Gendered News Coverage and Women as Heads of Government

Women politicians have long faced a gendered media environment, where their novelty, potential (in)competence, family, and appearance have been over-emphasized in comparison to men. Much of this literature has focused on politicians running for office and women who hold legislative office. Little re...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Political communication 2021-07, Vol.38 (4), p.388-406
Main Authors: Thomas, Melanee, Harell, Allison, Rijkhoff, Sanne A.M., Gosselin, Tania
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Canada
Competence
Content analysis
Dictionaries
Families & family life
First year
Gender
Gender differences
gendered coverage
Heads of government
Internet
leader evaluations
Lexicoder
Masculinity
Media coverage
Men
News media
Personality
Political leadership
Politicians
Politics
Sexual orientation
Uniqueness
Women and politics
Women-led governments
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Summary:Women politicians have long faced a gendered media environment, where their novelty, potential (in)competence, family, and appearance have been over-emphasized in comparison to men. Much of this literature has focused on politicians running for office and women who hold legislative office. Little research investigates gendered news media presentations of women as heads of government. While the literature predicts that women heads of government should experience gendered differences in news coverage, there is also good reason to expect that news about government operations should not vary based on the gender of the government leader. Using their first year of online news coverage (N = 11,675), we build a series of dictionaries and use automated content analysis to assess how frequently heads of government's uniqueness, gender, family, appearance, sexual orientation, character, and competence are presented. We also assess the tone of news about each head of government. Results show that gendered coverage exists for women heads of government in potentially surprising ways. Fewer new stories are written about them, on average, than men. Women's coverage features more feminine and masculine gendered identifiers, as well as more coverage about their clothing. We find little evidence for increased personalization, and women's character and competence are presented more positively than men's. Though blunt, this analysis shows that news about heads of government remains gendered.
ISSN:1058-4609
1091-7675
DOI:10.1080/10584609.2020.1784326