The Unleashed Scandal by Bernhard Poerksen & Hanne Detel

Author:Bernhard Poerksen & Hanne Detel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Digital media, scandal, internet, web, mobile phones, cell phones, disgrace, censorship, reputation, PR, public relations, media studies, media, pillory, truth, rumour, wikileaks, assange, cybermob, Abu Ghraib, eyewitness testimony, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, social media
ISBN: 9781845407650
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2014
Published: 2014-06-23T00:00:00+00:00

Figures 8 + 9 : The enraged mob acts online and offline. The first figure shows a digitally re-edited photograph of Wang Qianyuan with a sign “Traitor of the country” around her neck; in the background one can recognise the pro-Tibet demonstrators. In the second image, one can see the slogans on the wall of her parents’ home: “Kill the whole family! Kill traitors of our country!”

The scandalisation of scandalisation

What makes the case so illuminating, however, independently of its dramatic private-personal features, is the fact that the outrage on the Chinese side is contrasted by a diametrically opposed assessment on the side of the Americans. It becomes clear that the sensibility for scandal - as the sociologist John B. Thompson notes - depends on the particular historical moment in time, on the general cultural and moral climate of this historical moment, and on the value orientation and the hierarchy of the values of specific groups or even whole nations. [30] The action that is so angrily attacked by a Chinese public as the violation of a norm is glorified in the United States of America as a norm-confirming behaviour worthy of special praise. A group of Cuban American students of the University therefore takes Wang’s side: “We admire Wang for standing up for her beliefs, in spite of the personal repercussions inflicted upon her by an oppressive regime. She does not stand alone.” The Washington Post publishes an extensive reaction by her and even prints special reports on the case. [31] Other leading newspapers devote prominent space to the case; the New York Times even deals with the topic on its front page. [32] These reactions illustrate that the Net has provoked this ideological conflict of weltanschauungen and a clash of cultures that is enacted on a globally visible stage. On one side are the Chinese nationalists who hound a traitor and who insist on interpreting her interviews given to US media as signs of a hostile attitude. On the other side are the representatives of Western democratic values to whose central canon of values belongs the right of free speech and the free voicing of opinions. But this is not yet the end of the story. Reconstructing this process of scandalisation makes abundantly clear that the scandalisation of the purported treacherous position of Wang’s from the American side is answered by a reactive pattern of outrage that could be termed scandal of the second order. Individuals, specific groups, or even whole nations may view a process of scandalisation as scandalous in itself and consequently perform the scandalisation of a scandalisation. The actual scandal, it is assumed, is the way and manner in which the other side proceeds, vents its anger, and - it is thought - practises its outrage in an unjustifiable way due to the disregard of central values and norms. The implication is: the observation of scandalisation leads to the scandalisation of the scandal that is, consequently, contextualised, evaluated, and classified anew in a totally different way. [33] Thus, there is praise for Wang’s education and her effort to argue for a compromise.

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