ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how shaming operates as a modality of character assassination within multilateral media environments that encourage dispersed, asymmetrical attacks from citizens intending to regulate the moral order. Unlike the simple and sovereign pillories of old, social media now mobilize larger vigilance campaigns that often invoke a tacit moral imperative: we are all personally accountable to speak up when we see or hear something unacceptable. The authors argue that online shaming, and the moral entrepreneurship that drives it, is best understood as a political technology, not as the deployment or manipulation of an emotion such as shame.
