Politicians, Journalists, and their Audiences: Gendered Aspects of Televised Election News in Canada

Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant

Department of Political Science McGill University, Montréal Submitted July 2007

A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy.

© Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant, 2007

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements i Abstract iii Résumé iv List of Abbreviations v

Chapter One: Introduction 1

Chapter Two: Analytical Framework 29

Chapter Three: Data and Methodologies 85

Chapter Four: 113 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage: Evidence from the 2000 Canadian Federal Election Campaign

Chapter Five 174 Women Journalists: Running with the Pack or Reporting in a Different Voice?

Chapter Six 242 Backlash or Boost? The Effects of Attack-Style Television News on Viewers

Chapter Seven 291 Political Image-Crafting through Media: Canadian Politicians Speak

Chapter Eight: Conclusion 374

Bibliography 403

Tables and Figures 458

Appendix One 485 Appendix Two 503 Appendix Three 507 Appendix Four 510 Appendix Five 512 Appendix Six 514

i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work is an intellectual product that benefited greatly from the guidance, support, and input of a fantastic collection of people. Like raising a child, my conclusion is that it takes a ‘village’ to earn a Ph.D.

First and foremost, I must thank my supervisor, Dr. Elisabeth Gidengil. Her intellectual rigor is outstanding, and her hand in guiding this research has been invaluable. She is one of the busiest academics anyone would meet, but she always made me feel like I was a high priority. No point was too large or too small to discuss at virtually a moment’s notice. When I submitted the draft version of chapter four to her, which weighed in at over 50 pages, she gave it back with commentary the following day. Of course, writing is not always roses, especially for the novice! When I veered off course or failed to give 100 percent, she was quick to say so. In this, Elisabeth understands perfectly what students need, as well as the gentlest way to deliver the inevitable ‘blows’. On the days when writing was like drawing blood from a stone, as the saying goes, Elisabeth inevitably boosted me with a gem of an idea. I could not have wished for a more pleasant or rewarding experience. She is my mentor, my role model, and my friend.

I have had the good fortune to be supported as well by two co-supervisors, Dr. Stuart Soroka and Dr. Jerome Black. Stuart’s bold style, sharp critical eye, and statistical expertise have been tremendous influences on this work. More than anyone else, Stuart has facilitated, likely without even knowing it, my discovery of a more assertive intellectual ‘voice’. For this I am grateful. Jerome’s guidance in the planning, structure, and technique of personal interviewing, as well as interpreting interview material were godsends. Without him, this dissertation would be something much different than it is (and not for the better). In addition, Jerome’s attention to the intersection of gender and ethnicity in his own work has consistently challenged me to avoid the all-too-common mistake of essentializing. Of course, any failures in accomplishing this task are mine alone.

My peers at McGill have been a smart and lively group. The exchange of ideas and experiences was great. I owe a debt of gratitude for their support and friendship. Special thanks must be given to Blake Andrew, Rachel Brickner, Jessica Fortin, Allison Harell, Matt Hennigar, Emmanuelle Hébert, Jason Roy, Lisa Roy, and Catherine Slakmon. A special acknowledgement is owed to my dear friend, peer, and co-author, Dr. Cameron Anderson. Cameron, we paced each other through dissertation writing (you won comfortably), virgin forays into the world of publishing (we did it together), and initiation into the world of professional academia generally. I am indebted to you for your wisdom and support, and I look forward to future collaborative endeavours.

From 2005 to 2007 I had the great pleasure of experiencing two new intellectual communities, first, at the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, ii

and later, at Queen’s University. I joined the intellectual community at the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada in September, 2005. I have known Dr. Antonia Maioni, the Director of the Institute, for nearly my entire time at McGill, and she has been a model of academic excellence for me from the start. She and the Max Bell project team were very encouraging and, most of all, patient with my need to immerse myself in my thoughts at the end of the dissertation-writing process. The staff at the Institute – Johanne Bilodeau and Linda Huddy – were likewise very patient and supportive, and I thank them as well. The Institute is a special place, not only for its rigorous analysis of Canadian politics, history, and society, but for its model of a close-knit academic community. I was hired by Queen’s University Department of Political Studies in July, 2006, based in part on an interview presentation spawned by this dissertation. I am once again grateful for the guidance and support I received at McGill and to all those who contributed to my intellectual growth and wider professional development. I (and likely Queen’s) am counting on the fact that these will be great assets in years to come.

Special recognition, of course, must be given to my husband and best friend, Dr. Andrew Grant. You understand when to offer advice and when silence is golden. You set a standard in your own academic endeavours that I am both proud of and aspire to. You allow me to make my own intellectual mistakes, and do not remind me of them later. You know the genuine meanings of patience, tolerance, and support.

