Stockholm School of Economics in Riga Students' Magazine

 Can you imagine - a bunch of students dared to question the existence of the Gossip Page (GP). What do you think the reason for this was? Nothing else than the lovely Business Ethics course. This group of students is five nice girls, which now are sharing the results of their work with you.

This issue arose because, on the one hand, it belongs to the internal culture of the organization we are part of, but, on the other hand, it challenges our moral views and values. Now you will ask: how? Have you ever looked at the GP from the outsiders or administration point of view? Have you seen all these nasty phrases, which were afterwards discussed much longer than one day? Did you ever imagine how the gossiped person felt?

Of course, the whole report cannot be discussed, and the subjective opinion of the authors is also not of high interest. 

What students think?

This topic appeared to be very “hot”, as 153 students have filled in the survey. According to the survey results, almost all students read the GP. The interesting fact is that only 40 students among all the surveyed write gossip, but 63 – appear on the Gossip Page. The GP is not so large; it seems that there are many active gossipers. Look around, maybe it’s your neighbor? 

But let’s continue with the overall results. Almost all students express a positive attitude towards the Gossip Page, since they find it funny and consider being a good information source. However, about a half of the surveyed students see gossip as invasion of their personal space and about a fourth of the surveyed find the Gossip Page offensive, whereas 14% - even unethical.

Suggestions about the future development of the GP differ. About a third of students want it to remain as it is now, another third want to expand it and the remaining ones want to contract it: to exclude personal gossip or to apply a stricter censorship.

Despite the already mentioned drawbacks, students find the positive features of this page outweighing its weaknesses, and the overall attitude to the GP is positive.

Thoughts of administration

Administration, on the other hand, is not so happy about the GP. A representative of administration thinks that the presence of the GP has a negative impact on the overall image of the SSE Riga community. The best possible solution, from the representative’s point of view, would be to remove the GP from The Insider, but administration is unwilling to impose personal opinion on the students’ decision. As an alternative solution to the problem, stricter filtering may be applied.

The uniqueness

A small research among university press showed that SSE Riga community is unique even in this sense. Nothing similar can be found in any other university press. Do people gossip among themselves and publish it in the internal magazine? The correct answer is “No”, but the exception is “Yes, in SSER”. The authors of the report think that we should not be proud of this phenomenon, especially when one believes in privacy and integrity, as it is difficult to preserve these two given the existence of the GP. 

What to do?

The authors did not try to prohibit the GP, because in any case it depends on the opinion of the majority. But is the majority right? Maybe, but before typing another gossip on The Insider pages, think about what you are writing, as it affects all of us: those who read, who write and who are being gossiped. We are those who form the community, and we are responsible for what we create.

by Aleksandra, Darja, Elina, Karina and Tatjana