Abstract
Modern politicians need to diversify their communication strategies to reach a wide range of citizens/electors. Communication of political programmes must be associated with the effective communication of the private sphere. However, does this rule apply to a scenario in which the political stage is not ruled by politicians? By presenting the results of a content analysis of four Italian tabloids and by relying on an interview with the communication officer of Italian former premier, this study shows how political popularization develops in the era of the technocrat. The authors claim that the search for ‘mediated intimacy’ with the citizens/electors does not exclusively represent a concern for professional politicians. The need to personify political action is not only dependent on the necessity to maximize the electoral turnout, but it also depends on the acknowledgement of the fact that any public officer cannot avoid opening the doors of his or her own private sphere.
Keywords
Introduction
This study examines the process of intimization that has developed within Italian politics by comparing the coverage that Mario Monti (Prime Minister between November 2011 and 28 April 2013) and Silvio Berlusconi (former Prime Minister and leader of the centre-right coalition) received from the tabloid press. The two politicians have received a significant amount of coverage from the leading Italian gossip magazines in the past few months. Such coverage is comparatively much higher than that received by other politicians. We compare their appearances on the Italian popular press and show the differences in the private lives of the leading political figures. Looking at the general trend in today’s democracies, it is possible to say that modern politicians’ private lives are being followed by the general public as they are considered increasingly interesting and newsworthy. As a result, while citizens have detailed knowledge of politicians’ private stories, they might not be nearly as knowledgeable about their ‘political behaviours’ (i.e. the petitions they endorse, their vote choices etc.). In fact, modern political leaders are now fully regarded as celebrities (Kellner, 2009; Marshall, 1997; Stanyer, 2012; Turner, 2004; West and Orman, 2003).
With respect to the Italian national context, it has been widely noted that throughout the Berlusconism era, political personalization and entertainment logic have thoroughly entered the public sphere and have transformed politics into a public show (Belpoliti, 2009; Campus, 2010; De Beus, 2011; Marletti, 2010; Musso, 2008). Additionally, some scholars have emphasized the process of commodification of politics as a possible explanation for the fact that Italian citizens have chosen Berlusconi because of the lifestyle he represents rather than the political views he supports. Mancini (2011a) says that this has happened because Berlusconi’s ‘lifestyle fits perfectly with what Italian citizens see every day on the television screens’ (p. 57). From our perspective, the extent to which politicians’ private sphere is publicly known is not only due to the particular way the media logic works but also it depends on the degree of willingness of the politicians themselves to allow their extra-institutional life to be made public (Thompson, 1995).
Theoretical background
According to Ventura (2012), politicians in contemporary democracies are making efforts to be in the limelight all the time by disseminating personal stories to maximize their popularity. In doing so, politicians popularize politics by adapting the codes of mass entertainment and show business (Riegert, 2007; Street, 1997). In this research, we study the type of visibility generated by the gossip magazines that contribute to making politicians’ lives similar to the lives of celebrities.
This phenomenon is the outcome of a broader, long-standing process in which politicians seek a more regular and direct relationship with the citizens (McAllister, 2007; Mancini, 2011b; Rahat and Schaefer, 2007). More specifically, ‘[p]ersonalization implies a relationship between the individual figure and the citizens/voters essentially through mass communication and, more specifically, television’ (Mancini, 2011b: 10). Along with an increasing disaffection and mistrust towards political parties, the phenomenon of political personalization is at the core of what Manin (1995) defines ‘audience democracy’. At the same time, the increasing attention the media pay to politicians as persons necessarily results in bringing to the forefront aspects and features that are not properly related to the public office they hold. It is important to remark that in this process, the gossip magazines play a key role. In fact, the stolen snapshots portraying politicians on vacation or a report in which they exhibit their own house can be considered efficient tools for allowing the private sphere to be known outside the political boundaries (Corner and Pels, 2003; Stanyer, 2007; Stanyer and Wring, 2004; Street, 2001; Van Zoonen, 2005).
