Leaders first, countries after. Political personalization in the international media arena

Second Author: Professor Tamir Sheafer In recent decades, the political landscape of major democracies has undergone considerable change. One obvious aspect of this transformation is the so called “political personalization” ? a shift in focus from group affiliations to individual choices and from issue-centered politics to more person-centered politics. This development may be viewed as part of a more general process of individualization of social life: People increasingly perceive themselves as individuals rather than as representatives of collectivities and groups. Research on personalization has hitherto been concerned primarily with the local (national) arena, and, to the best of our knowledge, no comparative analysis of personalization in global politics has been undertaken. Our paper analyzes the coverage of foreign countries and their leaders in national media of six democracies, focusing on the relative media attention given to a foreign country compares with its leaders over a period of 30 years. For each of these countries, we investigated the media coverage of the other five countries and their leaders. For example, the content analysis of the US''s media focuses on the coverage of five other countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and UK) and their 63 leaders (the total number of leaders in these five countries over the period under investigation). A process of international personalization -- of an increase over time on the focus on leaders and a decrease in the focus on the country -- was generally found in Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the US. There were, however, differences between these countries with respect to its level. Using dyadic data analysis, it was shown that the extent of international media personalization can be explained by two groups of variables. The first comprises national traits such as the type of political system in a country, national power, and prominent events that occurred in it during the leader''s term in office. I found, e.g., that a country with political system that characterized by a small ideological gap between the parties exhibits a higher level of international personalization and vice versa. The second group includes variables pertaining to the relatedness and interaction between countries, such as values proximity, political proximity, geographic proximity, and commercial relations. For example, I found that a high level of political proximity between countries predicts a low level of media international personalization. International personalization has a bearing on public diplomacy, which is defined as efforts of one nation to influence public opinion in another for the purpose of turning the foreign policy of the target nation to advantage. Public diplomacy has been widely recognized as a means of promoting a country’s soft power, thereby contributing to its international image. However, since the foreign media zooms in on state leaders, often sacrificing state interests in the process, the way the leader of one country is presented in the media of another can strongly condition public opinion in the latter. It is noteworthy that, in recent decades, the media has become the main arena for attempts to exercise public diplomacy on the part of nations. Thus, the public in the target nation tend to form their political opinions regarding a foreign country based on their evaluations of the personality of that country’s leader. These opinions may decide the outcome of the target nation’s foreign policy. The recently emerged phenomenon of international media personalization is pervading the global political arena and may affect numerous aspects of the political process worldwide. A comprehensive empirical study of this phenomenon is attempted in the present paper.