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The Gender of News and News of Gender: A Study of Sex, Politics, and Press Coverage of the 2010 British General Election

Ross, Karen; Evans, Elizabeth; Harrison, Lisa; Shears, Mary; Wadia, Khursheed

The Gender of News and News of Gender: A Study of Sex, Politics, and Press Coverage of the 2010 British General Election Thumbnail


Authors

Karen Ross

Elizabeth Evans

Lisa Harrison Lisa.Harrison@uwe.ac.uk
Associate Dean - Learning and Teaching

Mary Shears

Khursheed Wadia



Abstract

In the months leading up to the 2010 British General Election, pundits were claiming that women would be specifically targeted by all political parties. However, this focus never materialized and it was just more business as usual but with the added novelty of televised leaders' debates, which meant that coverage was more male ordered than ever. The study on which this article is based monitored articles published in the four weeks leading up to election day across twelve newspapers, comprising a mix of dailies and weekend editions, broadsheets and midmarket, and tabloid titles. The study concentrated on articles that had the election as the main story and which mentioned or sourced one or more candidates, both MPs seeking reelection, and Parliamentary Candidates. We were interested in exploring (any) differences in the news coverage of women and men candidates, looking at both frequency and content. Our findings suggest that women were much less likely to feature in news stories than men, even when controlling for Party Leader coverage. Women were much more likely to be mentioned or quoted in feature articles focused explicitly on gender issues, made interesting because of their sex and couture rather than their political abilities and experience. © The Author(s) 2013.

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Jan 1, 2013
Deposit Date Apr 9, 2013
Publicly Available Date Nov 15, 2016
Journal International Journal of Press/Politics
Print ISSN 1940-1612
Electronic ISSN 1940-1620
Publisher SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 18
Issue 1
Pages 3-20
DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161212457814
Keywords gender, election, campaign, newspapers
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/940173
Publisher URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1940161212457814
Contract Date Nov 15, 2016

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