If you missed our webinar on June 12 with political humor expert Christopher Gilbert of Assumption University, it's available here on YouTube. In this webinar, Jennifer Keohane hosted a conversation with Gilbert about the power of political humor, its role in democratic politics, and of course, Alec Baldwin's portrayal of Donald Trump on Saturday Night …
Continue reading Webinar #5: Political Humor, Caricature, and Saturday Night Live
We often talk about character assassination in politics, but of course character attacks abound in other social realms as well. Sports, entertainment, academia, science, and every domain of human social life features character attacks as people compete for advantages. In the competitive arena of sports, it’s unsurprising that opponents would harbor aggressive feelings against their …
Continue reading They Spoke In Defense of Their Contracts: Apologia in Sports
By Martijn Icks Ethnic minorities are particularly vulnerable to character attacks. Last March, Dutch parliament passed a motion urging the political party DENK to stop publishing intimidating video clips about MPs with Turkish roots. Signatories expressed their concern that MPs were attacked “primarily on the basis of their descent” rather than because of their political …
Or: We Can dance if we want to. I’ve written before about the double-bind facing female political candidates, which is well-established in the rhetorical and political science scholarship. In the United States, leaders are expected to be decisive, rational, and independent, traits stereotypically associated with men. When women would-be leaders enact these traits, they are …
By Sergei A. Samoilenko Character assassination comes in many shapes and forms. Character attacks vary in their complexity across time and cultures at interpersonal, intergroup, and international levels. The traditional view of CA, grounded in social psychology, sees a CA event in terms of cause-and-effect relations between the attacker and the target. Their relationship is …
Continue reading The Tetris Model of Character Assassination
By Sergei A. Samoilenko In 1888, a French newspaper published an obituary headlined "Le marchand de la mort est mort" ("The merchant of death is dead"). It stated, “Dr. Alfred Nobel, who made his fortune by finding a way to kill the most people as ever before in the shortest time possible, died yesterday.” The …
Continue reading Alfred Nobel and Posthumous Reputation Management
Fairfax, VA – George Mason University’s Character Assassination and Reputation Politics (CARP) Research Lab hosts its second international conference “Character Assassination and Populism: Challenges and Responses” on March 15-17, 2019. One primary characteristic of today’s global society is the growing public distrust in traditional authorities. In the context of institutional legitimacy crisis, there is a great demand for …
Continue reading CARP 2019 Conference “Character Assassination and Populism”
Character Assassination and Reputation Politics Research Lab 