One picture, which displays a leader shopping with his or her children, is aimed at showing a piece of that leader’s routine, thus making the leader more human, less institutional, and, as a result, less alien to the ordinary person. Mazzoleni and Sfardini (2009), in illustrating and explaining the dimension of pop politics, stress that political actors must present themselves as normal and ordinary. Furthermore, it is important to consider that the modern era is characterized by an increasing inclination towards voyeurism, namely, a tendency to peek into the lives of famous people (such as politicians). In the case of politicians, this occurs as a consequence of an increasingly strong link between political communication and entertainment logic (Delli Carpini and Williams, 2001; Jones, 2005; Postman, 1985; Zaller, 2003). The establishment of such a link favours the development of a ‘revelatory process which involves the publicizing of information and imagery from what we might ordinarily understand as a politician’s personal life’ (Stanyer, 2012: 14). Stanyer names this process intimization and identifies four types of visibility through which it develops:
Non-consensual/scandalous (e.g. exposure of infidelity),
Consensual/scandalous (e.g. admission of infidelity),
Non-consensual/non-scandalous (e.g. exposure without consent of non-scandalous information),
Consensual/non-scandalous (e.g. exposure of personal information through agreed means).
However, Stanyer focuses on newspapers, books about national leaders and entertainment talk shows, while this study looks exclusively at celebrity gossip magazines. In fact, in Italy, these are privileged tools through which politicians’ private lives are discussed to gain public attention and also generate interest. Gossip magazines in Italy take up the role that the tabloid press plays in other countries. Oggi and Gente, two of Italy’s most important magazines, launched, respectively, in 1939 and 1956, originally began as weekly news magazines. Novella 2000, launched in 1967, was the first magazine with clear intentions of becoming the privileged arena for Italian gossip. The turning point, however, came with the launch of Chi in 1995. The vast majority of scholars tend to associate Berlusconi’s descent into politics with a renewed vigour of communicating politics through television (TV) (Marletti, 2010). However, the role Berlusconi played was wider. He managed to fully adopt, embody and implement the codes of pop politics, which drew the boundary lines between the public and private realms, or between what Erving Goffman (1959) called an organization’s front stage and back stage. This change has resulted in a marked growth in the interest in the private lives of the Italian celebrities and politicians as well as in media outlets whose core objective is to report such private affairs. Chi has played a leading role in this development.
Italy’s media system today displays many elements of concern. The TV system is characterized by a structural public–private duopoly, in which public service broadcasting operates and coexists with the main commercial broadcaster owned by former Prime Minister Berlusconi (Ciaglia, 2013). The Italian long-lasting situation of conflict of interests, however, is reflected in the market of gossip magazines as well. Chi, owned by Berlusconi’s Mondadori Group and managed by Alfonso Signorini, is today the most important magazine in Italy. According to data from Audipress, Chi’s average weekly readership accounts for 2,889,000, as opposed to Gente’s 2,153,000, Oggi’s 2,643,000 and Novella 2000’s 643,000. Furthermore, both Oggi and Gente have interestingly lost their original news-magazine orientation, becoming increasingly similar to Chi and Novella 2000 in the way in which they cover politicians.
The research framework
This study argues that the process of intimization has taken place, thanks to the marked development by celebrity gossip magazines, and has affected not only the professional politicians but technocrats as well. More specifically, this article will respond to two research questions:
What shape does the phenomenon of political intimization take when it is applied to political personalities who are potentially reluctant to open the doors of their private lives to the public?
How does this process compare with public figures who are willing to open the doors of their private lives to the public?
These research issues will be dealt with by examining four celebrity gossip magazines. In this respect, it is crucial to remember that the coverage such magazines dedicate to various public figures is not uniform. Instead, because the forms and ways that these figures are covered can be strongly affected by both editorial aims and policies as well as by the identity of the personalities who are covered, the type of coverage can be extremely changeable. Visibility is also particularly dependent on the politicians’ willingness to open the doors of their private spheres to the public. In this sense, a different conceptualization of the principle of democratic accountability emerges as well. Those politicians whose private lives are increasingly scrutinized by the gossip magazines seem to have fully endorsed the principle according to which politicians should not only be judged on the basis of what they do but also on the basis of who they say they are, their persona and their achievements or failures.
