Scandalisation: The Media as a Tool for Discrediting Politicians or Parties. The Case of the Slovenian Finance Minister

by Dušica Vehovar Zajc, Igor Lukšič, Uroš Godnov,

The Slovenian political arena was recently marked by a political scandal involving a »standby bonus«. The media followed this scandal intensively. The article considers the potential meanings of political communication, mass media and the power the media seems to possess. The article focuses on how politicians are evaluated and described during scandals by considering a case study and analysing the press content related to the political scandal in Slovenia. In reporting on the scandal, the media showed its intensive interest with considerable attention paid to the politician as an individual, and putting his qualities under the microscope. The results show the requirements imposed by the media are high and that the media was used as a tool to discredit this politician and his party in the Slovenian political arena. Using content analysis, which relies on several innovative IT tools to perform the data collection and sentiment analysis, the article comprehensively analyses the political scandal, thereby adding to the political communication literature.

published in Vol 19 - No 1 - 2019 // General issue
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  • Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (chair) Hertie School of Governance
  • Larry Diamond Stanford University
  • Tom Gallagher University of Bradford
  • Alena Ledeneva University College London
  • Michael McFaul Stanford University
  • Dennis Deletant Georgetown University
  • Helen Wallace London School of Economics and Political Science

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  • Claudiu Tufiș
  • Bogdan Iancu
  • George Jiglau
  • Ingi Iusmen
  • Gabriel Bădescu
  • Andrei Macsut
  • Laura Voinea

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Societatea Academica Romana