This article argues that the increasing use of press images around 1900 contributed to the construction of the political persona of the British Statesman Joseph Chamberlain. These images fused scenes from his public and private life and, paradoxically, the new focus on his private characteristics reinforced his public role. His private life did not replace his public side, nor was the private unrelated to politics as celebrity scholarship suggests, but these projected private characteristics widened the scope of what it meant to be a politician in a mass mediated environment. This argument is made through an analysis of the media context in which Chamberlain matured as a politician and the press images of his public and private life. Particularly the many (re)published images of Chamberlain during the ‘media event’ of his death in 1914 are used methodologically to trace the evolution of the visual depiction of politics through time.

本文认为，在 1900 年左右，越来越多地使用新闻图片有助于构建英国政治家约瑟夫·张伯伦的政治角色。这些图像融合了他的公共和私人生活场景，矛盾的是，对他私人特征的新关注强化了他的公共角色。他的私人生活并没有取代他的公共方面，也不像名人学术所暗示的那样，私人生活与政治无关，但这些投射的私人特征扩大了在大众媒体环境中成为政治家的意义。这一论点是通过分析张伯伦作为政治家成熟的媒体背景以及他的公共和私人生活的媒体形象而得出的。