This principle can be a double-edged sword, however. In fact, whereas politicians may have a certain degree of control over those (pseudo-) private aspects of their lives they intend to promote, they find themselves having their entire life scrutinized in detail. It is exactly the relationship between the degree of politicians’ willingness to have their private lives made public and the degree of scandal associated with their visibility upon which Stanyer builds the aforementioned typology and to which this study will refer in order to better clarify the forms by which two extremely different actors, Berlusconi and Monti, have handled their celebrity status.
Mario Monti is highly respected for his expertise and rigour, and since the first political office he took on in 1994, he has always maintained his public function separated from his private life. The Italian press has always named him ‘The Professor’, as he was the Chancellor of the most prestigious university of Italy. Because of Monti’s virtues, in 2011, as Italy undergoes a profound economic crisis, the Head of State empowers The Professor to lead a newly established government. After he is appointed Prime Minister, Monti founds a political movement and runs for premiership in 2013. Having decided to become a full-time politician, Monti understands that his persona needs a new type of visibility. Not only do people have to be informed about his professional achievements, but they also have to be aware of his private virtues. And one of the most effective ways to raise awareness about aspects that are not strictly related to public office is to exploit the opportunities for visibility provided by popular magazines.
These magazines serve a crucial social role within today’s diversified media (and political) systems. They are among the most effective tools through which information about the private lives of celebrities (and politicians) is ‘made available’ to large numbers of people. In doing so, politics establishes an inextricable link with popular culture (Street, 1997). On the other hand, by appearing on celebrity gossip magazines, politicians try to exploit new possibilities for visibility. They aim to communicate with a type of reader who is normally disinterested in politics. And to succeed in their attempts, political leaders necessarily shape their code of conduct and languages according to new formats. In short, politicians adapt themselves to the celebrity media logic.
This study draws on two main assumptions that will be examined by presenting and discussing data that have been collected through both a content analysis of four major Italian gossip weeklies (Chi, Gente, Novella 2000 and Oggi) and an interview with Elisabetta Olivi, spokeswoman for Monti. In this respect, it is important to note that in the current democratic processes, political intimization is primarily driven by digital media, which has reshaped the process that Thompson (1995) defines as non-reciprocal intimacy at a distance. The gossip magazines (and more generally, the tabloid press), however, still represent the privileged arena in which imagery and gossips circulate about the private lives of public figures. People who desire to know about the goings-on behind a politician’s life look to the tabloid press for titbits of gossip. With regard to the content analysis, each analyzed article was assigned to a single actor who emerged as a central player in either the written or the photographic report. This method makes a preliminary analysis of the largest coverage of a political actor in the tabloid press during the period of analysis. Intercoder reliability was assessed by having two coders (including one of the authors) analyze 50 randomly selected reports and calculating Cohen’s k (.87). According to Fleiss (1981), a value for kappa of greater than .75 can be considered excellent.
As mentioned earlier, we had interviewed Mario Monti’s political advisor Elisabetta Olivi. The decision to interview Olivi was taken on two considerations. First, the differences in the volume of coverage alone cannot be considered as sufficient to fully understand a political personality such as Mario Monti in approaching the process of intimization. Second, as Stanyer shows, this process is dependent on the degree of willingness of a politician to court unconventional political communication media. An interaction with the person in charge of Monti’s communication was considered extremely helpful to understand the rationale behind the professor’s increasing visibility on the tabloid press.
On the basis of the first of our explorative assumptions, holding a high-profile office such as that of Prime Minister naturally causes an increase in interest (in the office holder) not only from the traditional news media but also from those media outlets that aim to entertain their public rather than inform it. As a result, during the period of time in which Monti’s government has had to address multiple and crucial challenges for Italy’s future, which corresponds to the 7 months between 21 November 2011 and 30 June 2012, our expectation is that Monti will be among those politico-institutional figures who have received the most coverage in the gossip magazines we selected. Second, we posit that the type of visibility Monti received will be diametrically opposite that of his predecessor. In the case of Berlusconi, a visibility consisting of both non-consensual/scandalous and consensual/scandalous types of press will be prevailing. Therefore, the recurring element in Berlusconi’s coverage will be the scandal, regardless of whether such scandalous stories had been brought unwillingly to the attention of the media or consensually. Conversely, we believe that Mario Monti will enjoy a visibility of both the non-consensual/non-scandalous and the consensual/non-scandalous types. In the case of Mario Monti, therefore, the recurring element will be the absence of scandals, while, as with Berlusconi’s coverage, the variable of consensus will play a minor role (one of the distinguishing features of the gossip press is the journalist’s ability to steal and publish snapshots of celebrities engaging in a wide variety of daily activities).
