Introduction
Mass media today has a strong influence on politics and political outcomes. Media has successfully been able to build or break the image of politicians. With women slowly creeping in the male-dominated arena of politics, there has been an increasing role of image development of women politicians by the media. With the advent of women in the public arena and catching media attention, academic world has widely studied this facet of media depicted imagery of women. The study in this has become exceedingly important to reconceptualize the portrayal by media of the women in politics. What we aim to discover in this essay is that if there is any evidence of an improvement in the women’s political power if there has been a similar change in the depiction of women politicians by the media? What we will try to ascertain is if there are any gender-related biases in media coverage of politicians and how do they differ. In order to do this we will do a brief review of academic paper to understand the trend in media coverage women politicians have received and how it has affected their political ambition. Though there are different academic viewpoints regarding the representation of women in media, we would present a few in the following paragraph.
Main Discussion
Evidence of gender bias in media coverage of women in politics has been studied extensively and has shown significant results. Most television coverage of women politicians during election campaigns are filled with gender-based stereotypes. Television news coverage of women politicians showed that there has been stereotypical portrayal of women politicians in a medium which conventionally has shown masculine imageries and narrative. Moreover, news coverage of women candidates is markedly less than their male counterparts. Women are less visible in news than males. A study in the United States also showed that female US Senate candidates received less press and news coverage than their male counterparts (Kahn and Goldenberg). The study by Kahn and Goldenberg (1991) also revealed that coverage of female candidates was more likely to focus on how they were doing in the polls and how well their campaigns were being run, and when their issue positions were covered, the focus tended to be on issues like education rather than the economy or foreign policy. It can be said that media applies sex-specific narrative frames when covering female politicians and that female politicians are subject to harsher evaluative criteria. As the coverage of women in politics is seen to be based on trivial issues, it can be logically deduced that the media stereotypes of female politicians would receive far less coverage than their male counterpart if they fail to confirm to the traditional masculine norms. A basic problem that has been seen which confirms to the idea of a female stereotype in the society becomes the bible for the media’s portrayal of how a woman should behave. Thus, confrontational behavior or aggressive attitude in a female party leader usually receives more coverage than comparable behavior on the part of her male counterparts. These studies strongly suggest that television news majorly relies on a “masculine narrative.” If a female party leader tries to fit in by behaving combatively, media coverage will tend to exaggerate her aggressive behavior and she will risk appearing “too aggressive.” On the other hand, if a female party leader fails to conform to the traditional masculine approach to politics, her behavior is likely to receive less attention from the media than a similarly low-keyed performance by a male leader, and she will risk being sidetracked.
In another study it has been argued that women in politics are “trivialized” by the media and their coverage becomes more in the media when there are issues in their political or personal life: more colorful the issue, more the coverage (Fountaine and McGregor). Media has given positive coverage to women leaders who campaigned with reference to family values. First, parental status (not merely “family values”) was suggested as a criterion for leadership. Second, references to the family values were portrayed by the media as the female candidate’s way of showing the public she identified with the “hopes and concerns of ordinary families (Fountaine and McGregor). Media stories often focus on women’s families, their private situation and sexuality and less on their policies.
The above studies showed that media has provided very low coverage to women in politics. They have received special attention by the media only when there has been an escalation or a problem or an issue regarding the woman leader. But not all studies believe this. Another research shows that senior women politicians are a novelty, receiving enormous media attention. They have had to deal with high expectations in the media and other political institutions such as Parliament.
A comparison of coverage provided to male and female candidates in an election has not been researched widely. Bystrom, Robertson and Banwart (2001) studied the media’s portrayal of female candidates in comparison to male candidates have been limited to general election campaigns and usually to one level of office. The study examines the media’s portrayal of female and male candidates in primary races at two levels of political leadership in which the representation of women is strikingly low—state governor and U.S. senator—in the 2000 campaign. The methodology of the study is based on an exploration of how the media portrays female and male candidates primarily relies on content analysis of articles from major national newspapers and representative major regional newspapers. The study confirms that men and women candidates are framed differently even when vying for their own party’s bid and, thus, provides new insights into how such primary framing can translate into bias during the general elections.
The depiction of women politicians in the media has depicted women differently than male politicians. All women candidates who have shown masculine characteristics have been hailed as possessing good leadership qualities, while those who have tried to be themselves, a woman, have been given little importance in the media. Even when women are not being framed in stereotypically feminine terms, though, gender biases may still be present. These biases are more subtle, but they are also more insidious because they are embedded in the conventional language of political news. And the recent trend that has developed is depicting female politicians in a masculine way. If women fail to conform to the traditional masculine norms of political behavior, their visibility will suffer, but if they do try to conform, any behavior that runs counter to deeply rooted conceptions of the feminine norm may well receive disproportionate attention in the news. The outcome of such a bias is to deter many qualified women from entering electoral politics and to heighten democratic malaise. It would be naive to assume that the media are simply reflecting the way that politics is. On the contrary, they are active (if unknowing) participants in perpetuating the notion that politics is a game played by men.
Conclusion
The above discussion of various studies confirms the popular belief and the trend of media stereotyping of images of women political leaders. The above study shows that women who go in politics grossly suffer from mis- or ill- representation of their personality in front of the public. Clearly gender bias are embedded in the very language of political reporting. The increase in the number of women competing for elite elected office (and in the number of women involved in news production) has done little to change the conventions of political journalism. These conventions continue to reinforce the image that politics is a man’s game. This stereotyping has led to female political leaders to mould their image cleaner so that candidates have a higher degree of media coverage.
Bibliography
Bystrom, Dianne G., Terry A. Robertson and Mary Christine Banwart. “Framing the Fight.” American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 44, No. 12, (2001): 1999-2013.
Fountaine, Susan and Judy McGregor. “Reconstructing gender for the 21st century: News media framing of political women in New Zealand.” (n.d.).
Kahn, Kim Fridkin and Edie N. Goldenberg. “Women Candidates in the News: An Examination of Gender Differences in US Senate Campaign Coverage.” Public Opinion Quarterly 55 (1991): 180-99.