HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

A scandal can be broadly defined as the strong social reactions of outrage, anger, or surprise, when accusations or rumours circulate or appear for some reason, regarding a person or persons who are perceived to have transgressed in some way. These reactions are usually noisy and may be conflicting, and they often have negative effects on the status and credibility of the person(s) or organisation involved. Society is scandalised when it becomes aware of breaches of moral norms or legal requirements, often when these have remained undiscovered or been concealed for some time. Such breaches have typically erupted from greed, lust or the abuse of power. Scandals may be regarded as political, sexual, moral, literary or artistic but often spread from one realm into another. The basis of a scandal may be factual or false, or a combination of both. In contemporary times, exposure of a scandalous situation is often made by
mass media Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets. Broadcast media transmit information ...
. Contemporary media has the capacity to spread knowledge of a scandal further than in previous centuries and public interest has encouraged many cases of confected scandals relating to well-known people as well as genuine scandals relating to politics and business. Some scandals are revealed by
whistleblower A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...
s who discover wrongdoing within organizations or groups, such as Deep Throat ( William Mark Felt) during the
Watergate scandal The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continual ...
in the 1970s in the United States. Whistleblowers may be protected by laws which are used to obtain information of misdeeds and acts detrimental to their establishments. However, the possibility of scandal has always created a tension between society's efforts to reveal wrongdoing and its desire to cover them up ... and the act of covering up (or indeed of revealing) a contentious situation may become a scandal.


Academic and literary

Academic dishonesty, also referred to as academic misconduct, is any type of cheating that occurs in relation to a formal academic exercise. Although in the early part of the 19th century held the view that scandal does not mix with literature and science, some opined that a scattering of some amount of scandal in literature could enhance interest of people as scandal suits "the taste of almost every palate." Scandal, has however, been the subject of many books. Among the most famous of fictional stories about scandal are '' School for Scandal'' (1777) by
Richard Brinsley Sheridan Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan (30 October 17517 July 1816) was an Irish satirist, a politician, a playwright, poet, and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. He is known for his plays such as ''The Rivals'', ''The Sc ...
and ''
The Scarlet Letter ''The Scarlet Letter: A Romance'' is a work of historical fiction Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting related to the past events, but is fictional. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym ...
'' (1850) by
Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associated with that t ...
. Literary scandals result from some kind of fraud; either the authors are not who they say they are, or the facts have been misrepresented or they contain some defamation of another person. For example, two books by
Holocaust survivors Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and Axis powers, its allies before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no unive ...
, ''Angel at the Fence'' by Herman Rosenblat and ''A Memoir of the Holocaust Years'' Misha Defonseca, were found to be based on false information, while a prize won by novelist Helen Darville created a scandal in 1994 around the author's fraudulently claimed ancestry.


Political

A political scandal occurs when
political corruption Political corruption is the use of powers by government officials or their network contacts for illegitimate private gain. Forms of corruption vary, but can include bribery, lobbying, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, in ...
or other misbehavior is exposed. Politicians or government officials are accused of engaging in illegal, corrupt, or unethical practices. A political scandal can involve the breaking of the nation's laws or moral codes and may involve other types of scandal.


Business

In 2012, Michael Woodford who successfully steered Olympus, a Japanese company to fame, turned a whistleblower when even as a CEO of the firm, he exposed the financial scandal worth $1.7 billion and fled Japan fearing for his life. Though persecuted his revelations proved to be true resulting in booking the culprits. Portraying a damaging status of corporate Japan, Woodford, in his memoirs has said: "I thought I was going to run a health-care and consumer electronics company, but found I had walked into a John Grisham novel."


Media

Since the development of
printing Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ea ...
, the media has had greater power to expose scandals and since the advent of mass media, this power has increased. The media also has the capacity to support and/or oppose organizations and destabilize them thereby becoming involved in scandals themselves as well as reporting them. Following the Watergate scandal in the United States, other English-speaking countries have borrowed the suffix "gate" and added it to scandals of their own.


Journalism

Journalistic scandals relate to high-profile incidents or acts, whether done purposefully or by accident. It could be in violation of normally in vogue ethics and standards of journalism. It could also be in violation of the 'ideal' mission of
journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (profes ...
: to publish "news events and issues accurately and fairly."


