Media Scandals Are Political Events

Nyhan, Brendan

doi:10.1177/1065912916684034

Cited by 21 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Second, we have opened a window onto the potential effects of media coverage of scandals whose protagonists are not politicians. Political scientists have in the past studied the political bias of the media in covering political scandals (Galvis, Snyder, and Song 2016;Puglisi and Snyder 2011) and the dynamics of media coverage of political scandals themselves (Entman 2012;Nyhan 2014Nyhan , 2017. These are important insights, but there are many unexplored avenues that could connect corporate scandals to important issues of democratic politics.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This article contributes to several areas of political inquiry. To the literature on media coverage of scandals (Entman 2012;Nyhan, 2014Nyhan, , 2017Puglisi and Snyder 2011), we make a compelling case for why corporate scandals merit interest alongside political scandals. To the literature on media influence on public opinion (Barnes and Hicks 2018;Dilliplane 2014;Ladd and Lenz 2009;Leeper and Slothuus 2020), we add findings on an issue area characterized by relatively low levels of salience and elite-level polarization.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Banklash: How Media Coverage of Bank Scandals Moves Mass Preferences on Financial Regulation

Culpepper

Jung

Lee

2023

American J Political Sci

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Financial regulation is often adopted in the wake of scandals and crises. Yet political science has little to say about the political effects of corporate scandals. We break that silence, asking whether exposure to news coverage of bank scandals changes the preferences of voters for financial regulation. Drawing from the literatures on media influence and public opinion, we argue that news coverage of bank scandals should increase voters' appetite for regulation. We test our hypothesis with data from six countries, using original nationally representative panel surveys with embedded experiments (total N = 27,673). Our pooled and country-specific analyses largely support our expectation that exposure to news coverage of scandals increases regulatory preferences. We reproduce this finding in a separate survey wave, using different scandals than in our original analysis. These results contribute to studies on media influence on public opinion, the political significance of scandals, and the political economy of regulation.Verification Materials: The data and materials required to verify the computational reproducibility of the results, procedures, and analyses in this article are available on the American Journal of Political Science Dataverse within the Harvard Dataverse Network, at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/GTSYTZ. I t is scandalous how little political science has to say about the political impact of corporate scandals. Scandals involving politicians can topple a government. They are thus fertile terrain for studying scandal effects on voting intentions (Arias et al. 2018;Dziuda and Howell 2021;Entman 2012;Nyhan 2014). However, this tight focus on what Hacker and Pierson (2010) call "politics as electoral spectacle" limits the purview of politics to office seeking, to the neglect of policy seeking. Corporate scandals can disrupt markets and inflict mayhem on the lives of ordinary people, making them consequential to the outcome of policy battles. Such scandals can upend the traditionally dominant position of business interests in securing their preferred outcomes on economic regulation (Culpepper 2011;Hertel-Fernandez, Mildenberger, and Stokes 2019).Indeed, previous work characterizes it as an iron law that financial regulation in the United States is enacted quickly and with insufficient information in the wake of scandals and crises (Romano 2005; 2014, 56-57). Such scandals also manifest the power to overturn previously steadfast opposition to regulation. The

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Banklash: How Media Coverage of Bank Scandals Moves Mass Preferences on Financial Regulation

Culpepper

Jung

Lee

2023

American J Political Sci

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“…The literature lacks agreement on the “ who, what, and when ” elements necessary for constructing a uniform definition of political scandals (Basinger and Rottinghaus, :216; Nyhan, ). However, there is consensus that despite allegations of bad behavior in a variety of settings, the mass media must intervene to publicize incidents in order for them to be considered scandals (Tumber and Waisbord, ; Rosenson, ; Nyhan, ). Nyhan (, ) conceptualizes scandals as political news events in which widespread perception of misconduct is a necessary condition, but contends that whether the alleged misconduct actually occurred is of little consequence.…”

Section: Political Scandalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, there is consensus that despite allegations of bad behavior in a variety of settings, the mass media must intervene to publicize incidents in order for them to be considered scandals (Tumber and Waisbord, ; Rosenson, ; Nyhan, ). Nyhan (, ) conceptualizes scandals as political news events in which widespread perception of misconduct is a necessary condition, but contends that whether the alleged misconduct actually occurred is of little consequence. Here we use Scherer's (:7) definition of political scandals as “widely publicized events that involve the abuse of power or abuse of the public trust by elected or appointed officials.”…”

Section: Political Scandalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surviving Political Scandals: Why Some Transgressions End Political Careers and Others Do Not

Newmark

Vaughan

Pleites‐Hernandez

2019

Social Science Quarterly

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Objective. In this article, we examine several explanations for why some politicians survive political scandals and others do not. These explanations include the nature and magnitude of the scandal, the political environment, and how the politician responds to the scandal. Methods. To identify scandals, we use the Lexis-Nexis database of Associated Press State and Local Wire (APSLW) articles between January 1, 2011 and December 31, 2014 to examine political scandals involving politicians in 14 states. Using data obtained from relevant news articles, we estimate multivariate models in order to predict the probability of surviving a political scandal, as well as the electoral margin of victory for those who do survive. Findings. We find that men, those in safe seats, those in favorable political environments, and those with support of their spouses are more likely to survive a political scandal. However, early-breaking scandals, those that are more severe, those that require an apology or aggressive defense, and those that are sexual in nature decrease the probability of survival. Conclusion. While scandals put politicians at risk, there are factors that insulate politicians from the adverse effects of their transgressions. These findings offer insights into why some politiciansacross levels of governmentseem somewhat immune to scandals, while others have their careers abruptly ended because of them.

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“…Some have assigned a central role to the public, which is presumably the intended audience for charges of scandal; without its outrage, those charges are unlikely to catch on (Esser and Hartung 2004). Others have focused on the role of the news media, which disseminates information about scandal (Entman 2012, Boydstun 2013), and determines which incidents are newsworthy (Peterson 1956, Nyhan 2017). Finally, a growing set of studies pays attention to the role of political elites, among whom scandal originates, and whose members arguably have most to lose or gain from how an incident plays out (Woessner 2005, Nyhan 2009, Nyhan 2015).…”

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confidence: 99%

Analyzing Attention to Scandal on Twitter: Elites Sell What Supporters Buy

Warner

2022

Political Research Quarterly

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Scandal has been described as socially constructed, in that some combination of the public, the media, and the political elite agrees that a transgression has occurred. This study is among the first to directly observe the “scandal as a construct” premise, using time-series data to estimate how each group’s attention to scandal affects that of every other. These data, collected from Twitter by Barberá et al. (2019) , measure the daily tweet volume of media outlets, Members of Congress, and samples of the public in relation to four Obama Administration scandals. Granger causality testing and impulse response functions show, as expected, that a jump in scandal-related tweets by one group affects the tweet volume of every other. But the groups wield unequal influence. Over the long-run, elites drive their supporters’ attention to scandal more than vice-versa. However, in two of the four scandals, the opposite effect was seen in the short-run, opening the possibility of a “sounding board” effect where elites are responsive to the initial reactions of their supporters but lead the conversation thereafter. These results encourage further study into how short- and long-term information flows differ, and why groups may lead in some issue areas but follow in others.

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Media Scandals Are Political Events

Cited by 21 publications

References 43 publications

Banklash: How Media Coverage of Bank Scandals Moves Mass Preferences on Financial Regulation

Banklash: How Media Coverage of Bank Scandals Moves Mass Preferences on Financial Regulation

Surviving Political Scandals: Why Some Transgressions End Political Careers and Others Do Not

Analyzing Attention to Scandal on Twitter: Elites Sell What Supporters Buy

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