This paper consists of two parts. This first part looks at the mediated visibility of a number of dimensions of national leaders’ personal lives in a non-scandalous non-invasive context in seven democracies. It examines the publicity given to the different domains of the personal sphere, both cross-nationally and over time, in order to get a sense of whether and how ‘privatization’ might have evolved in different countries. Based on a newspaper content analysis it documents the publicity given to significant events in the personal lives of national leaders. It examines the publicity given to the national leaders’ domestic realm and family life. Finally, it looks at the publicity given to their life stories and incidents from those stories drawing on an examination of books on political leaders. The second part of the paper examines scandalous exposure focusing on the revelations surrounding extramarital affairs. It compares extent of exposure to ascertain whether extramarital sex lives are indeed publicized more frequently in some democracies than other countries. The paper finally seeks to explore the possible underlying causes of such outcomes using fsQCA before reflecting on the attitudes to privacy in the different national political communication cultures examined.
