Nordic Journal of Media Studies invites contributions to the 2027 issue exploring how scandals unfold and are communicated across media.
Editors:
- Nete Nørgaard Kristensen (University of Copenhagen): netenk@hum.ku.dk
- Anne Jerslev (University of Copenhagen): jerslev@hum.ku.dk
Important dates:
- Deadline for abstracts: 15 January
- Deadline for full submissions: 15 August
Nordic Journal of Media Studies invites contributions to the 2027 issue exploring how scandals unfold and are communicated across media. The issue welcomes international as well as Nordic perspectives and asks the following questions: How have the emergence and development of scandals evolved with the advent of social media, algorithmic amplification, and platform-driven visibility? In what ways do audiences, users, and digital publics engage in the exposure, circulation, and escalation of scandal online? What counts as “scandalous” – and to whom? What are the (social, political, cultural, and personal) consequences of the disclosure of morally dubious and transgressive actions in a networked media landscape? How can scandals be understood as cross-platform and cross-mediated public events today? Can value be attributed to scandal communication and scandals as networked public events? What role do automation and emerging technologies of generative AI play in accelerating or fabricating scandal? How do new technologies complicate questions of responsibility and accountability in scandals and their aftermath? By addressing these questions, this issue offers new insights about the multiple trajectories and shifting temporalities of contemporary scandals, particularly in view of audiences taking on active roles in exposing, co-constructing, and driving scandal.
Media studies have long conceptualised scandals as the mediated disclosure of what a society considers morally dubious and objectionable (e.g., Lull & Hinerman, 1997). John B. Thompson’s (2000) classical definition stated that “‘scandal’ refers to actions or events involving certain kinds of transgressions which become known to others and are sufficiently serious to elicit a public response”. Occupied with the processes through which moral transgressions were scandalised and with the public reaction to scandal, Ari Adut (2008) similarly regarded scandals as “symbolic centers” that confirm, contest, or reinforce societal values. Scandals used to be extraordinary media events; however, mediatisation, personalisation, and celebritisation have, over the past decades, made, for instance, political, financial, and celebrity scandals the “new normal” (Pollack et al., 2018; Entman, 2012). Tabloid and investigative journalism continue to give prominence to the coverage of transgressive behaviour among celebrities, politicians, CEOs, and so on, but the rise of social media has also challenged the key role played by news media in uncovering, defining, and framing scandal and the scandalous.
Demarcating and tracing the unfolding of scandals has thus become more complex. Scandals today emerge and progress across media, involve multiple actors, are fuelled and amplified by emotionalised, personalised, and polarised communication online, and unfold intensely for short periods of time with more or less severe consequences for those involved. One might say that mediated scandals – or scandals as (news) media events (Thompson, 2000) – have transitioned into socio-mediated scandals – or scandals as communicative events (Zulli, 2021). Understanding scandals today necessitates analysing their rise and development as more unpredictable processes, as well as recognising the role of (social) media users in co-constructing and circulating the scandalous. At times, these users take on the role of investigating and exposing possible transgressions which may then travel to traditional news media. This challenges clear distinctions between participants and non-participants in scandals and the temporal unfolding of a scandal in relatively linear phases across media, as originally conceptualised by Thomspon (2000). Finally, the altered circuits of communication suggest that scandals may serve as sites for public value negotiation and creation with unifying, empowering, yet also polarising potential, as audiences articulate their worries, interests, and emotions online. As such, scandal communication may be seen as expressions or gestures of concern (Ingraham, 2021).
With this issue of Nordic Journal of Media Studies, we thus invite scholars to explore how to understand processes of scandalisation and scandal communication in an era when social media users play a significant role in co-constructing the scandalous.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
- Scandals as cross-media events
- Visual dimensions of scandal communication
- Memetic scandal communication
- Gossip, rumours, and audiences’ scandal communication
- Humor, irony, and scandal communication
- Hate speech and scandal communication
- Scandal and audience engagement in digital niche communities
- Audience polarisation and scandal communication
- Audience motivations for engaging in scandal communication
- Audience engagement and public value
- Self-scandalisation as a strategy for audience engagement
- Methods for studying audiences’ participation in scandal
- Theoretical perspectives on changing scandal dynamics
- Historical perspectives on changing scandal dynamics
- Comparative perspectives on audiences and scandal
- Nordic perspectives on audiences and scandal
- Emotion/affect in audiences’ scandal communication
- Scandal as a site for changing morals and values
- Scandal and the culture war
- GenAI and scandalisation
References
Adut, A. (2008). On scandal: Moral disturbances in society, politics and art. Cambridge University Press.
Entman, R. M. (2012). Scandal and silence: Media responses to presidential misconduct. Polity.
Ingraham, C. (2021). Gestures of concern. Duke University Press.
Lull, J., & Hinerman, S. (Eds.). (1997). Media scandals: Morality and desire in the popular culture marketplace. Columbia University Press.
Pollack, E., Allern, S., Kantola, A., & Ørsten, M. (2018). The new normal: Scandals as a standard feature of political life in Nordic countries. International Journal of Communication, 12, 3087–3108. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/7099
Thompson, J. B. (2000). Political scandal: Power and visibility in the media age. Polity.
Zulli, D. (2021). Socio-mediated scandals: Theorizing political scandals in a digital media environment. Communication Theory, 31(4), 862–883. https://doi.org/10.1093/ct/qtaa014
Procedure
Those with an interest in contributing should write an abstract (max. 750 words) where the main theme (or argument) of the intended article is described. The abstract should contain the preliminary title and five keywords. How the article fits with the overall description of the issue should be mentioned.
Send your abstract to both editors by 15 January 2026 at the latest
Scholars invited to submit a full manuscript (6,000–8,000 words) will be notified by e-mail after the abstracts have been assessed by the editors. All submissions should be original works and must not be under consideration by other publishers. All submissions are submitted to Similarity Check – a Crossref service utilising iThenticate text comparison software to detect text-recycling or self-plagiarism.
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After the initial submission and review process, manuscripts that are accepted for publication must adhere to our guidelines upon final manuscript delivery. You may choose to use our templates to assist you in correctly formatting your manuscript.
Read the instructions for authors and download a manuscript template here
About Nordic Journal of Media Studies
Nordic Journal of Media Studies is a peer-reviewed international publication dedicated to media research. The journal is a meeting place for Nordic, European, and global perspectives on media studies. It is a thematic digital-only journal published once a year. The editors stress the importance of innovative and interdisciplinary research, and welcome contributions on both contemporary developments and historical topics.
About the publisher
Nordicom is a centre for Nordic media research at the University of Gothenburg, supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers. Nordicom publishes all works under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence, which allows for non-commercial, non-derivative types of reuse and sharing with proper attribution. All works are published Open Access and are available to read free of charge and without requirement for registration. There are no article processing charges for authors, and authors retain copyright.