography in the purpose of showing that the public scandal above all is a social and cultural phenomenon, where people’s talk – or gossip – about different issues actually can start a scandal or where the theme of a scandal, through the norms and ethical values that it expresses, can work as a tool in moral discussions taking place in an everyday context. The article also highlights the difficult situation for the scandalised person who becomes an example of improper conduct, which sometimes leads to longlasting personal suffering due to social exclusion.