Blog Post 1

When I was starting research, I wanted to focus specifically on the 2024 presidential election. This election was incredibly interesting due to the unique circumstances surrounding the election itself, with the primary Democratic candidate, President Joe Biden, dropping out of the race mere months before the election, supporting Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party nominee. Moreover, this was the second time in recent history that a woman was running as the leading candidate for the Democratic Party, and both times the female candidate was running against the same person, Former President Donald Trump. Initially, I wanted to focus my research on the difference in how the male candidate campaigned against the female candidate, as Trump had run against both male and female candidates in the past. However, this research was incredibly narrow as it would only allow me to look at the difference in how Trump campaigned, not the difference between how women are campaigned against in general, and therefore the research would have limited implications as all of the results would be focused specifically on Donald Trump, who can no longer run for presidency. Upon further research looking into gender bias in political campaigns, I found extensive research on previous elections worldwide looking at how the media portrayed women when compared to men. Looking at this research I found that a number of researchers conclude that there are significant differences between how men and women are portrayed by the media, leading to negative impacts on the campaigns of female candidates. This brought me to the gap in my research, as the 2024 presidential election had not yet occurred, the presence of gendered media bias had not yet been analysed, and therefore the research was novel. 

Upon discovering and finalising the gap in the research of gendered bias in the media coverage on political candidates, it was essential to look into what research had already been done on the topic. Evidently, there has been extensive amounts of prior research done on the topic in a number of journal articles and governmental organisations. Women are placed at a disadvantage in political news coverage as they are faced with a double standard of what is expected of them. This idea is seen in a study in the Xavier Journal of Psychology, that explains that the media pushes a double standard, where female candidates need to be perceived as both tough and nurturing, which creates a nearly impossible to fulfil standard that their male counterparts do not need to live up to in order to be perceived as a successful candidate (Ryan 15-23). Not only this, but the article explains that women are likely to receive news coverage based on traditional gender roles or stereotypes, therefore receiving less substantive coverage which impacts voter perception and makes female candidates seem weaker than their male counterparts(Ryan 15-23) . This article demonstrates that because of gender stereotypes that are present in the media due to bias, female candidates are less likely to be successful, therefore contributing to the underrepresented of women in political power positions. This idea is further supported by a study by the Global Media Monitoring Project, that determined that women are not only underrepresented in the news, making up only 21% of news subjects, creating the illusion that women are not achieving as much as men, but also the topics that women are covered with regards to differs significantly from that of men (Council of Europe, 19). Women, due to the aforementioned stereotypes and expectations of women being "nurturing", are not often permitted or invited to speak on traditionally masculine or "hard" topics. These topics include those such as government, economics, crime and defence, making up 66% of news coverage. In contrast, the "soft" topics that female politicians are often called on to speak about such as health, education and human rights make up a combined 6% of news coverage (Council of Europe, 19). Not only does this stereotype based coverage impacts the perceived capability of the candidates, as research in the United States showed that voters typically respond better to candidates who talk about "hard" topics, regardless of their gender (Council of Europe, 19). Similarly, a peer reviewed article looking at the election of Flemish ministers saw the women in elite level politics also face the problem of less substantive and biased coverage. The article looked at three different dimensions of coverage, news presence, news prominence and substantive representation through five different newspapers, comparing the representation in the papers to the percentage of female ministers in the government. While the article found the women actually are over-represented numerically and mentions of their personal lives were nearly equal to that of male candidates, there were a number of discrepancies when it came to how the female candidates were discussed and in what context (Storme, 222-248). For instance, female candidates had their appearance and gender mentioned significantly more than male candidates, which implies that female politicians are different from the standard, and therefore unequal to the "standard", that being male politicians (Storme, 222-248). Moreover, the research found that when discussing families and personal life, while numerically the personal lives of male and female candidates are discussed equally, the personal life of a female candidate is often discussed as a point of contention while a male's personal life is often referenced in terms of support and encouragement (Storme, 222-248). This shows that there is an undeniable difference in how male and female politicians are portrayed in the media, and even though they may be numerically represented equally, there are often different in content, tone and context. 

The methodology used in this project is based entirely off of a research paper by University of Florida student of mass communications Eliana DuBosar who completed an incredibly similar project to the one that I aim to complete, looking at the gender bias in the media coverage of the 2016 United States presidential election of Trump versus Clinton, specifically looking at online news websites, which is the same as what I am to do in my own research.

