Political candidate coverage: Relying on gender stereotypes
In her article from Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, Dr. Nichole M. Bauer (Louisiana State University) discusses how news coverage on political candidates relies on gender stereotypes.
A substantial amount of the information voters receive about political candidates comes through the news media, whether televised news, online, or print publication. Using feminine or masculine stereotypes in candidate coverage can shape how voters use these concepts to evaluate candidates.
There are two ways the news media can affect voter decision making. First, the news media can engage in different patterns of coverage for female relative to male candidates. Second, there can be a lack of agenda convergence where there is a disjuncture between news coverage and a campaign’s central message.
Evidence from recent elections indicates the news media rarely use feminine stereotypes to describe female candidates; rather, the news media use masculine stereotypes more frequently to describe both female and male candidates.
Moreover, there are no significant differences in the quantity of coverage received by candidates. These newer findings of no influence of gender stereotypes in the American context deviate from earlier studies that found that female candidates received more horserace coverage and more coverage on feminine traits and feminine issues. News coverage in the decade after the proverbial “Year of the Woman” in 1992 covered female candidates differently from male candidates, in part, because of news values and norms. News values and norms dictate that the media cover events and political actors that are atypical, and in the 1990s, female candidates were certainly atypical candidates. A steady stream of female candidates over the past 25 years of American elections, including a female presidential nominee, means that these candidacies are no longer novel. Other democracies that are less candidate-focused and have higher rates of women’s representation relative to the American context find, however, that gender stereotypes are prevalent in news coverage of female candidates. Contrary to Hayes and Lawless, increasing women’s political representation may lead to more and not fewer gender stereotypes in news coverage.
The lack of differences in the coverage received by female and male candidates does not mean that gender stereotypes are absent from elections. The extensive focus on masculine stereotypes reinforces the perception that politics is a masculine institution.
Masculine news coverage sends two signals to political candidates and to voters. First, the masculine content of news coverage signals to candidates that feminine stereotypes have little value in politics. This perception can lead female candidates to highlight masculine over feminine qualities to garner more news coverage. Second, using masculine stereotypes to characterize female and male candidates reinforces the role incongruity between being female and being a political leader. Even though the news media talk about the same type of issues and traits in candidate coverage does not necessarily mean that voters will respond to the information in a gender-neutral way.
Aside from explicit trait and issue references, there are other ways the news media can reinforce gender stereotypes.
The news media discuss candidate personality traits, regardless of whether those traits are feminine or masculine, more frequently when a female candidate is on the ballot while races with two male candidates are more likely to receive coverage about substantive policies.
Female candidates are also more likely to receive coverage of their hair, clothes, or shoes relative to male candidates. Recent analyses suggest this more superficial type of campaign coverage may be dissipating when it comes to coverage of down-ballot candidates. Analyses of high profile female candidates, such as Sarah Palin in 2008 and Hillary Clinton in 2008 and 2016, find evidence of superficial news coverage. Hayes and Lawless reasoned that the subtle sexism exhibited in news coverage of high-profile female contenders are the exception rather than the rule. Nevertheless, the visibility of high-profile female candidates can still shape how voters use gender stereotypes to evaluate less visible political women.
Much of the research on the tone, quality, and quantity of candidate news coverage focuses on differences across candidate sex, and does not consider how the intersection of race and gender shape news coverage of female candidates. White female candidates are less likely to receive novelty news coverage in the present compared to the 1990s, but minority women still receive novelty news coverage — if covered at all. Again, news norms that value the unusual or atypical in a story can create these differences across candidate race and ethnicity. News coverage that draws attention to candidate race and/or gender can exacerbate the perception that minority women are political outsiders who do not fit conventional perceptions of political leadership.
A second way the news media can cover female and male candidates differently is through a lack of agenda convergence. Agenda convergence refers to the extent to which the news coverage of a candidate reflects the message of the candidate’s campaign.
If news media do not accurately report the female candidate’s central campaign message, this could indicate bias in reporting — especially if convergence is more likely to occur for male candidates. Measuring agenda convergence between candidates and campaigns indicates that female candidates frequently emphasize feminine stereotypes; but the news media use masculine stereotypes to cover female candidates. Possible causes of a disjuncture between female candidate strategy and news media coverage include news norms and routines that pressure journalists to focus on conflict between candidates, and this may not always reflect the message of a candidate.
In sum, analyzing lower-level elections suggests few differences across candidate sex in the way stereotypes emerge in news coverage. High-profile elections for high-stakes offices such as the presidency may find evidence of feminine stereotypes in coverage. The dominantly masculine content of news coverage suggests that feminine qualities have a small role in the overwhelmingly masculine domain of politics. The next section considers how candidate strategy and the news media affect voter reliance on gender stereotypes in decision making.
Nichole M. Bauer is an Assistant Professor of Political Communication in the Department of Political Science & the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University
