Political leadership in the media:Gender bias in leader stereotypes during campaign and routine times

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

For a research agenda on negative politics

Published online: 30 December 2022This thematic issue deals with the “negative” side of politics, more specifically with dynamics of political aggressiveness and ideological opposition in voters and elites. Why do candidates “go negative” on their rivals? To what extent are voters entrenched into opposing camps parted by political tribalism? And are these dynamics related to the (dark) personality of candidates and the expression of emotions in voters? A series of contributions written by leading and emerging scholars provide novel and groundbreaking empirical evidence along three main lines: (a) the evolution, causes, and consequences of political attacks and incivility by political elites; (b) the drivers and dimensions of affective polarization and negative voting in the public; and (c) the dynamics of candidate’s personality and perceptions, the affective roots of attitudes and behaviors. This thematic issue aims at setting the stage for a new research agenda on negative politics, able to generate new insights by triangulating evidence and approaches from strands of literature that have mostly evolved on separate tracks

Don’t throw the frame out with the bathwater: How episodic news frames can prevent identity-motivated reasoning

Framing research has predominantly revealed detrimental effects of episodic news frames, including individualist blame attributions and political cynicism. However, such frames may also discourage group biases and impede motivated reasoning regarding identity politics. In two experiments (N = 815; N = 1,019), we test the effect of episodic frames on group-consonant attitudes through identity-motivated reasoning. The two studies produce mixed results. Episodic frames might decrease gender-motivated reasoning for women with weaker gender identities when news threatens their identity, but not for men or for women with stronger gender identities. The implications for journalism and democracy are discussed

Gender differences in political media coverage:a meta-analysis

Do the media cover men and women politicians and candidates differently? This article performs a systematic analysis of 90 studies covering over 25,000 politicians in over 750,000 media stories, and presents the accumulated knowledge in a comprehensive theoretical framework. The paper shows that there is a gender bias in the amount of coverage of politicians in proportional electoral systems, where women politicians lag behind men in media attention, but that, surprisingly, this gender bias is absent in majoritarian electoral systems. In addition, we systematically review gender differences in the content of media reports on political candidates, such as differences in attention to private life and family, viability and horse-race coverage, issue coverage, and gender stereotypes. Overall, women politicians receive more attention to their appearance and personal life, more negative viability coverage, and, to some extent, stereotypical issue and trait coverage. We conclude by pointing out promising avenues for future research

Replication Data for: 'Political Leadership in the Media: Gender Bias in Leader Stereotypes during Campaign and Routine Times.' - Aaldering and Van der Pas

Replication Data for: 'Political Leadership in the Media: Gender Bias in Leader Stereotypes during Campaign and Routine Times.' - Aaldering and Van der Pa