Melodrama and Gendered Mediation

Abstract

When they wrested party leadership positions from men in what is widely described as leadership “coups,” the leadership challenges initiated by Helen Clark and Jenny Shipley in New Zealand and Julia Gillard in Australia were prime-time media spectacles featuring live television broadcasts and sensationalized opinion and analysis. This paper analyzes television reportage of these three leadership challenges and argues that while the news coverage was shaped by contextual factors, it also evidenced gendered mediation—news frames and evaluations that reflect gender-based assumptions about the performance of power. Television news scripted these events as prime-time melodramas, employing violent coup discourses and sensationalized plot lines to tell the stories. As a result, media coverage highlighted the threat of the feminine, reinforced the public man/private woman binary, and re-inscribed patriarchal norms of political leadership.

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