Previous research suggested that news media coverage tone tends to become more negative for successful women in politics (but not for successful men) when compared with less successful and well-known women. This study tests this in 17 countries. Specifically, it examines relationships between greater parliamentary representation of women and the coverage tone in articles on women in that country through a computational analysis of millions of persons’ names in more than 1,000 newspapers. Growth in parliamentary representation of women is associated with more negative coverage, lending support for explanations that suggest reactionary responses to perceived breaching of gendered social hierarchies.
BautinM.WardC.PatilA.SkienaS. (2010, April26–30). Access: News and blog analysis for the social sciences [Conference session]. 19th International World Wide Web Conference, Raleigh, NC, United States.
2.
BoehmerU.WilliamsonJ. (1996). The impact of women’s status on infant mortality rate: A cross-national analysis. Social Indicators Research, 37(3), 333–360.
3.
BolzendahlC. (2009). Making the implicit explicit: Gender influences on social spending in twelve industrialized democracies, 1980–99. Social Politics, 16(1), 40–81.
4.
BolzendahlC.BrooksC. (2007). Women’s political representation and welfare state spending in 12 capitalist democracies. Social Forces, 85(4), 1509–1534.
5.
BradenM. (1996). Women politicians and the media. The University of Kentucky Press.
6.
BradyD. (2009). Rich democracies, poor people: How politics explains poverty. Oxford University Press.
7.
BystromD. G.RobertsonT. A.BanwartM. C. (2001). Framing the fight: An analysis of media coverage of female and male candidates in primary races for governor and U.S. Senate in 2000. American Behavioral Scientist, 44(12), 1999–2013.
8.
Caul KittilsonM.FridkinK. (2007). Gender, candidate portrayals and election campaigns: A comparative perspective. Politics & Gender, 4(3), 371–392.
9.
CelisK. (2007). Substantive representation of women: The representation of women’s interests and the impact of descriptive representation in the Belgian Parliament (1900–1979). Journal of Women, Politics and Policy, 28(2), 85–114.
10.
ChattopadhyayR.DufloE. (2004). Women as policymakers: Evidence from a randomized policy experiment in India. Econometrica, 72(5), 1409–1443.
11.
ChildsS. (2002). New Labour’s women MPs: Women representing women. Routledge.
12.
ChildsS.KrookM. L. (2009). Analysing women’s substantive representation: From critical mass to critical actors. Government & Opposition, 44(2), 125–145.
13.
ComrieM. (2006). The media and leadership. In MillerR.MintromM. (Eds.), Political leadership in New Zealand (pp. 175–195). Auckland University Press.
14.
DemerittJ.AngelaH.NicholsD.KellyE. (2015). Female participation and civil war relapse. Civil Wars, 16(3), 346–368.
15.
DixonT. (2008). Crime news and racialized beliefs: Understanding the relationship between local news viewing and perceptions of African Americans and crime. Journal of Communication, 58(1), 106–125.
16.
FallonK.SwissL.ViternaJ. (2012). Resolving the democracy paradox: How democratization affects women’s legislative representation in developing nations. American Sociological Review, 77(3), 380–408.
17.
FowlerL. L.LawlessG. L. (2009). Looking for sex in all the wrong places: Press coverage and the electoral fortunes of gubernatorial candidates. Perspectives on Politics, 7, 315–335.
GidengilE.EverittJ. (2003). Conventional coverage/unconventional politicians: Gender and media coverage of Canadian leaders’ debates, 1993, 1997, 2000. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 36(3), 559–577.
20.
GilensM. (1996). Race and poverty in America: Public misperceptions and the American news media. Public Opinion Quarterly, 60(4), 515–514.
21.
GilensM. (1999). Why Americans hate welfare: Race, media, and the politics of antipoverty policy. University of Chicago Press.
22.
GodboleN.SrinivasaiahM.SkienaS. (2007, March26–28). Large-scale sentiment analysis for news and blogs [Conference session]. Third International conference on Weblogs and Social Media, Boulder, CO, United States.
23.
GolanG.WantaW. (2001). Second-level agenda setting in the New Hampshire primary: A comparison of coverage in three newspapers and public perceptions of candidates. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 78(2), 247–259.
24.
GrossL. (2001). Up from invisibility: Lesbians, gay men and the media in America. Columbia University Press.
25.
HeldmanC.CarrollS. J.OlsonS. (2005). “She brought only a skirt”: Print media coverage of Elizabeth Dole’s bid for the republican presidential nomination. Political Communication, 22(3), 315–335.
26.
HendersonA. (1999). Getting even: Women MPs on life, power, and politics. HarperCollins.
27.
HomanP. (2017). Political gender inequality and infant mortality in the United States, 1990–2012. Social Science and Medicine, 182, 127–135.
28.
HuddyL.TerkildsenN. (1993). Gender stereotypes and the perception of male and female candidates. American Journal of Political Science, 37(1), 119–147.
29.
HyunK. D.MoonS. J. (2016). Agenda setting in the partisan TV news context: Attribute agenda setting and polarized evaluation of presidential candidates among viewers of NBC, CNN, and Fox news. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 93(3), 509–529. https://doi.org/DOI:10.1177/1077699016628820
30.
KahnK. F. (1992). Does being male help? An investigation of the effects of candidate gender and campaign coverage of U.S. Senate candidates. The Journal of Politics, 54(2), 497–517.
31.
KahnK. F. (1994). The distorted mirror: Press coverage of women candidates for statewide office. The Journal of Politics, 56(1), 154–173.
32.
KenworthyL.MalamiM. (1999). Gender inequality in political representation: A worldwide comparative analysis. Social Forces, 78(1), 235–268.
