Journalistic Gender Stereotyping

Paper Summary:

This study investigates media stereotyping of American First Ladies Laura Welch Bush and Hillary Rodham Clinton principally using quantitative and qualitative content analysis. The research explores the amount and qualities of "Time" magazine's news coverage during their husband's first terms of office to establish, (i) who between Mrs. Clinton and Mrs. Bush is framed as most often politically active and (ii) who between them is more negatively stereotyped. Hypotheses predict that the most politically active First Lady will attract more media coverage and more negative stereotypes. Both hypotheses were supported by the research, which indicate that Hillary Clinton was framed both as the most politically active and negatively stereotyped of the two.

Table of COntents
I.Introduction
Etymology of Stereotypes
Scholarship on Gender Stereotypes
Stereotypes & America's First Ladies
II.The First Lady in American History
Early Interest in First Ladies
Scholarship Since the 1980s
Hillary Clinton & Laura Bush
III.Methodology
Data Collection
Setting
Coding
IV.Findings
V.Discussion and Conclusion

From the Paper:

"Across the globe, women are poorly represented in many facets of life - economic, political and scientific - despite the fact that they constitute the majority of the world's population. For example, females represent only about three per cent of all historical figures in Western civilization (Catell, 1903; Eisenstadt, 1978). In addition, only about one per cent of the notable contributors to science and technology are female (Simonton, 1991a)."

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