ABSTRACT
Aspiring and actual public figures make use of social media to author uncivil and vitriolic statements. While this is hardly a new practice, these statements may be unearthed at a later stage, for example, in the context of an election campaign. These discoveries appear to have significant implications for our understanding of scandal, notably through a potential democratisation of political interventions. This appears to be a by-product of the recent emergence and uptake of digital devices, which enable a more pervasive monitoring of public and private spaces, along with prominent digital platforms that trouble such dichotomies. Political candidates become an easy target when anyone can comb through their Twitter profiles for objectionable content. At the same time, established political and media figures adapt to these conditions and develop both reactive and proactive strategies in response to online scrutiny and denunciations.
