Intimization

Intimization is "a revelatory process which involves the publicizing of information and imagery from what we might ordinarily understand as [an individuals’s] personal life – broadly defined. It is a publicity process (involving the media) that takes place over time and involves flows of personal information and imagery into the [media]". It has mainly been studied as a society wide process in the context of politics although it can apply to other contexts.

The term intimization was first used and defined as a process by Van Zoonen in her study of Dutch television news in the 1980s. She defines it as a process whereby "values from the private sphere are transferred to the public sphere". This is seen not only in the greater focus on ‘human interest subjects’ but also in "the way the relation between audience and news reader is constructed... through carefully picked personalities and intimate modes of address".

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. 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."

The term privatization has sometimes 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." 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. Horton and Wohl, writing in the 1950s were particularly interested in the relationship between audience members and those they saw on the TV screen. 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.

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Wikipedia