Summary
Hans-Joachim Neubauer: Fama - the history of rumours
Rumors have always been part of everyday communication, they created panic and pogroms and influenced our understanding of the truth, and thus our behavior. Hans Joachim Neubauer's book Fama is a historical survey of rumors that range from the "divine voice" that made the Athenian politician Timarchus the victim of a sex scandal in 375 BC to the rumors surrounding the US president's affair with Monica Lewinsky. The author points out that whoever wants to interpret rumors must know their historical context. It is impossible to understand them if one ignores the fact that they are mostly invisible literature that is constantly changing its form. Fama talks about the images that different eras and cultures have created about this phenomenon, about the ways in which society stopped, suppressed, researched or created them. What everyone is talking about is still not a rumor, but a rumor is what everyone is said to be talking about. Rumors are quotes or variations of quotes, with the fact that it remains unspecified who they are quoting.
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