Media Coverage of Female Candidates’ Traits in the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Erin Cassese ◽  
Meredith Conroy ◽  
Dhrumil Mehta ◽  
Franchesca Nestor
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
Presidential Primary

Looking for Sex in All the Wrong Places: Press Coverage and the Electoral Fortunes of Gubernatorial Candidates

2009 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 519-536 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda L. Fowler ◽  
Jennifer L. Lawless
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
The Political ◽  
Press Coverage ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
Major Party ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
Baseline Effect

Although female candidates have achieved parity on some dimensions, political institutions remain deeply gendered in how they structure the parameters of electoral competition. We rely on a new data set of gubernatorial races from the 1990s to address the theoretical and empirical challenges created by the interaction of gender, media content, and electoral institutions. Based on an analysis of 1,365 newspaper articles for 27 contests in which a woman held a major party nomination, we uncover evidence of continuing bias in media coverage. Yet significant coefficients on candidate sex tell only part of the story. Gendered contextual factors linked to the contest and state in which candidates compete, as well as the newspapers that cover their races, also affect women's experiences on the campaign trail. The major finding, however, is the presence of a powerful baseline effect favoring male candidates that is deeply embedded in U.S. politics. All else equal, women gubernatorial candidates suffer a substantial vote deficit that results from non-observable influences. The results support the emerging consensus among feminist theorists that greater focus on the political context is likely to produce bigger scholarly payoffs than is continued attention to observable differences between male and female candidates.

scholarly journals Media Coverage, Public Interest, and Support in the 2016 Republican Invisible Primary

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (02) ◽  
pp. 326-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Reuning ◽  
Nick Dietrich
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Primary Elections ◽  
Primary Election ◽  
Presidential Primary ◽  
Dynamic Relationships

Donald Trump’s success in the 2016 presidential primary election prompted scrutiny for the role of news media in elections. Was Trump successful because news media publicized his campaign and crowded out coverage of other candidates? We examine the dynamic relationships between media coverage, public interest, and support for candidates in the time preceding the 2016 Republican presidential primary to determine (1) whether media coverage drives support for candidates at the polls and (2) whether this relationship was different for Trump than for other candidates. We find for all candidates that the quantity of media coverage had significant and long-lasting effects on public interest in that candidate. Most candidates do not perform better in the polls following increases in media coverage. Trump is an exception to this finding, receiving a modest polling bump following an increase in media coverage. These findings suggest that viability cues from news media contributed to Trump’s success and can be influential in setting the stage in primary elections.

Trump, Twitter, and news media responsiveness: A media systems approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 659-682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Wells ◽  
Dhavan Shah ◽  
Josephine Lukito ◽  
Ayellet Pelled ◽  
Jon CW Pevehouse ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Systems Approach ◽  
The United States ◽  
Relative Advantage ◽  
Presidential Primary ◽  
Media System ◽  
American Media ◽  
Media Systems

How populists engage with media of various types, and are treated by those media, are questions of international interest. In the United States, Donald Trump stands out for both his populism-inflected campaign style and his success at attracting media attention. This article examines how interactions between candidate communications, social media, partisan media, and news media combined to shape attention to Trump, Clinton, Cruz, and Sanders during the 2015–2016 American presidential primary elections. We identify six major components of the American media system and measure candidates’ efforts to gain attention from them. Our results demonstrate that social media activity, in the form of retweets of candidate posts, provided a significant boost to news media coverage of Trump, but no comparable boost for other candidates. Furthermore, Trump tweeted more at times when he had recently garnered less of a relative advantage in news attention, suggesting he strategically used Twitter to trigger coverage.

scholarly journals AFTER PARITY. A MIXED METHODS STUDY ON GENDER BIAS IN THE VOLUME OF MEDIA COVERAGE OF ELECTORAL CAMPAIGNS

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Frida V. Rodelo
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Gender Bias ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Parity Principle ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
And Gender

The absence of gender bias in the media coverage of political campaigns is one of the elements of the much sought after political participation of women. In this respect, Mexico is an interesting case as its legal framework has transitioned in a few years to include a mandated parity principle. In this study, we examine the relationship between the volume of coverage and gender to determine if there were gender differences in the radio coverage of local elections in Mexico (2012-2015). Findings show lower average shares of coverage for women after the increase in female candidates mandated by the parity principle. Semi-structured interviews conducted with journalists and former candidates suggest that the gender bias may reflect adverse attitudes towards female newcomers benefitted by the parity law, and gender differences in campaign resources, candidate placement criteria, and candidates’ political experience.

Personalization, social media, and voting: Effects of candidate self-personalization on vote intention

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 1139-1160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon C McGregor
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Presence ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
Parasocial Interaction ◽  
Popular Discourse ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
Vote Intention

Scholars have documented growth in media coverage and popular discourse focusing on politicians’ personal lives— personalization. Candidates use social media and personalization to circumvent mainstream news media, disrupting conventional processes. This personalization arguably increases voters’ reliance on personal characteristics as voting heuristics. An online experiment exposed more than a thousand US adults to personalized or policy/campaigning tweets from a male or female US Senator running for re-election. Candidates who personalized elicited higher evaluations of social presence and parasocial interaction. For female candidates who shared a supported party with a respondent, personalization leads to feelings of perceived presence and parasocial interaction. Ultimately, the feelings of intimacy created by personalized tweets led respondents to express support for personalizing candidates, but this effect is contingent upon the gender and in-party status of the candidate.

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