ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how corporate scandals unfold in the public sphere as well as the role of the media in such scandals. It deals with a critical review of the existing literature concerning corporate scandals. The chapter illustrates how the concept of the public sphere is valuable in relation to analysing the communicative dynamics of corporate scandals. It presents a conceptual framework for classifying and analysing corporate scandals, and suggests that denial of reputation as the definition of corporate scandals. The chapter describes the scandals as the denial of reputation, the communicative dynamics that occur throughout the process of scandalisation, as well as how those dynamics relate to changes in the public sphere, move to the centre of interest. It highlights the diverse and interdisciplinary interest in the role of the media in corporate scandals. Actors seeking to generate a corporate scandal thus always try to emphasise social and expressive failures.
