Földessy Edina, Szűcs Alexandra, Wilhelm Gábor: Tabula 5/1 (Néprajzi Közlemények; Budapest, 2002)

CSÁSZI LAJOS: A populáris média rítusai: pletykák és botrányok

PAULX JOHN 1

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986 Search for Yesterday In Wacthing Television. T. Gitlin, ed. New York: Pantheon Books. SCHUDSON, MICHAEL 1978 Discovering the News. New York: Basic Books. STEVENS, JOHN 1985 Social Utility of Sensational News: Murder and Divorce in the I920's. Journalism Quarterly 6l(2):53-58. THOMPSON, JOHN B. 1995 The Media and Modernity. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. 1997 Scandal and Social Theory. In Media scandals. J. Lull - S. Hinerman, eds. New York: Columbia University Press. 2000 Political Scandal. Cambridge: Polity. TOMLINSON, JOHN 1

997 "And besides, the wench is dead": media scandals and the globalization of communication. In Media scandals. J. Lull - S. Hinerman, eds. New York: Columbia University Press. TUCHMAN, GAYE 1

978 Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality. New York: Free Press. TURNER, VICTOR 1966 The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Chicago: Aldine. VAN GENNEP, ARNOLD 1

960 The Rites of Passage. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. LAJOS CSÁSZI The rituals of popular media: gossips and scandals The paper starts with the argument that gossips and scandals characteristic of media tabloids originated in everyday life and can be seen as part of a modern folklore. Following an overview of theories of gossips, the author turns to comparing the similarities and differences of gossips and scandals. To understand the importance and complexity of media scandals he outlines John B. Thompson's Political Scandals. The center of this paper consist of a critical discussion of Thompson's book and its four theories of scandals that are based on the ideas of Habermas, Fiske, Alexander and Bourdieu. Using a neodurkheimian approach I argue that gossips and scandals can not be understand alone but only in their social and cultural contexts as popular rituals. With the help of these media rituals, moral questions are thematized, tested, and through the interpretation of the audience, constantly reevaluated.