Framing Madam Vice President: Global Newspaper Coverage of Kamala Harris in Her First Year

Abstract

The media’s portrayal of women in politics is crucial in shaping public perceptions of their effective leadership. While previous research has focused on the negative impact of stereotypical framing on women’s political engagement, this study takes a novel approach. We conduct an in-depth analysis of how international newspapers covered Vice President Kamala Harris in her first year, revealing a surprisingly optimistic narrative. The coverage emphasized her legislative impact, pandemic management, advocacy, diplomacy, performance and social identity. This unique perspective has significant implications for the praxis of women’s coverage, political communication and media studies, which we delve into in this paper.

Keywords

vice president Kamala Harris global newspapers framing minority women politics

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abdulaev

Shomron

(2020). Celebrity politicians as health-promoting role models in the media: The cases of Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Benjamin Netanyahu. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 35, 369–389.

Ainsley

Soboroff

(2021, January 26). Biden Justice Department officially rescinds Trump ‘zero tolerance’ migrant family separation policy. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/biden-justice-department-officially-rescinds-trump-zero-tolerance-migrant-family-n1255762.

Alieva

Bluth

(2023). Framing the US and Russia coverage: The limited agency of foreign correspondents and the reproduction of bias in the news. Journalism Studies, 24(16), 2036–2052.

Baccini

Brodeur

Weymouth

. (2021). The COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 US presidential election. Journal of Population Economics, 34(2), 739–767.

Bai

(2021). When racism and sexism benefit Black and female politicians: Politicians’ ideology moderates prejudice’s effect more than politicians’ demographic background. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 120(6), 1480–1520.

Balaji

Deshpande

(2019). Foreign policy and media: Analysis of media coverage during P.M. Narendra Modi period. International Journal of Social Science and Economic Research, 4(3), 2157–2170.

Bashri

(2019). Elections, representations, and journalistic schemas: Local news coverage of Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib in the US mid-term elections. Journal for Communication Studies, 12(2), 129–146.

Berry

(1994). USA Today, the London free press, and the rationalization of the North American newspaper industry. Canadian Journal of Communication, 19(2). https://cjc.utpjournals.press/doi/10.22230/cjc.1994v19n2a807

Brechenmacher

(2023, September 26). India’s new gender quota law is a win for women—Mostly. Carnegie Endowment. https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2023/09/indias-new-gender-quota-law-is-a-win-for-womenmostly?lang=en

10.

Burns

Eberhardt

Merolla

J. L.

(2013). What is the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Presentations of Palin and gender stereotypes in the 2008 presidential election. Political Research Quarterly, 66(3), 687–701.

11.

Butler

(2020, August 13). Kamala Harris is already facing sexist and racist attacks—And they’ll only get worse. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/kamala-harris-already-facing-sexist-racist-attacks-it-ll-only-ncna1236620

12.

Butler

(1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and subversion of identity. Routledge.

13.

Bystrom

D. G.

Robertson

T. A.

Banwart

M. C.

(2001). Framing the fight: An analysis of media coverage of female and male candidates in primary races for governor and US Senate in 2000. American Behavioral Scientist, 44(12), 1999–2013.

14.

Cantrell

T. H.

Bachmann

. (2008). Who is the lady in the window? A comparison of international and national press coverage of first female government heads. Journalism Studies, 9(3), 429–446.

15.

Cappella

N.J.

Jamieson

K.H

. (1997) Spiral of Cynicism. The Press and the Public Good. Oxford University Press.

16.

Chiluwa

(2011). Labeling and ideology in the press: A corpus-based critical discourse of the Niger Delta crisis. Peter Lang.

17.

Chong

Druckman

J. N.

(2007). A theory of framing and opinion formation in competitive elite environments. Journal of Communication, 57(1), 99–118.

18.

Clayton

Crabtree

Horiuchi

(2021). Do identity frames impact support for multiracial candidates? The case of Kamala Harris. Journal of Experimental Political Science, 10, 112–123.

19.

De Vreese

Peter

Semetko

H. A

. (2001). Framing politics at the launch of the Euro: A cross-national comparative study of frames in the news. Political Communication, 18(2), 107–122.

20.

Dimitrova

D. V.

Strombock

(2005). Mission accomplished? Framing of the Iraq War in the elite newspapers in Sweden and the United States. International Communication Gazette, 67(5), 399–417.

21.

Dolan

(2010). The impact of gender stereotyped evaluations on support for women candidates. Political Behavior, 32(1), 69–88.

22.

Domke

McCoy

Torres

(1999). News media, racial perceptions, and political cognition. Communication Research, 26(5), 570–607.

23.

Entman

R. M.

(1993). Framing: Towards clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51–58.

24.

Esser

d’Angelo

(2006). Framing the press and publicity process in US, British, and German general election campaigns: A comparative study of metacoverage. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 11(3), 44–66.

25.

Ette

(2023). Brexit and “specialness”: Mapping the UK–US relationship in the New York Times and The Guardian newspapers. Journalism and Media, 4(1), 231–243.

26.

