Not Seen and Not Heard? The Representation of Young Women and Their Political Interests in the Traditional Print Public Sphere

Abstract

A number of marginalized groups, including women and young people face multiple disadvantages in the traditional print media public sphere. As an inherently political space, young women’s position within the public sphere has implications for their wider role in politics and society. However, few studies analyze this specific intersection of youth and gender empirically. Using recent original data, this article analyzes how young women and their interests are represented in the traditional media public sphere. It uses the lens of political claims analysis, a method that collects data on strategic interventions that express a political opinion either verbal or nonverbal, by collective actors in the public sphere, in addition to the thematic content analysis of the coded claims. This is an exploratory analysis of original political claims data and news content gathered from a range of newspapers across nine European countries from the period 2010 to 2016. It finds that the main qualities of representation confirm patterns within existing literature, with a centrality of young women’s bodies within our sample, and a low level of agency or “active” role for young women within claims relating to their own interest. Furthermore, we empirically confirm trends which offer examples of more progressive representations of young women and their interests, including the significance of civil society actors in promoting the rights of young women and the theme of gender (in)equality in professional life, which enables space for a greater level of agency for young women than most other debates.