New Media/ Old News: Intersectionality, Women Politicians and Mainstream Online News Media in New Zealand

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to examine the representation of women politicians in mainstream online news media. In the last 20 years, there have been increases in the number of women in New Zealand Parliament and women have held key leadership positions, including Prime Minister. Nevertheless, women still only make up about a third of New Zealand Parliament, despite being half the nation’s population. The way women politicians are represented in mainstream news media is often referred to as an obstacle to women’s participation in politics. Previous studies have concluded that women are frequently underrepresented and misrepresented in mainstream news. News coverage focuses on sexbased stereotypes and/or employs gendered news frames which portray women as political outsiders or agents of change. I conduct a content analysis, underpinned by framing and intersectional theories to assess whether mainstream online news continues to exhibit patterns of gendered news coverage identified in previous research on women, politics and traditional forms of news media. Intersectional theory draws attention to the influence of multiple categories of social difference such as race, age, class and sexuality. The news websites selected for study are Stuff and The New Zealand Herald, as these are the two most visited news websites based in New Zealand. Analysis focuses on women political leaders and leadership candidates. The first case study examines the intersection of gender and race in mainstream online news coverage of Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei during the 2014 general election; while the second examines the intersection of gender and age in mainstream online news coverage of Labour deputy leader candidates Annette King and Jacinda Ardern during the months of August and November 2015. My findings indicate that gendered news frames and sex stereotyping are still evident in mainstream online news media. I also conclude that when we break down the category of women and consider intersecting categories of social difference we find that some women politicians are more likely to be omitted from news stories or portrayed as political outsiders. News coverage therefore not only differs between women and men, but between women politicians as well.