Trashing The Prime Minister's Bride: Public Dismay and Intertextual Media

Abstract

In 2006–2007, the romantic affair between Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen and white-collar worker Susan Kuronen received unprecedented attention in the national media. Analyzing the coverage of the affair and its aftermath in Finnish evening papers through Sara Ahmed's notion of affective circulation, the present article investigates the drawing of public and private boundaries through the public reviling of Kuronen for revealing intimate details concerning Vanhanen's private life. As the couple's relationship unraveled, the evening papers began fashioning class differences between the parties both previously characterized as “ordinary” and middle-class, labeling Kuronen as common and trashy. Addressing the dynamics of class and gender at play, the article shows that although Kuronen was accused of continuously revealing her private life, she actually gave few interviews herself. Rather, the popular press reused the same comments and quotes extensively in an intertextual process of circulation through which Kuronen was crafted into a highly affective media figure and an object of considerable public dismay. In addition to exploring the intertextual working practices of the popular media, the article investigates the effects of the circulation of affect from evening papers to online discussion forums as underpinned by social hierarchies, the uses of privacy as a politician's media strategy as well as the risks that this involves.

Keywords:

• popular media
• affect
• intertextuality
• class
• sexuality
• politics

Notes

1. Ahmed has used the concepts emotion and affect interchangeably.

2. Ilta-Sanomat is published by SanomaWSOY, a media concern that publishes Finland's largest paper Helsingin Sanomat and owns Nelonen, the second largest local commercial television channel. Iltalehti belongs to the Alma Media group.

3. The afterword received attention only when it became news abroad. Following Ojala, the Swedish evening paper Expressen speculated on the security hazards of the prime minister's love life and internet use. Iltalehti (2007b) labelled such concerns as “paranoid” and based on action cinema.

4. Especially the weekly NYT supplement of Helsingin Sanomat ridiculed Vanhanen in virtually every issue between November 2006 and April 2007 in its listing “Nousussa/Laskussa.” The listing on February 23, 2007, was dedicated to the affair and its aftermath in its entirety, and featured ten pointed comments.