Periodic Reporting for period 1 - WPMF (Women, Politics and Media Framing (WPMF) in the UK and in Israel – Tackling Western Democracies' Gender Inequality in Politics)
Période du rapport: 2018-10-01 au 2020-09-30
The results of the quantitative analysis regarding the extent of permeation of feminist ideas into mainstream discourse suggested that the trends and patterns of visibility for different newspapers were broadly similar. It appeared that they followed the same type of stories whether they were left or right-leaning newspapers, tabloids or broadsheets, British or Israeli national dailies. Moreover, in both countries, whilst the keyword “feminism” was very prominent throughout most of the research period covered, other keywords (“gender” and “violence against women”) became more popular in the discourse in recent years.
The preliminary results for the quantitative and qualitative analysis of news stories about women Prime Ministerial candidates indicate that traditional, gender-normative frames are still prominent in the discourse compared to progressive ones. This suggests that there is still a long way to go until women will be perceived as equally competent candidates to their male counterparts and even be viewed as possessing added value for political leadership. Thus, by offering pathways to substantive change in media coverage of women politicians (such as the use of gender-neutral language in reporting and avoidance of mentioning irrelevant personal characteristics), this study’s conclusions and recommendations could encourage more women to enter the political arena and make a significant change in the status of women in Europe and worldwide and related long-term policies.
The data collection process involved visiting physical archives, such as the British Library in London, the National Library in Jerusalem and Yedioth Ahronoth’s newspaper archive, and using various newspaper digital archives through platforms such as LexisNexis, Gale and ProQuest.
The analysis included: 1) quantitative analysis of news and commentary articles about feminism and the status of women during election years between 1969-2019 in the Israeli and British daily newspapers selected; 2) quantitative and qualitative content analysis of articles focused on women Prime Ministerial candidates (two British candidates – Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May and two Israeli candidates – Golda Meir and Tzipi Livni).
Preliminary findings from the work were presented at the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) conference in Madrid in July 2019. The paper, entitled: “Cherchez la Femme: Finding Feminism in Newspapers’ Digital Archives – the Cases of UK and Israel”, focused on the challenges concerning the data collection process for this project. Based on the findings presented at the conference, a methodological paper, which critically engaged with the challenges of archival research methodology, was submitted to a peer-reviewed journal in the field of communication.
A draft of a second paper, which focuses on the media representation of the four female candidates for the premiership in the UK and in Israel, is under preparation. In addition, this research project was presented in a meeting of the Network of Interdisciplinary Media and Communication Research (NIMCR) group. Moreover, a commentary article was published (16th September 2019) in The Conversation, focused on the September 2019 Israeli election and the gender gap in voting, entitled: “Israel elections: who women vote for and how it’s shifting”.
For policy makers, journalists, media managers, media unions and NGOs, the project’s findings can serve as the basis for recommendations on changes which could be implemented in the media coverage of women politicians and feminist concerns. The likely impact of the project’s results on promoting gender equality lies in raising social, political and media awareness of the status of women and women’s issues; enhancing the salience of women’s voices in the decision-making process and helping feminist organisations to fight backlashes to political gender equality in Europe and Western democracies more broadly. Thereby it will help to fulfil the EU Strategic Engagement for Gender Equality 2016-2019 in terms of promoting gender equality in decision-making in the EU and beyond.