Gender, Politics, News: A Game of Three Sides

From Margaret Thatcher and Benazir Bhutto to Hillary Clinton, women have made great strides in the political arena in recent decades. Yet studies have shown that media coverage can have a dramatic effect on the public perception of women in politics. Gender, Politics, News: A Game of Three Sides explores the origins and evolution of the role of gender in the broader processes of political communication. Focusing primarily on power, patriarchy, and culture, author Karen Ross reveals the incredibly complex relationships that exist between politics, gender, and media in the modern era. She probes deeply into the myriad ways in which these issues play out both in the high octane context of national elections and during the deadline–driven pressures of everyday political reportage. Topics covered include feminist theories of politics and political communication, gendered journalism, the ways in which women political candidates are framed in news discourse during elections, gender considerations in the role of the political spouse, the differential treatment of women and men politicians by the media and the public in the face of scandal, and many more. Ross offers a global perspective on issues of gender, politics, and news media with a range of case studies from the US, UK, New Zealand, South America, and more. Timely and thought–provoking, Gender, Politics, News: A Game of Three Sides is an important and unique addition to the growing scholarship on gendered political communication, which argues that despite some encouraging moments, politics and news are still primarily jobs for the boys. 

Karen Ross is Professor of Gender and Media in the School of Arts and Cultures, Newcastle University, UK. Her teaching and research are focused on issues of gender, media and society including aspects of social media, public and political communication, and the wider diversity and inclusion agenda. She is the UK and European Coordinator of the Global Media Monitoring Project. She is the author and editor of a number of books, most recently Gender Equality and the Media: A Challenge for Europe (with Claudia Padovani, 2016); A Handbook of Gender, Sex and Media (Wiley Blackwell, 2012); and Gendered Media: Women, Men and Identity Politics (2009).

Acknowledgments ix

1 Introduction 1

2 Women and Politics: Then and Now 11

3 Women in the Boyzone 31

4 Women, Politics, and Campaign Coverage: More (or Less) Bad News 55

5 Girls on Top? Winning and Losing the Political Crown 81

6 Behind Every Great Man (or Occasionally Woman): The Political Spouse 117

7 Scandalicious: The Politics of Scandal and the Scandal of Politics 147

8 Conclusions 179

Select Bibliography 191

Index 223