Empirical findings
The coverage of political (and politically relevant) actors in the Italian tabloid press
Our study begins with the presentation of Table 1, which displays which political (or politically relevant) 1 actors have received the broadest degree of coverage in popular weeklies between 16 November 2011 and 30 June 2012.
The 20 most covered political and politically relevant actors in Chi, Gente, Novella 2000 and Oggi (16 November 2011 to 30 June 2012). a
Data collection has been carried out by Roberto Mincigrucci, who also provided important cues to interpret the results.
First it can be concluded that Monti and the people who have a certain connection with him are considered highly newsworthy actors by the gossip press. This can be proven by the first position among political actors being held by Mario Monti (70 pages overall − 45 articles) and the second position among politically relevant actors being held by Elsa Monti (24.5 pages − 5 articles), the premier’s wife. Other ministers within Monti’s cabinet also receive a considerable amount of visibility. Thus, as suggested in our first explorative assumption, it is possible to detect some connections between the newsworthiness criteria enforced by the mainstream news media and the logic on which the entertainment media seem to rely. Table 1 indicates that those who hold high-profile roles have considerable visibility potential that is immediately exploited by both news media and by the more unconventional media, which, in full accordance with their logic, tend to cover these personalities from different perspectives and angles, noting those traits that are considered particularly appealing to a potential reader. This process even occurs when such high-profile roles are held by notoriously reserved personalities. As people such as Monti procure relevant roles, gossip journalists’ attention increases and reports of politicians begin to circulate in the same way as those of Hollywood actors. Interestingly, centre-left politicians are substantially under-represented.
However, whereas it may be true that holding certain roles can result in politicians being forced to handle growing fame, it is also important to note that some politicians more than others can be considered newsworthy regardless of the position they hold. These personalities are considered to possess those characteristics that are particularly suitable, thus meeting the needs of the readers or viewers of certain media. This is the case for Silvio Berlusconi, who is in second position (63.5 pages − 42 articles). Furthermore, Table 1 displays that among eight non-political personalities who received the most coverage during the selected period of time, seven have a certain connection with Silvio Berlusconi. Barbara, one of Berlusconi’s daughters, is in first position among the politically relevant actors (32 pages). Additionally, Nicole Minetti, the regional councillor who played a key role in the sex scandal embroiling Berlusconi, is in third (22); Sara Tommasi, one of the girls in the scandal, is in fourth (19); Emilio Fede, a journalist who is very close with Berlusconi, is in fifth (17.5); Ruby, the girl who triggered the sex scandal, is in sixth (14.5); Luigi and Piersilvio Berlusconi, Silvio’s sons, are in seventh (13.5) and eighth (10.5), respectively. It is safe to conclude that with respect to the gossip media, Berlusconi’s newsworthiness spreads well beyond and overshadows the political position he may hold.
Having said that, it is critical to understand whether the entertainment media’s attention to politicians’ private lives is because ‘the interaction between media and politics has generated media spectacularization and political personalization’ (Boni, 2008: 50) or due to the attempts to maximize visibility and popularity that are regularly made by politicians. However, these individuals are well aware that being visible in the gossip press means sacrificing any private life. We previously noted that in the case of Berlusconi the dimension of scandal prevails, as shown in Table 1, where out of the seven people who have a link with Berlusconi and are among the most well-covered actors, four of them have had a direct role in the well-known sex scandal.
