Political scandal is one of the most common facets of contemporary politics. It involves real or conjectured norm transgressions and usually requires a news report that may elicit public criticism. Such reports can lead to an individual’s negative evaluative consequences, which can affect the reputation and standing of political figures and institutions (Esser & Hartung, 2004).
Previous research shows that scandalous information generally leads to negative evaluative effects for involved politicians and that the extent of these effects depends on important moderators such as citizens’ prior views/attitudes, their general level of trust, and their partisanship and cynicism. Furthermore, some studies show negative spillover effects for the evaluation of parties and other politicians whose members were involved in the scandal (e.g., Maier, 2011).
While a number of researchers have studied the effects of scandalous information on individuals’ politician evaluations and attitudes, there is still room for more work. For example, the particular influences of online and social media have – 3/4surprisingly – not been explored in detail so far.
In addition, research on the potential interaction effects of scandalous information is needed. This includes, for instance, the effect of different resonant valences of the scandalous information and the effects of different political actors’ response strategies (e.g., denial vs. apology). Moreover, it is important to consider that politicians do not only consist of elected officials but also party leaders and other personnel such as staffers and appointees.