Fiig

(2010). Media representation of women politicians from a gender to an intersectional perspective. Kvinder, Køn, & Forskning, 2(3), 41–49.

27.

Fiske

(1987). Television culture. Routledge.

28.

Fordjour

N. K. O.

Sikanku

. (2022). Vice-presidential candidates, language frames, and functions across two continental divides: An analysis of acceptance speeches. International Journal of Communication, 16(19), 864–882.

29.

Gaffney

A. M.

Blaylock

D. L.

(2010). Clinton’s race: Did she match the presidential prototype? Advancing Women in Leadership Journal, 30(6), 1–15.

30.

Galy-Badenas

Gray

F. E.

Cassidy

(2021). An intersectional approach to media coverage of politics in New Zealand: The case of Metiria Turei and Paula Bennett. Media International Australia, 187, 88–103.

31.

Gamson

W. A.

Modigliani

(1989). Media discourse and public opinion on nuclear power: A constructionist approach. American Journal of Sociology, 95(1), 1–37.

32.

Garcia-Blanco

Wahl-Jorgensen

(2012). The discursive construction of women politicians in the European press. Feminist Media Studies, 12(3), 422–441.

33.

Gershon

S. A.

(2013). Media coverage of minority congresswomen and voter evaluations: Evidence from an online experimental study. Political Research Quarterly, 66(3), 702–714.

34.

Gibbons

S. H.

(2021). Women and women of color in the 2020 U.S. election: A mixed-methods study of news framing [Unpublished Doctoral dissertation]. Washington State University. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2572591240?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true

35.

Gift

(2020). Why Kamala Harris was a safe vice presidential choice for Joe Biden. USApp–American Politics and Policy Blog. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/106435/

36.

Givhan

(2021, January 11). Kamala Harris grew up in a mostly white world. Then, she went to a Black university in a Black city. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/16/kamala-harris-grew-up-mostly-white-world-then-she-went-black-university-black-city/

37.

Goss

B. M.

(2004). Foreign correspondent: Spain in the gaze of the New York Times and The Guardian. Journalism Studies, 5(2), 203–219.

38.

Guest

MacQueen

K. M.

Namey

E. E.

(2012). Introduction to applied thematic analysis. Applied Thematic Analysis, 3(20), 1–21.

39.

Gurevitch

Levy

(1985). Introduction. In Gurevitch

Levy

(Eds.), Mass communication yearbook (Vol. 5, pp. 11–22). Sage.

40.

Gutgold

N. D.

(2021). Electing madam vice president: When women run women win. Rowman & Littlefield.

41.

Hanson

E. C.

(1995). Framing the world news: The Times of India in changing times. Political Communication, 12(4), 371–393.

42.

Harp

Loke

Bachmann

(2016). Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi hearing coverage: Political competence, authenticity, and the persistence of the double bind. Women’s Studies in Communication, 39(2), 193–210.

43.

Hogg

M. A.

(2001). A social identity theory of leadership. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5(3), 184–200.

44.

Ibroscheva

Raicheva-Stover

(2009). Engendering transition: Portrayals of female politicians in the Bulgarian press. The Howard Journal of Communications, 20(2), 111–128.

45.

Isacson

Meyer

Brewer

Pachico

(2021, March 17). Putting the U.S.-Mexico ‘border crisis’ narrative into context. WOLA. https://www.wola.org/analysis/putting-border-crisis-narrative-into-context-2021/

46.

Iyengar

(1990). Framing responsibility for political issues: The case of poverty. Political Behavior, 12, 19–40.

47.

Jenkins

Finneman

(2018). Gender trouble in the workplace: Applying Judith Butler’s theory of performativity to news organizations. Feminist Media Studies, 18(2), 157–172.

48.

Johnson-Myers

T. A.

(2021). Negative media frames and female politicians: A case study of Jamaica’s first female prime minister, Portia Simpson-Miller. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 28(1), 193–214.

49.

Krippendorff

(2004). Measuring the reliability of qualitative text analysis data. Quality and Quantity, 38(6), 787–800.

50.

Lau

V. W.

Bligh

M. C.

Kohles

J. C.

(2020). Leadership as a reflection of who we are: social identity, media portrayal, and evaluations of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US Presidential election. Sex Roles, 82(7), 422–437.

51.

Liu

(2024). Building network agenda in China-U.S. trade conflict news: Transnational comparative study across China, the United States, Singapore and Ireland. Newspaper Research Journal, 45, 134–156.

52.

Mastro

(2015). Why the media’s role in issues of race and ethnicity should be in the spotlight. Journal of Social Issues, 71(1), 1–16.

53.

McCombs

Reynolds

(2002). News influence on our pictures of the world. In Bryant

Zillmann

(Eds.), Media effects (pp. 11–28). Routledge.

54.

McDermott

M. L

. (1998). Race and gender cues in low-information elections. Political Research Quarterly, 51(4), 895–918.

55.

Meeks

(2013). All the gender that’s fit to print: How the New York Times covered Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin in 2008. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 90(3), 520–539.

56.

