Character assassination

Character assassination (CA) is a deliberate and sustained effort to damage the reputation or credibility of an individual. The phrase "character assassination" became popular from around 1930. This concept, as a subject of scholarly study, was originally introduced by Davis (1950) in his collection of essays revealing the dangers of political smear campaigns. Six decades later Icks and Shiraev (2014) rejuvenated the term and revived academic interest by addressing and comparing a variety of historical character assassination events.