Karl Patrick R. Mendoza

Communication scholar of trust, culture, institutions, and public life.

Scandal Worlds: Constructivation, Ambivalent Governance, and Political Legitimacy in the Global South


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About the project

Scandal Worlds examines how controversies become lasting conditions of political life. It develops scandal constructivation to understand how competing claims about truth, injury, blame, and responsibility reshape judgments of authority without necessarily producing accountability or closure.

The project connects these processes with ambivalent governance and political legitimacy in the Global South, extending my research on trust cultures and institutional consequences.

Project status

Under contract with Anthem Press. Manuscript delivery is scheduled for July 2028. The project is currently paused for empirical development.

Related research

The publications below provide the conceptual and empirical foundations for this developing book.

Publications


Held in trust: Relational sovereignties and the affective life of communication


Karl Patrick R. Mendoza

Media, Culture & Society, vol. 47(6), 2025, pp. 1294-1303


Scandal as constructivation: Trust cultures and the politics of legitimacy in Southeast Asia


Karl Patrick R. Mendoza

International Journal of Communication, vol. 19, 2025, pp. 3264–3285


Health Scandalization and Exclusionary Politics: A Social Semiotic CDA of Online News Coverage of the Dengvaxia Vaccine Scandal in the Philippines


Karl Patrick R. Mendoza

The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social and Community Studies, vol. 20(1), 2024, pp. 183-208