Intimization: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 14:12, 4 September 2012

Revision as of 14:13, 4 September 2012

Line 8:

Hirdman et al. use the term in their study of changes in Swedish journalism from the 1880s. They define intimization as a process which sees increased journalistic attention on the family, sexuality and the private, what they term the ‘intimate sphere’ as opposed to the public sphere <ref>Hirdman, A., Kleberg, M and Widestedt, K. 2005: Intimization of Journalism: Transformations of Medialized Public Spheres from 1880s to Current Times. Nordicom Review, 2 109-117. p. 109</ref>. They suggest that ‘modes of address, relations to sources, visual representations and focus of texts are seen to interact to create a kind of medial pseudo intimacy’<ref>Hirdman, A., Kleberg, M and Widestedt, K. 2005: Intimization of Journalism: Transformations of Medialized Public Spheres from 1880s to Current Times. Nordicom Review, 2 109-117. p. 109</ref>.

The term ‘privatization’ has sometimes been also been used to signify the same process. Rahat and Sheafer, for example, define ‘privatization’ as ‘a media focus on the personal characteristics and personal life of individual candidates’ <ref>Rahat G and Sheafer T (2007) 'The personalization(s) of politics: Israel, 1949-2003.' Political Communication 41(1): 65-80. p. 68.</ref>. However, the use of this term is problematic as the word, most commonly associated the sale of state-owned assets, means the reverse, privatizing of something that is public not publicizing the private.

Stanyer argues that Intimization as a process relates primarily to media content formation and dissemination in any society and should not be conflated with para-social or tele-mediated intimacy between audiences and those who appear on TV <ref>Stanyer, J. (2012) Intimate Politics: Publicity, Privacy and the Personal Lives of Politicians in Media Saturated Democracies. Cambridge: Polity</ref>. Horton and Wohl, writing in the 1950s were particularly interested in the relationship between audience members and those they saw on the TV screen <ref>Horton, D. and Whol, R Richard. (1956) Mass Communication and Para-social Interaction: Observations on Intimacy at a Distance. Psychiatry, 19: 215-229.</ref>. Horton and Wohl were not interested in the information and imagery to which audience members were exposed and made no distinction between the public and private matters but were rather interested in their illusory (para-social) relationship between audience members and those they saw on the TV screen. While not downplaying the importance of the audience, Stanyer observes it is the information and imagery to which an audience is exposed that is important in the intimization process. It is the mass exposure of information and imagery from what we might ordinarily understand as the personal / private life of a public figure as opposed to their public/ professional life. Information and imagery we might expect only to be exchanged between those in a close relationship. In other words public figures (politicians, celebrities, sports stars etc) are not just familiar to us (that is recognisable) but potentially more information about their personal life circulates in the media, and the audience are exposed to more information from the private lives of public figures. An important distinction is made in this respect between familiarity and intimacy.