Style Over Substance -- Notes

Newspaper Coverage of Female Candidates: Spotlight on Elizabeth Dole
- Sean Aday and James Devitt

Reserve Reading

-After Geraldine Ferraro's nomination:
-"Ferraro has nicer legs than any previous vice-presidential candidate"
-"Will she be the first VP to enter a wet T-shirt contest?"
-If she became president:
-"What is she is supposed to push the button to fire missiles and can't because she's just done her nails?"
-"Does the country go to hell during that 'time' of the month?"
-Similar conditions still exist for female elected officials
-biased coverage of women is not isolated, it's systematic, differences in coverage that undermine female candidates
-66% of Americans say press would be tougher on female pres then male
-Academia mostly studied gov/congress running, but studied how Dole was covered

Executive Summary
-Quantity: Dole received less coverage then Bush but more then McCain or Forbes
-Quality of Issue Coverage: Dole=less issue coverage than any of male pres candidates
-Quality of Personal Coverage: Dole=more personal coverage than any of male candidates
-Quality of Candidate Quotes: Only Bush quoted more then Dole, but reporteres directly quoted Dole less and more often paraphrased her statements
Gender of Reporter
-male reporters=bulk of paragraphs studied, 65%
-female reporters more likely to describe Doles position on issues
-men more likely to describe male candidates positions
-male reporters more likely to describe Doles personal traits

Findings
-expanding on White House Project
Candidate Frames
-studied Des Moines Register, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, USA Today, and Washington Post
-Studied paragraphs
-Dole was treated differently then male counterparts in a way that enforced gender stereotypes
-Dole had more coverage then McCain and Forbes even though she dropped out first
-Bush 52.4%, Dole 19.9%, McCain 13.5%, Forbes 9.7%
-All five papers had less about Doles issues then the other candidates
-only 17% of paragraphs about Dole were issue/policy based
-25.5-40% of paragraphs for male candidates were.
-Readers learned more about Doles personal traits
-Personal coverage does not offer info on how candidates will govern,, suggesting they don't have credibility
-4% of Doles paragraphs in USA Today had issues
-Most newspapers equally likely to use personal traits and issues in paragraphs
Accounting for the Findings
-Dole didn't run a personality-based campaign and didn't spend less time talking about issues
-Dole didn't emphasis her gender apart from "making history"
-Often say "she'd rather discuss what she felt were important issues"
-Personal frames: age, appearance, background, family/marital statues, persnality +
qualifications
-Mostly mentioned her background and personality
-Dole has long-standing reputation for keeping distance from reporters
-Personal frame not solely gender based, McCain got a lot of personality coverabe
-Less likely to talk about her background then that of her male counterparts, because it was to be taken less seriously
-gender of reporter did influence coverage
-female reporters gave even issue coverage, didn't advantage Dole
-men gave other men more issue coverage while shortchanging Dole
-strategy frames used the same so the difference is between issue and personal;
Candidate Quotes
-Dole had less direct quotes, reporters didn't let her speak for herself
-Dole either less quoteable or taken less seriously
-Less likely to back up Dole's ideas with evidence

Conclusion
-Dole downplayed significance of her gnder
-On suraface reporters tried to treat her the same, but they covered her very differently
-"few women get taken seriously as potentional presidential candidates"
-voters couldn't learn what she stood for as well because it wasn't covered
-difference partially from difference in gender of reporters
-Bush had much more money then her, so press would have helped her get her message out but it didn't
-"woman making a bid in a male-dominated world of politics being covered by an almost equally male-dominated press corps"

Previous Research
Female Candidates and Public Officials
-Researchers concluded journalists rarely employ simple gender stereotypes in covering women leaders
-Previous research found newspapers covering personal info of wmn more then men
-Wmn are less likely to have issues focused on even though they are more likely to make issues the cornerstone of their campaign
-similar conclusions over coverage of congress members
-press focus of "female legislators" as a group isntead of individual women
-wmn more likely to be subjected to negative gender distinctions
-similar quotes conclusions as well
-because of discrepencies in coverage, public believes men better at handling tough issues
-media portray men as strong and women as approachable and sensitive
-women shouldn't act more hostile to compensate
Female and Male Reporters
-female and male reporters did not treat female and male sources differently
-difference in the coverage of female andmale gov candidates
-journalists focus on personal on women, news media focus on professional covering men
-creates less understanding of females stand

Methodology
-parts from 5 newspapers all analyzed by paragraph
-covered only news stories, not opinion, editorial etc.
-also only looked at campaign stories
Coding
-story topic, gender of reporter, descriptions of male + female candidates, candidate quotes
CANDIDATE DESCRIPTIONS
-if both candidates mentioned, both counted
-looked for strategy frames
CANDIDATE QUOTES
-examine quote to see if backed by evidence, reasoning or details