Ari Adut's Definition Of Scandal

In history, the American Government has their fair share of scandals; these scandals may include corruption within the American Government, or even more personal as a sex scandal. Scandals can be a wide variety of different things. Ari Adut, a professor in the sociology department at University of Texas at Austin, describes how he perceives scandal in his book On Scandal. Adut explains his definition of scandal as,
Scandal is a polysemic word. A real, apparent or alleged but significant transgression, the forceful reaction that a transgression elicits, the discredit heaped on persons and institutions as a result of a transgression or its denunciation and the episode during which a transgression is publicized and condemned are all referred to as ‘scandal’ in everyday parlance. (Adut)
With this being said, scandals can come in many ways and forms. There are many different ways that scandals can be constructed and publicized. The two main perspectives of scandals that Adut speaks about are political/corporate scandals, and socially constructed phenomena. (Adut, 8) Both of these views
history to be impeached, while maintaining some of the most public approval ratings of any modern president”. (Bennett) In 1995, Bill Clinton started a sexual relationship with his 21- year old intern, Monica Lewinsky. Monica Lewinsky told someone, whom she thought was a trustful confidant and then things got bad. When news of this was let out, the public eye was notified almost instantly. With the little evidence that they had, the press released the story. Ari Adut says that the publicity of a sex scandal is scandalous within itself. He says that most scandals that are transgressed in this way are done to do so. However, because this is our president, it was not the publicity of the scandal that made the act scandalous, it was actually a scandalous