This Article Full Text (OnlineFirst PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Langer, A. I. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

The Politicization of Private Persona: Exceptional Leaders or the New Rule? The Case of the United Kingdom and the Blair Effect

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: a.langer{at}lbss.gla.ac.uk.

	Abstract

This article investigates the extent and nature of the press coverage of the personal lives and personal qualities of contemporary British political leaders. In particular, it explores the legacy of the politicization of Blair’s private persona, or the Blair effect. Was Blair’s era a temporary anomaly, or did it have a transformative effect on the way that parties, politicians, and journalists conceive the role of the personal in public discourse and in the construction of a leader’s public persona? This research demonstrates that the degree of politicization of private persona still depends, to an important extent, on the personality of the leader and on the leader’s communication strategies, and that it is still possible to have a prime minister such as Gordon Brown, who tries to keep his personal life mostly private. But this is only part of the story. Blair’s era altered expectations about the role that the personal plays, and ought to play, in public discourse, and how much significance is given to it as a criterion of leadership evaluation.

First published on October 27, 2009
The International Journal of Press/Politics 2009, doi:10.1177/1940161209351003


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?