A few weeks ago, I was invited by Cphbusiness School in Copenhagen to give two workshops about the role of gossip in Organizations. The students there are between 32 and 53 years old, and all have jobs while pursuing their studies on the side: for example, one works for a tourist organization, another for the Danish Tax Office, […]
I am sitting at the hairdresser’s, waiting for the colour to seep into my hair. The assistant places a small timer next to me, and for the next 50 minutes, I flip through fashion magazines. No matter how hard I try, I cannot resist the urge to eavesdrop. My hairdresser, Robert (not his real name), is […]
A question that keeps coming up is whether I should completely avoid the word gossip when interviewing people and talking about my research. As Jacco van Uden points out in his reaction to my last blog: “Het woord roddel heeft zoveel negatieve connotaties dat het je blijkbaar in de weg zit als je er onderzoek naar […]
During one of my classes on ethics, I tell my first year students that I am facing a variety of ethical dilemmas in my own research on gossip. “Let’s say that I want to do a study on how my colleagues gossip at the Hague University. How would you research that? ” I ask. “Why […]
Along with a group of journalism students and lecturers from the Hague University, I had the opportunity to visit the studio of talk show Pauw last week. We were invited to take a look behind the scenes and sit in the audience while the show was broadcast live. We all gather in the empty television […]
During Onderzoeksdag on 15 April, at The Hague University, I gave a workshop about my research on gossip. A few colleagues from the Research Group Change Management also helped me conduct a small experiment. My workshop on gossip is just about to start. While I am still setting up and uploading my prezi, two of […]
On April 15, during Onderzoeksdag at The Hague University, I will give a workshop about my research on gossip. I will first give a brief overview of what has been written about gossip in the literature. What are the mechanisms of gossip: who do we gossip with? Who do we gossip about? What are the […]
The tongue is the sword of a woman –and she never lets it go rusty (Chinese proverb). “Would anyone watch a TV spinoff called “Gossip Guy”? wonders Cari Neirenburg, in her article Gossip Guys. “No, the network isn’t considering it,” she claims. “If it did, the show would definitely have different story lines and dialogues than […]
