Includes bibliographical references and index.

Character assassination : theoretical framework / Martijn Icks, U of Amsterdam, Eric Shiraev, Jennifer Keohane & Sergei A. Samoilenko -- Inoculation theory against/as character assassination / Josh Compton -- The traumatic psychological impact of character attacks on targets / Eric Shiraev & Olga Makhovskaya -- Character assassination as a structurational phenomenon / Sergei A. Samoilenko -- Cross-cultural comparisons of character assassination / Eric Shiraev -- Character attacks on Dutch revolutionary Adam Gerard Mappa (1754-1828) / Edwina Hagen -- Character assassination in the Soviet Union and Russia / Ekaterina Egorova & Elizaveta Egorov -- Character assassination of activists in Egypt : ElBaradei as a target / Alamira Samah Saleh -- Character assassination and the contemporary anti-corruption campaign in the Chinese military / Zi Yang -- Character attacks by Dutch populist radical right leader Geert Wilders / Stijn van Kessel -- Ad hominem attacks in Greek politics : the case of the 2015 referendum / Athanassios N. Samaras, Kyriakos Kolovos & Niki Papagianni -- The role of propaganda in the character assassination of world leaders in international affairs / Greg Simons -- Agrippina, Theodora and Fredegund as evil empresses in the historiographic tradition / Martijn Icks -- The character assassination of Marie-Antoinette : defamation in the age of the French revolution / Simon Burrows -- Argumentum ad carricare as a mode of character attack : Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live / Christopher J. Gilbert -- Corporate character assassination and crisis communication / Timothy Coombs & Sherry Holladay -- Country reputation assassination during the Greek memorandum re-negotiations / Neofytos Aspriadis, Emmanouil Takas & Athanassios N. Samaras -- The fight for public opinion and memoria in the early Roman principate / Florian Krüpe -- The rhetorical and ethical implications of character assassination in the age of McCarthy / Jennifer Keohane -- Character assassination and the Nixon White House / Maureen Minielli -- Character assassination and persuasive attack on CBS's Face the Nation / William L. Benoit -- Reductio ad Hitlerum as a new frame for political and geopolitical conflicts / Marlene Laruelle -- Show trials in communist countries : psychology of the ultimate cases of character assassination / Martina Klicperová-Baker -- Character assassination in Reformation propaganda / Scott Dixon & Anita Traninger -- Late night TV humor and the culture of ridicule / S. Robert Lichter & Stephen Farnsworth -- Character assassins and moral entrepreneurs : social media and the regulation of morality / Chris Ingraham & Joshua Reeves -- Psychological traits of character assassins : studies in cyber-aggression / Olga Bogolyubova -- Character assassination as scapegoating : the dentist who killed Cecil the Lion / Casey Schmitt -- Character assassination by memes : mosquitos versus elephants / Jens Seiffert-Brockmann -- Conclusions and future research / Sergei A. Samoilenko, Jennifer Keohane, Martijn Icks, Eric Shiraev.