[Commlist] Call for Papers: Scandalisation across media: New scandal trajectories, temporalities, and actors

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 /at/ hum.ku.dk) 
<mailto:(netenk /at/ hum.ku.dk)>
Anne Jerslev (University of Copenhagen): (jerslev /at/ hum.ku.dk) 
<mailto:(jerslev /at/ 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&nbsp 
<https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/7099&nbsp>;
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 <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.

Visit Crossref to learn more about Similarity Check 
<https://www.crossref.org/services/similarity-check/>
  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 
<https://www.nordicom.gu.se/en/publications/publish-with-nordicom/instructions-authors>
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.

Read the aims & scope of NJMS 
<https://www.nordicom.gu.se/en/publications/nordic-journal-media-studies>

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.

Read Nordicom's editorial policies 
<https://www.nordicom.gu.se/en/publications/publish-with-nordicom/editorial-policies>
Visit Creative Commons to learn more about the CC licence 
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode>
 

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