Gender stereotypes in the mediated personalization of politics: Empirical evidence from a lexical, syntactic and sentiment analysis

TL;DR

This study analyzes gender stereotypes in Italian political media coverage from 2017 to 2020, revealing that women face more negative and stereotypical portrayals, especially online, impacting perceptions of their suitability for office.

Contribution

It combines lexical, syntactic, and sentiment analysis to empirically demonstrate gender biases in political media coverage, highlighting differences between online and print news.

Findings

Women politicians are portrayed with more negative tone.

Online news exhibits stronger gender stereotypes.

Stereotypes include masculine connotations of leadership.

Abstract

The media attention to the personal sphere of famous and important individuals has become a key element of the gender narrative. Here we combine lexical, syntactic and sentiment analysis to investigate the role of gender in the personalization of a wide range of political office holders in Italy during the period 2017-2020. On the basis of a score for words that is introduced to account for gender unbalance in both representative and news coverage, we show that the political personalization in Italy is more detrimental for women than men, with the persistence of entrenched stereotypes including a masculine connotation of leadership, the resulting women's unsuitability to hold political functions, and a greater deal of focus on their attractiveness and body parts. In addition, women politicians are covered with a more negative tone than their men counterpart when personal details are reported. Further, the major contribution to the observed gender differences comes from online news rather than print news, suggesting that the expression of certain stereotypes may be better conveyed when click baiting and personal targeting have a major impact.