Scandals are useful because they focus our attention on problems in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim. In developing and supporting your position, be

Scandals always accompanied humankind since the beginning of its existence. There were a major catalyst for social, economic, political changes throughout the years. They raise attention of people otherwise incognizant of the subject, force dialogue between sides. In spite of this, there are types of scandals that don’t serve such enlightening purpose, rather serve as attention diverters, entertainment for a particular segment of population. So scandals not always focus our attention on publicly important issues.
One of the reasons why scandals can bring about change in society, influence politicians, societal circles is the scope of people they can reach. With the modern day technology when news spreads in a span of a second by one simple click and reached millions of spectators worldwide it is not surprising that major events can cause such a commotion. Social media is a powerful tool to exaggerate a scandal, blew it out of the proportion just to pull more attention to the matter at hand. People start discussing everywhere on websites, exchange comments. They have more sources of information, can compare it and make disinterested conclusions based on multiple opinions. This makes their opinions more reliable and helps in establishing polite and efficient dialogue. Just 50 years ago it would have taken much more time to observe the matter from perspective of all the sides.
Using this advantage, scandals bring together multiple “castes” of people together, open a dialogue between them. It provides a light on the problems that society has and such a conglomeration of different opinions and ideas might as well create solutions for it and make improvements. A couple of years ago there was a scandal in Iceland involving a prominent politician. Evidence surfaced that he was involved in debauchery. This has engendered nationwide protest in the far north European community against corruption as a whole, and the politician in particular. Maybe in some countries that wouldn’t have led to any significant steps from government, but this wasn’t the case. The politician in question resigned by his own will, and a special committee was formed to investigate the corruption in the country and to make changes to the system. This was an example how scandal can cause people to wake up and advocate for their rights and improvements in the society.
However, as was already mentioned, scandals not always are genuine. Some scandals can be quite affected, designed to conceal other significant ongoings in the country and distract attention of the general public. For instance, recently in Russian Federation, a couple of dubious laws were passed that cause public uproar, such as anti-LGBT law, restrictions on the use of Internet, and criminalization of sharing unwanted by the government majority posts and personas on the Internet. Of course, all of these are major points in politics and can even abut on breaching constitutional freedoms, but the main problem wasn’t connected to these laws, rather the more economically significant laws about pension age increase and increase of taxes. While people were engaged in ardent conversations about LGBTQ rights, freedom of speech on the world wide web, much more important to day-to-day living and to the population's pockets laws were passed that clearly exacerbated living conditions in the country in much more obvious way. Why go far. Currently in US politician scandals of extramarital affairs of the president overshadow is controversial policies and decisions. People are much more inclined to babble about salacious matters than serious political issues.
To conclude, scandals can evidently drive society in the direction of changes faster than steady evolution. They can have awakening effect on a lot of people, reach more audience than a mundane broadcast on TV, open a dialogue between two completely different sides who otherwise wouldn’t have got in contact with each other. Despite all this, it’s important to distinguish a real issue with issues created for PR purposes, serving for distracting attention from high-priority matters.