Gendered News Coverage and Women as Heads of Government

Abstract

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.

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