To name and shame is to "publicly say that a person, group or business has done something wrong". It is a form of
public shaming used to rally
popular opinion
Public opinion is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to a society. It is the people's views on matters affecting them.
Etymology
The term "public opinion" was derived from the French ', which was first use ...
against and, in turn, discourage certain kinds of behavior or enterprises. The practice occurs both at the domestic and the international levels, where naming-and-shaming is often used to denounce
unfair business practice
Unfair business practices encompass fraud, misrepresentation, and oppressive or unconscionable acts or practices by business, often against consumers, and are prohibited by law in many countries. In the European Union, each member state must regul ...
s or
human rights violations.
There is some evidence that naming and shaming can reduce atrocities and make the named and shamed governments improve their human rights records.
Some scholars, however, question whether naming-and-shaming has the intended effects.
International relations
Naming and shaming is a common strategy to
compel and
deter changes in state and non-state behavior. It is a prevalent strategy when states engage in human rights abuses. It has also been used to compel improvements in environmental policies, stopping
whaling
Whaling is the process of hunting of whales for their usable products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that became increasingly important in the Industrial Revolution.
It was practiced as an organized industry ...
being one such example.
Public policy usage
Naming offending individuals or businesses (with the implied objective of shaming them) is sometimes used as an instrument of public policy intended to promote compliance with legal obligations or with the duty to put right the damage caused by non-compliance.
Examples are:
*The UK government established a scheme in 2010 to "name businesses which have failed to pay the
National Minimum Wage
The National Minimum Wage Act 1998 creates a minimum wage across the United Kingdom.. E McGaughey, ''A Casebook on Labour Law'' (Hart 2019) ch 6(1) From 1 April 2022 this was £9.50 for people age 23 and over, £9.18 for 21- to 22-year-olds, £6. ...
to their employees. The policy objective of the naming scheme is "to raise awareness of minimum wage enforcement and deter employers who would otherwise be tempted to break minimum wage law". According to a government policy statement, this practice has been adopted because "the government recognises that some employers are more likely to respond to the social and economic sanctions that may flow from details of their payment practices being made public, than from financial deterrents".
*In December 2018, the UK
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is a department of His Majesty's Government. The department was formed during a machinery of government change on 14 July 2016, following Theresa May's appointment as Prime ...
introduced a "naming scheme" to exert
reputational pressure on employers who fail to pay
Employment Tribunal
Employment tribunals are tribunal public bodies in England and Wales and Scotland which have statutory jurisdiction to hear many kinds of disputes between employers and employees. The most common disputes are concerned with unfair dismissal, red ...
awards, following publication of government research which found that 34% of employment tribunal awards in England and Wales and 46% in Scotland remained unpaid.
*In 2013,
Citizens Advice recommended that the UK's Consumer Bill of Rights should be backed up by action by
trading standards regulators to "name and shame" businesses that have failed to correct poor practices which affect consumers.
* From July 2008, the
NSW Food Authority
New South Wales Food Authority (NSW Food Authority) is a statutory authority of Government of New South Wales, responsible for food safety and food labelling regulations in the state as well as consumer food safety promotion. It is part of the ...
has a public list of businesses that have breached food safety regulations to give "consumers more information to make decisions about where they eat or buy food".
[NSW Food Authority]
NSW Food Authority Name And Shame
accessed 26 February 2021
See also
*
Public humiliation
*
Real-name reporting
*
Mass media
Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets.
Broadcast media transmit information ...
*
Humiliation
*
Online shaming
References
{{reflist
Reputation management
Figures of speech