Shifting our attention to the case of Mario Monti, there are various elements that deserve consideration. First, Monti’s life is subject to the process of intimization as proven by the fact that the gossip magazines dedicate wide coverage to several dimensions of Monti’s private life. Because the main reason behind the gossip magazines’ focus on Mario Monti is quite possibly the new public office he holds, it is possible to identify this process as a case of personalization/intimization of the institutional role (Legnante, 1999). The public has been made aware of the fact that Monti has not spent much time with his children because of his work and they have been informed of his religious behaviours and habits. Therefore, the public is given a precise image of Monti: a man who is fully devoted to his work, a man who is highly driven to accomplish his mission, even at the cost of neglecting his family.
Comparison of the coverage of Monti and Berlusconi
Having set this scenario, greater depth is necessary to understand if the (pseudo-) private information about Monti circulates with his consent, if the information pertains mostly to his intimate sphere or to the leisure activities in which he engages, if it is damaging to his reputation and if and to what extent it involves his relatives. To this end, we interviewed Elisabetta Olivi, Monti’s spokeswoman, and analyzed the five broadest reports that are centred on Monti or one of his relatives and compared them with two reports centred on Berlusconi (or one of the personalities who have a connection with him).
Returning to Monti’s private life, as confirmed by Elisabetta Olivi, all of the reports were published in the gossip press without Monti’s knowledge with the sole exception of a report published in Chi on 4 April 2012, on which we will focus later. The other reports are accompanied by photos of Monti spending his leisure time with the family.
Furthermore, from an analysis of Table 2, it is noted that Italy’s tabloid press disseminates, in particular, personal information and images of politicians, namely, information that falls within Stanyer’s individual domain. In a report published on 27 November 2012, Monti is described as an extremely precise and rigorous man – ‘His favourite pastime? Studying’. A considerable amount of space is given to Monti’s tastes and habits: ‘He’s sober, elegant, reserved, and loves music and arts. Bocconian Monti has just one fault: he likes to get his wife to spoil him. She follows him everywhere. […] Both of them are practicing Catholics’. Additionally, Monti’s weaknesses are well described (‘he is inexplicably scared of black cats crossing the street from the left’). In a report published on 25 January 2012, Monti’s childhood is presented and unedited photos are published. It is possible to find more information about his father (‘His dad, Giovanni, used to be a bank manager’), his mother (‘named Lavinia, housewife, blonde …’) and, in particular, the young Mario.
Mario was excellent in humanities and loved cinema. […] He was clumsy in physical education, and not very much strong on math; but he was born for being number one. […] He was humble but proud, gentle, rigorous and always ready to help the others (even by helping his schoolmates during the exams).
The seven longest reports focused on Monti and Berlusconi (or on one of their relatives) between 16 November 2011 and 30 June 2012.
Furthermore, it is possible to find a good amount of information on both Monti’s relationship with his relatives and the leisure activities in which he normally participates. While it is written that ‘he has not been around his children very much’ (23 November 2011), the first time he met Elsa creates a positive image of Monti (‘Monti met Elsa at an 18th birthday party; she would have become his wife. […] It is 1967. He will marry Elsa in 1970 and soon after the couple will be leaving for the USA’). It is also reported, in detail, that the Montis spent New Year’s Eve walking in the Villa Borghese, and the pictures show a happy family – the grandparents, Mario and Elsa – enjoying time with the grandchildren. In this way, the report emphasizes the ordinary nature of the Montis, who, in the same way as many other Italian families, spend a holiday with children and grandchildren walking in the park.