Article Collection

In order to gather the articles used in this research, I will use the ProQuest database, and I will look only at full text sources that are categorised as news, editorial, article or a feature (DuBosar, 5). Moreover the newspapers from which the articles originate will be controlled by taking five different newspapers, one from each political affiliation, by randomly selecting newspapers from each affiliation found on the AllSides and Ad Fontes media bias charts (DuBosar, 5). I will use search terms that mimic those used by DuBosar in her research but altered so that they are better suited for my research into the 2024 election. The search terms that I will use are, "2024" AND "president" AND "election"AND "Trump" OR "Harris" (DuBosar, 5). The time frame for these article will also be limited based on DuBosar's research, meaning that the articles will be taken from the day that Harris was announced as the Democratic nominee to the day before the election. In total, I am to analyse a sample size of 200 articles, as seen in DuBosar's paper. 

Dominant Candidate

In order to see the numerical representation of each candidate, the dominant candidate of each article analysed. The dominant candidate is the candidate with substantially more mentions, specifically 5 or more mentions more than the other candidate (DuBosar, 5). If neither of the candidates meet this threshold, neither candidate is dominant for that article. This data will be recorded and analysed later in the research. 

Once selected, the articles will be analysed for three specific frames, as seen in DuBosar's research.

Personal Frame

The first frame that is analysed for is the personal frame, which is characterised by any mentions of a candidates personal life. This is coded for by looking specifically at factors such as mentions of appearance, the candidates role within their family and other character traits not directly related to their campaign (DuBosar, 5). These personality traits are then divided into subsections, those being positive and negative, and masculine and feminine. If a trait is neither traditionally masculine or feminine it will be coded for separately (DuBosar, 5). These mentions will be recorded and analysed at a later date in the research process. 

Issue Frame

The second frame that I will look at is the issue frame, which looks at the coverage that references a candidate's given policy position on a specific issue or stance (DuBosar, 5). In the issue frame the articles are coded for issues that are traditionally  defined as masculine and feminine, and those that are neither masculine nor feminine are coded for separately, similarly to how the personal frame is coded (DuBosar, 5). These issues will be recorded and analysed at a later date in the research process.

Strategic Game Frame

The third frame that I will look at is the strategic game frame, which means a candidates position or standing in the polls. In order to analyse this frame, the frame is broken down into tactics (DuBosar, 5). These tactics refer to strategies the candidate uses to do things such as garner votes and target specific voter groups, as well as polling, which refers to a candidate's actual standings and approval ratings (DuBosar, 5). These tactics are recorded and analysed at a later date in the research process. 

Despite being widely regarded as one of the most developed and influential countries in the world, the United States ranks 43rd in the world in terms of gender equality according to The Global Gender Gap Index (Pal, 12). This is not at all ideal, and a significant effort should be made in order to mitigate this prevalent problem of gender inequality. Evidently, one of the ways to best move towards gender equality is to put more women in positions of political power and prominence. This can be seen in a report by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, as this report found that when women are in positions of power, they employ collaborative and inclusive leadership styles that contribute to more equitable, stable, and caring societies (Cowper-Cowles). This style of leadership not only moves towards a more equal society in terms of gender, but a happier and more collaborative society as a whole. Since the United States is so far behind other developed nations in terms of gender equality it could greatly benefit from a rise in female leaders, but that is prohibited by media bias and unequal circumstances. This research will add to the academic conversation surrounding media bias, adding a more recent and relevant example of media bias in the United States, and therefore will lend to the conversation surrounding potential solutions to the bias that is seen.      

Council of Europe. "Portraying Politics: Gender and Media Coverage of Women in Politics." Council of Europe, 2006, 

www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureheritage/mars/source/resources/references/others/53%20-%20Portraying%20Politics%20-%202006%20COMP.pdf .

Cowper-Cowles, Minna. "Women Political Leaders: The Impact of Gender on Democracy." Westminster Foundation for Democracy, 25 Mar. 2021, www.wfd.org/what-we-do/resources/women-political-leaders-impact-gender-democracy.

DuBosar, Eliana. "Assessing Differences in the Framing of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump during the 2016 Presidential Election." Society, vol. 59, no. 2, 2022, pp. 169-180. ProQuest, https://ccco.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/assessing-differences-framing-hillary-clinton/docview/2655924884/se-2, doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-021-00659-8.

Pal, Kusum Kali, et al. “Global Gender Gap Report 2024.” World Economic Forum, 11 June 2024, www.weforum.org/publications/global-gender-gap-report-2024/.

Ryan, K. M. “The Reality of Reality Television: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Effects of Reality Television on Body Image.” Xavier Journal of Psychology, vol. 4, no. 1, 2013, 

pp. 15–23, https://www.xavier.edu/xjop/documents/vol4_2013/XJOPVol4No1Ryan.pdf.

Storme, Elise. “Hard Worker versus Pretty Eyes. Evaluating the Numerical and Substantive Representation of Flemish Ministers in Newspaper Articles.” Politics of the Low 

Countries 5.3 (2023): 222–248. Web. <https://doi.org/10.5553/plc/.000062>.