KittilsonM. (2008). Representing women: The adoption of family leave in comparative perspective. Journal of Public Exonomics, 70(2), 323–334.
35.
LamontM.FournierM. (Eds.). (1992). Cultivating differences: Symbolic boundaries and the making of inequality. University of Chicago Press.
36.
MacmillanR.ShofiaN.SigleW. (2018). Gender and the politics of death: Female representation, political and developmental context, and population health in a cross-national panel. Demography, 55(4), 1905–1934.
37.
McCombsM. E. (2004). Setting the agenda: The mass media and public opinion. Polity Press.
38.
McCombsM. E.LlamasJ. P. L.-E.Esteban ReyF. (1997). Candidate images in Spanish elections: Second-level agenda-setting effects. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 74(4), 703–717.
39.
McGregorJ. (1996). Gender politics and the news: The search for a Beehive Bimbo-Boadicea. In McGregorJ. (Ed.), Dangerous democracy? News media politics in New Zealand (pp. 181–196). Dunmore.
40.
MeeksL. (2012). Is she “man enough”? Women candidates lead to atypical coverage?Howard Journal of Communication, 23, 272–287.
41.
MeeksL. (2013). He wrote, she wrote: Journalist gender, political office, and campaign news. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 90(1), 58–74.
42.
MeyerB. (2003). Much ado about nothing? Political representation policies and the influence of women parliamentarians in Germany. The Review of Policy Research, 20(3), 401–421.
43.
OliverM. B. (2003). African American men as “criminal and dangerous”: Implications of media portrayals of crime on the “criminalization” of African American men. Journal of African American Studies, 7(2), 3–18.
44.
PaxtonP. (1997). Women in national legislatures: A cross-national analysis. Social Science Research, 26(4), 442–464.
45.
PooleE. (2002). Reporting Islam: Media representation of British Muslims. IB Tauris.
46.
PowellK. (2011). Framing Islam: An analysis of U.S. media coverage of terrorism since 9/11. Communication Studies, 62(1), 90–112.
47.
QuamruzzamanA.LangeM. (2016). Female political representation and child health: Evidence from a multilevel analysis. Social Science and Medicine, 171, 48–57.
48.
RidgewayC. (2013). Why status matters for inequality. American Sociological Review, 79(1), 1–16.
49.
RudmanL.Moss-RacusinC.PhelanJ.NautsS. (2012). Status incongruity and backlash effects: Defending the gender hierarchy motivates prejudice against female leaders. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(1), 165–179.
50.
RyanK. (2013). The media’s war on women: Gendered coverage of female candidates. Xavier Journal of Politics, 4(1), 13–25.
51.
ScharrerE. (2002). An “improbable leap”: A content analysis of newspaper coverage of Hillary Clinton’s transition from first lady to Senate candidate. Journalism Studies, 3(3), 393–406.
52.
Schwindt-BayerL. (2006). Still supermadres? Gender and the policy priorities of Latin American legislators. American Journal of Political Science, 50(3), 570–585.
53.
Shair-RosenfieldS.WoodR. (2017). Governing well after war: How improving female representation prolongs post-conflict peace. The Journal of Politics, 79(3), 996–1009.
54.
ShorE. (2018). Media partisanship and coverage sentiment: Are conservative newspapers more negative toward women?Social Science Quarterly, 100, 307–319.
55.
ShorE.Van de RijtA.FotouhiB. (2019). A large-scale test of gender bias in the media. Sociological Science, 6, 526–550.
56.
ShorE.van de RijtA.MiltsovA. (2019). Do women in the newsroom make a difference? Sentiment toward women and men as a function of newsroom composition. Sex Roles, 81, 44–58.
57.
ShorE.van de RijtA.MiltsovA.KulkarniV.SkienaS. (2015). A paper ceiling: What explains the sex-ratio inequality in printed news coverage?American Sociological Review, 80(5), 960–984.
58.
ShorE.van de RijtA.WardC.AsakarS.SkienaS. (2014). Is there a political bias? A computational analysis of female subjects’ coverage in liberal and conservative newspapers. Social Science Quarterly, 95(5), 1213–1229.
59.
ShorE.van de RijtA.WardC.BlankA.SkienaS. (2014). Time trends in printed news coverage of female subjects, 1880–2008. Journalism Studies, 15(6), 740–756. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2013.834149
60.
SommersS. R.ApfelbaumE. P.DukesK. N.ToosiN.WangE. J. (2006). Race and media coverage of Hurricane Katrina: Analysis, implications, and future research questions. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 6(1), 39–55.
61.
SorensenA. (2007). Bestseller lists and product variety. The Journal of Industrial Economics, 55(4), 715–738.
62.
SteinerL.FejesF.PetrichK. (1993). Invisibility, homophobia and heterosexism: Lesbians, gays and the media. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 10(4), 395–422.
63.
SwissL.FallonK.BurgosG. (2012). Does critical mass matter? Women’s political representation and child health in developing countries. Social Forces, 91(2), 531–558.
64.
TrimbleL.TreibergN. (2010). Either way, there’s going to be a man in charge: Media representations of New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark. In MurrayR. (Ed.), Cracking the highest glass ceiling: A global comparison of women’s campaigns for executive office (pp. 115–136). Praeger.
65.
van AckerE. (2003). Media representations of women politicians in Australia and New Zealand: High expectations, hostility or stardom. Policy and Society, 22(1), 116–136.
66.
van de RijtA.ShorE.WardC.SkienaS. (2013). Only 15 minutes? The social stratification of fame in printed media. American Sociological Review, 78(2), 266–289.
