Hanne Detel

About

Hanne Detel is a research associate at the Department of Media Studies at Tübingen University, Germany. She is the co-author of the book The Unleashed Scandal: The End of Control in the Digital Age (together with Bernhard Poerksen). Her research focuses on mediatization, the social web, scandals, and (unwanted) celebrity in the digital age. Coming from journalism background, her writing has been featured in several newspapers and magazines – such as "Der Spiegel" and "Psychologie Heute" (German version of "Psychology Today").

Books by Hanne Detel

Recent Posts

Beyond Control: Intimate Details Spread Around the World

Lewinskygate and the Anthony Weiner sexting incident—these widely known scandals started on the Internet. However, there are also numerous small and lesser-known scandals which show how intimate details of everyone can get out of control. Moreover, these cases clearly illustrate the characteristics of the unleashed scandal.

7 Characteristics of the Unleashed Scandal

In the shadow of the now pervasive inclination to outrage, a new scandal schema is emerging. It is caused by the fact that the scandal has cut its ties with the linear and largely interaction-free logic of the traditional mass media and has entered a new evolutionary phase. The key features of the unleashed scandal will be presented in this post.

New Visibility in the Digital Era

Today anyone can become the target of an undesired, potentially worldwide attention—through the means of the Internet. The omnipresence of the digital media has created a kind of media ubiquity that nobody can escape, a novel kind of universe of visibility in which individuals are losing the control of their self-constructs and their public images.

The Omnipresence of Scandal

Scandals are everywhere. And it has become tremendously simple to feel indignation. It is enough to switch on the evening newscasts, preferably of the commercial stations. It is enough to connect oneself in some way or other with the excitation machines of the modern media society. And there it is, irrepressible, meddlesome, and noisy: the scandal.