Biases and (MIS-)representation of female politicians in news media

Abstract

Research on gender bias in the media can also be closely related to news media exposure. Since the 1970s, researchers have worked to expose gender biases located within the mass media that make its appearance felt in various, innumerable ways. Female politicians get less exposure to the news than male politicians or are exposed negatively, thus preventing them from gaining public trust as political leaders (Sazali & Basit, 2020; Steiner, 2019). In contrast, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action 1995 assigns the role of media a place in bringing greater attention to women’s contributions as it aims to achieve equality across various fields. According to Djerf-Pierre & Edström (2020), voice and visibility in the news mass media have a significant influence in striving for gender equality and the elimination of stereotypes in society which are seen as a balance of composition, social roles, actions, perspectives, and the application of the principle of justice between men and women in society. The literature review method of qualitative evidence was chosen as a study design. This study aims to find out how to dismantle the discourse of news language in the concept of gender equality in mass media. This research offers the concept of Feminism Post-structuralism Discourse Analysis (FPDA), developed by British linguistic expert Judith Baxter (2018). The results of this study state that by using the FPDA as a method, researchers can deconstruct news scripts adapted to language classifications that lead to feminist discourse. Furthermore, in their deconstruction of such texts, researchers may further identify the agenda of media companies and their position on the feminism movement as a whole: whether they are anti-, pro-, or neutral to feminism and its objectives.

Keywords

• gender
• mass media
• discourse
• post-structural
• feminism