The central aspect in our research is that although these reports have been published and disseminated without Monti’s knowledge or consent, they are not damaging to the Prime Minister’s reputation. On the contrary, these reports are aimed to unveil and disclose a personage who is not very well known to Italians, and surely not at all known to the readership of celebrity gossip magazines. The Prime Minister’s spokeswoman acknowledges the benefits to Monti’s persona: ‘the pictures are beautiful, though. […] The message they bring along is good after all; it didn’t seem to us it was an enemy move’. Monti often appears to be a very serious, reserved, professional man, and as a result, there is a risk that people may perceive him to be a cold, mechanical person who is very far removed from ordinary daily lives of the public (‘while he’s not at all’). Therefore, the increased attention from the gossip press towards Mario Monti and his family has been perceived as a useful (though unwanted) way to adjust his persona. Many scholars have laboured this point. Van Zoonen (2005), for example, claims that political leaders must make their family life public to strengthen their persona and their integrity because it ‘adds a sense of them being modern men/women’ (p. 91). In fact, according to Van Zoonen (2005), one of the most worrying issues in today’s democracies is that too big a distance between the representers and the represented is a breeding ground for a crisis that goes much further than straightforward political conflict. Politics has to be connected to everyday culture of its citizens; otherwise it becomes an alien sphere, occupied by strangers no one cares and bothers about. (p. 3)
Getting closer to ordinary citizens is exactly what Monti tries to do. Furthermore, this aspect gains even more significance when compared with the type of visibility that Berlusconi received from the gossip press. Interestingly, the popular press itself is fully conscious of the two personalities displaying extremely different characteristics. Oggi published on 23 November 2011 a comparison of the private lives of Monti and Berlusconi. While Berlusconi proudly presents his numerous guests at his villa in Sardinia, famous for cacti and an artificial volcano, Monti has never had a stranger in his apartment in Milan. In another report, Novella 2000 on 15 December 2011 introduced Graziana Capone as one of the closest women to Berlusconi. The 26-year-old former member of Berlusconi’s communications staff is in charge of briefing Berlusconi on the day’s news reports. Berlusconi dislikes reading newspapers, but Evelina knows how to make the ‘pill less bitter’ to him. Indeed, ‘it suffices putting on a shadow of lipstick, deep neckline cloths, a pair of mini shorts and … voilà, even the worst titles of la Repubblica, the newspaper Berlusconi hates so much, become bearable’. The contrast between Monti and Berlusconi is striking. Monti is a personality about whom people do not know much and about whom it is difficult to know more due to his strong desire for privacy. On the other hand, Berlusconi is a politician about whom everyone knows enough. Every Italian is aware of the type of life he leads. Therefore, unlike Monti, he does not need to be unveiled or disclosed. In fact, the celebrity gossip press seems rather aimed at unmasking him, bringing to light scandalous aspects of his private life, which Berlusconi would prefer to keep secret (non-consensual visibility), but which are strongly attractive to the readership of such press.
However, thus far, we have described a type of visibility for which Monti (and Berlusconi) did not search. Nevertheless, and this is most likely the main result of this research, while such an increased amount of coverage may allow Monti to show the Italians his ‘ordinary nature’, on the other hand, it also persuades his staff that the time has come for the person closest to Monti to tell the public, the Italians, about the person Monti is. It must be noted that, as Olivi confirmed, most of the popular magazines were extremely interested in obtaining an interview with Monti or one of his relatives, but Chi was chosen because the reports Signorini had been publishing since Monti was appointed Prime Minister had never been offensive or damaging to Monti’s reputation. Thus, it seemed to be the ideal place where Elsa could talk about ‘her Mario’.
The interview was conducted by the managing editor, Alfonso Signorini. The cover page carries a full-page photo of Elsa Monti, who is posing in the living room of the house in Palazzo Chigi. The full report is 12 pages long. The article can be considered a real exercise in intimization, as Elsa tells Signorini about how she and Mario met, their engagement (‘I proposed to Mario. I didn’t intend to wait any longer’), their wedding, their life at Palazzo Chigi (‘we usually have dinner at 11, but we have very early starts’). Elsa says that Mario has not been around his children very often, she describes Mario’s pastimes (‘he loves music but never watches TV; he just watches the press review at midnight’) and she tells about their relationship with other heads of state or government officials. In this context, the first lady Elsa Monti served an important political role. In fact, no one is more privileged than Elsa to tell the public what Mario really is. What she says about him can be trusted. Therefore, Monti’s wife becomes a key player in the process of humanization and normalization of the Italian Prime Minister. In the interview carried out by Alfonso Signorini, Elsa tells millions of other Itlaian wives about her husband, his flaws and virtues, acting like a normal person as if she was sipping tea at a café with some friends and casually chitchatting.