Television

The American quiz show of the 1950s generated "hypnotic intensity" among viewers and contestants. The
CBS Television CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...
show ''The $64,000 Question'' which started on 7 June 1955 and such other shows as ''The Big Surprise'', ''Dotto,'' ''Tic Tac Dough'', and ''Twenty One'' became the most publicized quiz shows, but soon generated scandals after a series of revelations that contestants of several popular television quiz shows conspired with the show's producers to rig the outcome. The quiz show scandals were driven by a drive for financial gain, a willingness of contestants to "play along" with the assistance, and the lack of regulation prohibiting the rigging of game shows. In October 1958, a New York grand jury was instituted by prosecutor Joseph Stone and the matter was examined with recording of closed-door testimony. Following this, the US Congress ruled rigging a quiz show a federal crime. The TV soap opera titled "Scandal" a popular show on the American Television ABC channel has been dubbed a "self-absorbed, overblown, overacted, pretentious, soliloquy-laden car-wreck-of-a-series."


Sex scandals

A
sex scandal Public scandals involving allegations or information about possibly immoral sexual activities are often associated with the sexual affairs of film stars, politicians, famous athletes, or others in the public eye. Sex scandals receive attention ...
is a scandal involving allegations or information about possibly-immoral
sexual activities Human sexual activity, human sexual practice or human sexual behaviour is the manner in which humans experience and express their sexuality. People engage in a variety of sexual acts, ranging from activities done alone (e.g., masturbation) t ...
being made public. Sex scandals are often associated with sexual affairs of film stars,
politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...
s, famous
athletes An athlete (also sportsman or sportswoman) is a person who competes in one or more sports that involve physical strength, speed, or endurance. Athletes may be professionals or amateurs. Most professional athletes have particularly well-develo ...
and others in the public eye, and become scandals largely because of the prominence of the person involved, perceptions of hypocrisy on their part, or the non- normative or non- consensual nature of their sexual activity. A sex scandal may be based on reality, the product of false allegations, or a mixture of both.


Sports

A desire for success and financial gain or the abuse of power in sport have also created many scandals both at an individual and the organisational level. Scandals arising from corruption have an impact of the credibility of sport. The World Anti-Doping Agency, as part of its role to "promote, coordinate and monitor the fight against drugs in sports", has showed that bribery, doping by athletes and doping sample-tampering, have occurred in collusion with national and international sporting organizations. Some consider that doping is "now endemic" in the world of sport and is becoming extremely pervasive, including more and more sports. One of the biggest individual scandals flowed from revelations that former American
road cycling Road cycling is the most widespread form of cycling in which cyclists ride on paved roadways. It includes Recreational cycling, recreational, Road bicycle racing, racing, Bicycle commuting, commuting, and utility cycling. As users of the road, ...
champion Lance Armstrong had achieved success by consistent, long-term cheating. One of the biggest institutional sporting scandals is the
2015 FIFA corruption case In 2015, United States federal prosecutors disclosed cases of corruption by officials and associates connected with the Fédération internationale de Football Association ( FIFA), the governing body of association football, futsal and beach s ...
. Doping scandals have plagued the
Olympic games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...
as well, such as in the Doping in East Germany scandal and the Asian Games in 1994. Scandals in match games such as
Major League baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
and
cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
may relate to
spot-fixing Spot-fixing is illegal activity in a sport in which a specific aspect of a game, unrelated to the final result but upon which a betting market exists, is fixed in an attempt to ensure a certain result in a proposition bet. Examples include someth ...
or
gambling Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three el ...
.


See also

*
List of scandals with "-gate" suffix This is a list of scandals or controversies whose names include a ''-gate'' suffix, by analogy with the Watergate scandal, as well as other incidents to which the suffix has (often facetiously) been applied. This list also includes controversi ...
*
1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal The 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal, often referred to as the 1MDB scandal or just 1MDB, describes a corruption, bribery and money laundering conspiracy in which the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) was ...


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * *


Further reading

* 375 pages. {{Authority control