Scandalisation in Contemporary European Media

Objective

Journalism in many societies is challenged by the market power of digital intermediaries and political propaganda. However, news media still manage to capture fragmented audience attention and set the agenda when reporting scandals. Therefore, scandals are an enduring phenomenon in contemporary public discourse, with profound consequences for democracy (Burkhardt, 2018). This project focuses on mediatised scandalisation processes as a critical subject of comparative research. Scandals reveal dynamics within journalism and offer insights into the political system, as developments in one field often have direct consequences for the other or originate from one another (Mancini, 2020, p. 391). Research by Hanusch and Hanitzsch (2019) shows that journalists in some media systems support political authorities, posing challenges to independence and objectivity when reporting norm transgressions by elites. However, given the right environment, journalists emphasise investigative rigour and scepticism. Thus, media systems and journalists' roles and norms crucially shape the reporting of scandals (Eder, 2023). Against this background, the project investigates cross-national commonalities and differences in mediatised scandalisation processes across Europe. Applying such an integrated analytical framework advances understanding of the complex interplay between economic, political, and societal contexts of mediatised scandalisation. Examining how journalists report on scandals will also provide insights into journalism's democratic role in mediating public accountability. The project combines large-scale quantitative and qualitative content analysis with semi-structured interviews with journalists in three European countries. It is investigated: (1) which types of misconduct and norm transgressions are scandalised by journalists; (2) how mediatised scandals unfold; and (3) what economic, political, and societal influences journalists perceive when reporting on scandals.