Another striking difference between Monti and his predecessor Berlusconi is in the type of role that the women play in the lives of the two politicians. In fact, on 26 January 2012, Oggi interviewed Evelina Manna, a former model considered to be in a relationship with Berlusconi. This article, too, can be considered as an exercise in intimization, except that the tone of the coverage is significantly different. Although several private aspects related to Berlusconi and Evelina are revealed, the report is not scandalous as such, except that Berlusconi had a relationship in addition to those he had with Patrizia D’Addario and Ruby. Interestingly, another article immediately followed the interview with an even more embarrassing title: ‘The 11 ladies who compromise the president’.
Both the content analysis and Olivi’s words reveal a scenario that is absolutely consistent with the shifting process in terms of the quality of visibility from Berlusconi to Monti, as we have assumed. As we have emphasized, with respect to Mario Monti, the central variable is not the willingness to make their private lives public, which it could never be because magazines such as Chi set themselves apart in their ability to collect scoops and to steal and publish photos of situations that were supposed to remain within the celebrity’s private sphere. As such, this is a process that is not dependent on the politicians’ will or need for coverage. Politicians (as well as other celebrities) can never fully control what the media choose to publish. However, it is worth noting that whereas the scoops the gossip press revealed about Berlusconi were mostly scandalous, in the case of Monti, the process of intimization seems to work in a different manner. In fact, with regard to the reports and stories about Monti that were published in Chi without his consent, hypothetical readers would not be surprised if told the reports were actually published with the approval of Monti’s staff. We say this because, in the case of the interview with Elsa Monti (visibility of a consensual type), as well as in the other four cases we selected (visibility of a non-consensual type), Monti is always depicted as an extremely sober man, in both private life and public office. Therefore, there is no scandal to reveal. As a logical result, Chi and other gossip magazines must turn themselves to collateral aspects to cover Monti, that is, curiosities in his private life, biographic details and so on. Overall, Monti is a personage to unveil and disclose, but not to unmask, and the contrast with that of Berlusconi’s coverage is extreme.
Conclusion
The increasing attention on Monti’s private sphere (intimization) from the gossip press confirms that, in Italy, politicians (and particularly high-profile figures) have become celebrities. This is further demonstrated by the Chi 4 April 2012 issue, where the interview with Elsa Monti is followed by a five-page report on Corrado Passera, Minister for Economic Development, and his family. These two reports are found in the very first pages of the magazine, thus preceding the stories dedicated to people one would normally expect to find in a gossip magazine. Such an increasing interest in politicians confirms that while politicians’ private stories are not of public interest, they become so when they start to interest the citizen-viewer. 2
The case of Monti reveals that such attention is primarily the focus of the gossip press as they dig into the politicians’ lives without the consent or knowledge of the target. However, the visibility that gossip magazines are able to provide can persuade the staff of the politician to officially open the doors of the private life to the public eye. This is more likely to happen when the coverage is not damaging, regardless of whether or not the individual has agreed to it. In other words, the visibility provided by a gossip magazine is considered necessary to show the people the human and intimate side of the politician. Accordingly, the gossip press’s interest to discover new celebrities is accompanied by the politician’s interest to diversify and improve his or her image. Monti surely owes his increased visibility to the new public role he was given, but the process of personalization/intimization that his public figure undergoes is markedly different from that of his predecessor. Despite the fact that both leaders receive a considerable amount of coverage from the same gossip magazines, in Berlusconi’s case, the scandal dimension is predominant, whereas in Monti’s case, there is nothing of the kind. Thus, the two leaders belong to two different and opposite categories of Stanyer’s typology. However, it is interesting to note Stanyer’s attempts to explain the differences in the development of the process of intimization in different national contexts by looking at several combinations of conditions (recipes). Although this study is not specifically aimed at identifying causal patterns, it nonetheless adds an important aspect to the knowledge of the process of intimization. It shows how differently such a process can actually develop in relation to two political personalities who share the same national context, the same political and media systems and the same cultural background. An important difference is the individual-related variables which shape the nature of coverage received by each actor. As a final remark, while TV has widely been identified as the medium that favours the establishment of more personalized politics, this research shows that, when public attention focuses on the (pseudo-) private sphere, certain types of printed media can play an equally important role.
Footnotes
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.