One of the most interesting concepts I found in chapter 22 of the text is the concept of victimage. According to Griffin, victimage is when one names someone or something outside of himself and places the blame of personal or public problems on that someone or something. I found this concept interesting because just an hour before I had read chapter 22, I watched a show on VH1 in which memorable reality show moments were reviewed. One of the moments came from "America's Next Top Model," in which one of the contending models fainted right in front of Tyra Banks (one of the judges). The fainted model was taken to the hospital while Tyra spoke with the other models who had just witnessed what had happened. Instead of saying that the fainted model was a victim of something like anxiety, Tyra turned it around and made herself the victim and blamed her shock of seeing the model fainting on the fainted model. By the text's definition, it is clear that Tyra made the fainted model her scapegoat.
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I also wrote about this concept in my blog. I think that a lot of people use victimage even though they might not even realize it. I think that Jim's example of a reality show is very accurate. There is always someone blaming someone else for something else that is going on. This helps the drama unfold and helps the shows get the ratings that they are recieving. By blaming someone else it creates a space where someone does not have to take responsibility for thier own actions.
I believe the concept of victimage is very interesting, one that a lot of people use but one that you may not always think about.
The philosopher Burke believed that guilt is something that all speakers have and a way to overcome guilt and seek redemption, people utilize the concept of victimage.
Reality tv seems to employ this concept to assist the drama unfold like SJSU Cait mentioned. I believe it causes conflict between characters which makes the storylines interesting. Very often the characters of reality tv will call themselves the victim and blame other characters for stealing their love interest and using that as an excuse for doing something else.
Victimage is used to alleviate guilt within one's self..if someone feels bad for something happeneing, they often use someone else as a scapegoat and place blame elsewhere.
Victimage has some parallels with attribution theory. According to attribution theory, people generally attribute positive things they do to something internal. For example, if they do well on an exam, they say they're smart or they studied hard. However, they tend to attribute negative things to external forces. If they do poorly on an exam, it was the instructor's fault for writing unclear or really hard questions. In contrast, the theory argues that most positive attributions about others are located externally. If someone else did well on an exam it was because the test was easy or she or he had help. If the person did poorly on the exam, it was because she or he didn't study or wasn't very smart. Blaming outside forces is similar to victimage. Self-mortification isn't all that common. As Cait said, blaming others means individuals don't have to take responsibility for what they do.
Hey JimTin – I watched the same show on VH1. You are completely right that Tyra made the model who fainted, the scapegoat. This is a really good example of victimage. SJSU Cait also made a comment about how reality shows are great for showing examples of victimage and I agree. Media is a great way to show examples of victimage but there are many who use this and don’t even realize. I have a few co-workers and everything is always blamed on someone else or some other circumstance. It really gets to the point where you want to just say, take the blame if you did it. Take responsibility for you what is wrong. Now that I think about it, this only occurs when an outcome is negative. If the situation calls for commending someone for their efforts they are right there to accept the positive reinforcement of a job well done.
This is an interesting concept. It really escapes us sometimes how often this concept is used with public figures. It's kind a form of PR, using people or pieces of information to kind of change the blame on a situation. Changing your chances I suppose. It happens all of the time when something pops up in the media and then publicists are the ones who have to kind of work things around and change perspective on the idea. I agree that sometimes people do not even realize that they are using this concept, which makes it even more interesting that we can watch it being caught on reality shows. Reality shows are so transparent anyways. :)
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