Political Leadership in the Media: Gender Bias in Leader Stereotypes during Campaign and Routine Times

Autor(en)

Loes Aaldering, Daphne van der Pas

Abstrakt

This article studies gender differences in media portrayals of political leadership, starting with the expectation that male politicians are evaluated more often on traits belonging to the male leader stereotype, and that female politicians have no such advantage. These gender differences are expected to be especially pronounced during non-campaign periods. To test these expectations, a large-scale automated content analysis of all Dutch national newspapers from September 2006 to September 2012 was conducted. The results show that male politicians received more media coverage on leadership traits in general, although the male and female leader stereotypes explain most of the variation in gender bias between leadership traits. These gender effects are found during seldom-studied routine periods but not during campaigns. As leadership trait coverage has electoral consequences, this gender-differentiated coverage likely contributes to the under-representation of women in politics.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft

Externe Organisation(en)

University of Amsterdam (UvA)

Journal

British Journal of Political Science

Band

50

Seiten

911-931

Anzahl der Seiten

21

ISSN

0007-1234

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123417000795

Publikationsdatum

2018

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

508007 Kommunikationswissenschaft

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Political Science and International Relations

Link zum Portal

https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/political-leadership-in-the-media-gender-bias-in-leader-stereotypes-during-campaign-and-routine-times(a6864b63-d21b-4ba6-9425-3213a30e3b75).html