Meeks

(2021). Conservatives and women. In Jarvis

(Ed.), Conservative political communication (pp. 102–118). Routledge.

57.

Neff

(2021, November 5). Why are Colorado COVID-19 cases spiking? UCHealthToday. https://www.uchealth.org/today/why-are-colorado-covid-19-cases-spiking/

58.

Niven

(2001). Bias in the news: Partisanship and negativity in media coverage of presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 6(3), 31–46.

59.

O’Neill

Savigny

(2014). Female politicians in the British press: The exception to the “masculine” norm? Journalism Education, 3(1), 6–27.

60.

Okon

P. E.

Ajiboye

Ekanem

Omojola

(2018). Gendered news reportage? A study of The Guardian and The Sun newspapers, Nigeria. International Journal of Media, Journalism and Mass Communications, 4(3), 21–35.

61.

Osei-Appiah

(2021). Political expediency or competent leadership? In Lilleker

D. G.

Coman

I. A.

Gregor

Novelli

(Eds.), Political communication and COVID-19: Governance and rhetoric in times of crisis (pp. 292–302). Routledge.

62.

Osei Fordjour

N. K

. (2022). Fantasy themes, symbolic power, and Twitter: A multimodal analysis of Vice President Kamala Harris’s first 90 days. Howard Journal of Communications, 33(3), 314–334.

63.

Pannell

Baker

(2021). Gender balance in politics. https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/gender-balance-politics

64.

Schnall

(2020, May 18). Ten prominent women spotlight the need for women’s leadership during the pandemic and beyond. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/marianneschnall/2020/05/18/ten-prominent-women-spotlight-need-forwomens-leadershipduring-pandemic/?sh=2e45dd7c2498

65.

Semetko

H. A.

Boomgaarden

H. G.

(2007). Reporting Germany’s 2005 Bundestag election campaign: Was gender an issue?. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 12(4), 154–171.

66.

Sikanku

G. E.

(2013). Barack Obama’s identity construction and international media representations during the 2008 presidential election: A discursive and comparative framing analysis [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Iowa.

67.

Sikanku

G. E.

(2019). Global political campaign communication: Framing analysis of Elizabeth Warren and John Mahama’s presidential primary announcement videos. Ghana Social Science, 16(2), 84–114. https://ss.ug.edu.gh/sites/ss.ug.edu.gh/files/GSSJ%2016-2-2019_0.pdf

68.

Sreberny-Mohammadi

Ross

(1996). Women MPs and the media: Representing the body politic. Parliamentary Affairs, 49(1), 103–116.

69.

Trendook.com. (2022). Top 10 newspapers in the world—Newspapers with the highest circulation. https://web.archive.org/web/20230203110123/https://www.trendook.com/top-10-newspapers-in-the-world/

70.

Tuchman

(1978). Making news: A study in the construction of reality. Free Press.

71.

Tuchman

(2000). The symbolic annihilation of women by the mass media. In Crothers

Lockhart

(Eds.), Culture and politics: A reader (pp. 150–174). Palgrave Macmillan.

72.

Turcotte

Furey

Garcia-Ortega

J. O.

Hernandez

Siccion

Stephenson

(2021). The novelty news frame: How social identity influences policy attention of minority presidential candidates. Newspaper Research Journal, 42(1), 95–110.

73.

Udupa

Chakravartty

(2015). Changing with The Times of India (Bangalore): Remaking a post-political media field. In Punathambekar

Kumar

(Eds.), Television at Large in South Asia (pp. 9–28). Routledge.

74.

Van der Pas

D. J.

Aaldering

. (2020). Gender differences in political media coverage: A meta-analysis. Journal of Communication, 70(1), 114–143.

75.

Wagner

Trimble

Curtin

Auer

Woodman

V. K. G.

(2022). Representations of political leadership qualities in news coverage of Australian and Canadian government leaders. Politics & Gender, 18(3), 798–829.

76.

Ward

(2016). Seeing double: Race, gender, and coverage of minority women’s campaigns for the US House of Representatives. Politics & Gender, 12(2), 317–343.

77.

Ward

(2017). Intersectionality and press coverage of political campaigns: Representations of Black, Asian, and minority ethnic female candidates at the UK 2010 general election. The International Journal of Press/politics, 22(1), 43–66.

78.

Wasburn

P. C.

Wasburn

M. H.

(2011). Media coverage of women in politics: The curious case of Sarah Palin. Media, Culture & Society, 33(7), 1027–1041.

79.

Wilke

Heimprecht

Cohen

(2012). The geography of foreign news on television: A comparative study of 17 countries. International Communication Gazette, 74(4), 301–322.

80.

(2013). Framing Occupy Wall Street: A content analysis of the New York Times and USA Today. International Journal of Communication, 7, 2412–2432.

81.

Zelizer

(1992). Covering the body: The Kennedy assassination, the media, and the shaping of collective memory. University of Chicago Press.

82.

Zilber

Niven

(2000). Stereotypes in the news: Media coverage of African-Americans in Congress. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 5(1), 32–49.