Abstract
The presence of politicians’ personal features in the media coverage of politics and the debate about how the media tend to obscure the borders between private and public spheres are not entirely new topics for political communication research, but James Stanyer’s book Intimate Politics brings with it two interesting novelties, which simultaneously provide important advances in this area of study. The book contributes to the development of both the conceptualization and the operationalization of these issues.
First, the book represents an important effort at conceptual systematization. Through discussion of previous research which was conducted on different democracies, and where it is common to find a lack of conceptual agreement, this book provides clear definitions of the main concepts. Stanyer develops and utilizes the concept ‘intimization’, as opposed to the more widely used ‘personalization’ and ‘privatization’, to carry out his purpose, which is to explore the extent to which political communication in advanced democracies increasingly focuses on politicians’ personal lives both across countries and over time. Intimization is therefore defined as ‘a revelatory process which involves the publicizing of information and imagery from what we might ordinarily understand as a politician’s personal life – broadly defined’ (p. 14). Put more simply, it means publicizing the personal and includes both consensual and non-consensual publicity, and scandalous and non-scandalous exposure in the media.
In addition to advancing the conceptualization of these issues, Stanyer’s work also adopts a relatively novel approach in terms of methodology. Instead of the usual quantitative methods used in comparative research, the study uses qualitative case-oriented methods ideal for small-N comparisons. Stanyer uses both within-case historical analysis (Bennett, 2010; George and Bennett, 2005) and cross-case analysis in the form of fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) (Ragin, 2000, 2008). The use of these methods represents an important first step in advancing small-N comparison in political communication research. Using these methods, Stanyer analyses seven countries (Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and the US) over a period of 15 years (from 1995 to 2009); the indicators used being both the number of cases of marital infidelity and an index based on the coverage of aspects of politicians’ personal lives in quality papers and books published in each country during this time frame.
Stanyer’s book starts with an acknowledgement of the growing media focus on the personal lives of politicians, which has been explored by several authors and by various types of studies over the years, including in countries with strict laws designed to protect the privacy of public figures, such as France. Not only are there more personal details in the news media (personality, spouses, children, holidays, birthdays, hobbies, etc.), but also there is more discussion of how some of these private traits may actually influence the politician’s chances to be elected and ultimately the way he/she will exert the mandate if elected. However, despite being an important characteristic of politics and the media in many advanced industrial democracies, it is still not fully comprehended and additional systematic comparative empirical research is needed. The considerable amount of existing studies and evidence from different realities, far from closing the discussion instead opens up several new questions. As Stanyer posits, it is not possible to know whether political communication in different democracies focuses on the private lives of politicians to a similar extent or whether there are any trends over time and within countries.
This is all the more pertinent as it constitutes a development in political communications that ultimately affects the nature of information citizens receive in advanced industrial democracies; however, it does not have to carry all the time a negative load in terms of consequences, in the sense described by Hannah Arendt, Richard Sennett and many others. On the one hand, politicians want to reach more voters through the media, but they use communication strategies that serve predefined objectives; and on the other hand, the news media need stories with actors and tend to choose the ones they consider to be most appealing for their audiences. As Stanyer explains, politicians package themselves in order to find some sense of connection with the electorate. So, talking about themselves, disclosing their history, personal background, beliefs and values, has the potential to increase the voters’ empathy.
To some extent, another justification of the interest the media have in politicians’ personal lives is the idea that this type of information provides a better understanding of who political leaders are in reality: what informs their thinking, how they live, what kind of family they have and the state of their personal relationships, etc. and this information helps to build a clearer image of how they will perform their duties if elected. As Stanyer explains, the media look for consistency between what the politician is saying and how he or she is living his or her private life and so are particularly alert for incongruence and hypocrisy. Although seen as less important news, this type of news story can sometimes add significant meaning to politics. For instance, in 2011, Portuguese citizens learned through the media that after months dramatizing the country’s financial situation, which ended up leading to a request for an international bailout, to the fall of the minority socialist government and to anticipated elections, the former opposition leader and current prime minister, Passos Coelho, decided, soon after being elected, to go on vacation to the Algarve with his family, leaving the entire country in limbo as to what his new government was going to do to fight the crisis.
In today’s media saturated democracies, the media replace the direct experience citizens have of politics, but they do so in a manner that is far from being neutral, and introduce several particular features and new elements in the political message and in the politician’s image. As Lippmann noted almost a century ago (Public Opinion, 1922), because the media guide our attention to specific aspects of reality while excluding others, they promote selective perceptions of reality. Subsequent studies and theories, such as the agenda-setting function or the news framing theory for instance, have tried to determine not only how these media effects influence the production of news, but also their actual effects on audiences. They create opportunities for manipulation with social and political actors trying to control the way their messages are conveyed. However, this does not have to be part of a premeditated attempt to influence perceptions: selection and reorganization of information is, first and foremost, a key part of any communication process and in the case of news media companies it is also part of what is commonly called the logic of the market.
Stanyer does not see the growing media attention to politicians’ private lives (‘intimization process’) simply as a result of one factor, such as communication technology, but the outcome of a complex interplay of a range of factors or causal conditions (p. 17). Even in an era of reality-shows, this characteristic of the media coverage of politics is not simply technologically determined; rather a combination of conditions explain the public exposure of private details and Stanyer, using fsQCA, identifies the causal combinations which lead to the different outcomes in each country. According to him, exposure of national leaders’ personal lives is the result not of one condition but several distinct recipes which include a leader’s propensity to adopt an open personal style, conditions in the media environment (whether media outlets are eager and willing to publish such details) and conditions in the political environment that incentivize disclosure. Similarly, the presence of high levels of publicized infidelity is the result of two different recipes which involve a combination of other media and non-media conditions.
Intimization, politicians treated like celebrities and the use of families and personal traits to enhance the politicians’ electoral appeal are often presented as universal, as a product of the widespread Americanization of politics. In fact, it is not only in the US, but also in the UK, that intimization is more present in media coverage of politics compared to other democracies. ‘The exposure of leaders’ personal lives has grown in most of these countries, but not all, and not at the same levels as in the UK and US’ (p. 160). In this way, the trend is upwards over time in the consensual exposure of leaders’ personal lives and there was a growth in the exposure of politicians’ peccadilloes. As to the non-consensual exposure, the study has shown differences between the UK, the US and the other democracies analysed. In France, intimization is high, ‘but has never gained the same significant intrusive dynamic as in the US and UK’. And in the other democracies (Germany, Italy, Spain and Australia), ‘the extent to which all types of personal information and imagery enter the public realm is more limited’ (p. 160).
While providing an important examination of the development of intimization in seven different democracies, this book has also provided a fresh look into concepts and methods for assessing the extent to which the private lives of politicians have become a feature of political communication across countries, and for exploring explanations of why this has happened and with what consequences. This issue of course requires more investigation, because as Stanyer notes, ‘intimization is not fixed for all time but can increase and decrease over time, enabled or retarded by a combination of causal conditions and unique events.’ (p. 160), and most likely it will have different consequences and effects in different situations. A type of research design such as Stanyer proposes allows a better understanding of those consequences and effects, and contributes therefore to deepen our knowledge of the personalized nature of political communication in different democracies.