The German federal president in the press: Public officeholder or private citizen?

Abstract

This article analyses the news coverage of German federal presidents’ private lives and personal characteristics. The federal president is the only constitutional entity in Germany to consist of just one person. Automatically, the incumbent’s personality is important in determining how the person exercises the role. Although the federal president’s office possesses little hard power competences, as a politician the federal president has an integrative function and is one of the most powerful opinion leaders of the country. A successful presidency therefore hinges on mediated visibility. Recently, political communication scholars have identified a trend towards intimization politics. This article specifically investigates how news coverage of the German federal president has developed since 1949. The results are twofold: first, the mediated visibility of the federal president has increased over time. Second, the current analysis does not provide evidence for a trend towards intimization politics.