Finally, I must go back much farther than my time at McGill. Early on, my parents, Dr. Norman Goodyear and Siobhan Goodyear, impressed on me the value and joy of education. My inquisitiveness is in no small measure a product of the talents and attitudes they have passed to me. If I am at all equipped to forge a life and career of knowledge-seeking, it is because of them.

iii

ABSTRACT

This dissertation is an analysis of the gendered aspects of televised election news in Canada. My theoretical framework is the ‘gendered mediation thesis’, and its central claim is that news is a predominantly masculine narrative that privileges men and masculinity in politics. The theory relies primarily on two causal factors to account for this pattern. First, news is a reflection of our gendered society. Thus, the frames used to report politics are replete with masculine symbols and metaphors and give primacy to masculine traits. Second, the structure and operation of the news system itself – particularly the political economic constraints imposed by competition for audience share and advertising revenues – encourage news formats that enforce, rather than challenge, established gender norms in the society. My empirical analyses focus on four components of the news media system: 1) news content, 2) news production, 3) media effects, and 4) elites’ approaches to media. The first two themes analyze production and content, and the latter two themes focus on the consequences of gendered news. I use a combination of quantitative and qualitative data to demonstrate that aspects of televised news coverage present men and women candidates differently, and I find evidence that women are seriously underrepresented in Canadian newsrooms, particularly in positions of power. I also present evidence that gendered news has harmful effects on both audience perceptions of women candidates, as well as women politicians’ own perceptions of their treatment by newsworkers as well as in news coverage. My analyses suggest that gendered news coverage can present distorted information about women politicians, harm women politicans’ electoral prospects, and also possibly discourage women from entering politics as a profession, thereby contributing to a serious problem in the supply of women candidates. iv

RÉSUMÉ

Cette dissertation analyse la représentation biaisée des femmes dans les nouvelles télévisées des élections au Canada. J’emploie le cadre théorique de la « gendered mediation thesis », selon lequel les nouvelles constituent un narratif essentiellement masculin qui privilégie les hommes et la masculinité dans la politique. Cette théorie s’appuie sur deux facteurs causaux pour expliquer ce phénomène. Premièrement, les nouvelles reflètent les préjugés contre les femmes dans notre société. Ainsi, les cadres employés pour reporter les événements politiques regorgent de symboles et de métaphores masculins et accordent la primauté aux traits masculins. Deuxièmement, la structure et l’opération du système de nouvelles lui-même —particulièrement les contraintes politico- économiques imposées par la compétition pour capturer leur part du public et les revenus générés par la publicité— encouragent des formats de nouvelles qui renforcent plutôt que de défier les normes sociales établies biaisées contre les femmes. Mon analyse empirique porte sur quatre composantes du système médiatique de nouvelles : 1) le contenu des nouvelles, 2) la production de nouvelles, 3) les effets médiatiques, et 4) l’approche des élites aux médias. Les premiers deux thèmes analysent la production et le contenu, tandis que les deux autres se concentrent sur les conséquences de la représentation biaisée des femmes dans les nouvelles. J’emploie une combinaison de données quantitatives et qualitatives pour démontrer que les nouvelles télévisées présentent les femmes et les hommes différemment, et ma recherche démontre que les femmes sont sérieusement sous-représentées dans les salles de nouvelles canadiennes, particulièrement dans les positions de pouvoir. Je présente aussi des preuves empiriques que les nouvelles biaisées contre les femmes ont des effets néfastes sur la perception des femmes candidates par le public, ainsi que sur la perception des femmes candidates elles-mêmes de leur traitement par les journalistes et dans les reportages. Mon analyse suggère que les reportages de nouvelles biaisés contre les femmes peuvent présenter de la mauvaise information sur les femmes politiciennes, qui nuisent aux perspectives électorales des femmes politiciennes, et qui peuvent même décourager les femmes d’entrer dans la profession politique, contribuant de ce fait à un sérieux problème de pénurie de candidats de sexe féminin.

v

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ALP Australian Labour Party BBC British Broadcasting Corporation BQ Bloc Québécois CA Canadian Alliance CAB Association of Broadcasters CBC Canadian Broadcasting Corporation CBSC Canadian Broadcast Standards Council CCF Co-operative Commonwealth Federation CES Canadian Election Study CPC Conservative Party of Canada CTV Canadian Television Network ICT Information and communication technology ISR Institute for Social Research MLA Member of the Legislative Assembly MP Member of Parliament NAC National Action Committee on the Status of Women NDP New Democratic Party PBS Public Broadcasting Service PC Progressive Conservative Party SRC société Radio-Canada UNESCO United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization

Chapter One 1 Introduction

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

Being a woman in politics is kind of like being Ginger Rogers. You have to do all the same dance steps as Fred Astaire, but you have to do them backwards and in high heels.1

In a society where public opinion has become decisive, nothing that counts in the formation of it can really be a matter of indifference.2

Professional news media have organized themselves according to norms of

objectivity, impartiality, and truth-seeking, prompting many citizens to regard

news as a trusted and authoritative source of information about politics and

current events. Yet, news is inevitably a distorted depiction of reality. The fact

that news presents a condensed and sometimes “stylized” version of real-world

people and events is not cause for concern by itself. However, the potential for

news to distort systematically or to present inaccurate or unfavourable depictions

of marginalized groups, such as racial minorities and women, are more serious

concerns. In politics and elections, the concern becomes more concrete, as most

communications between politicians and citizens are mediated in some manner or other. Therefore, the tendency of news to distort reality – sometimes in systematic and unfavourable ways – raises questions of utmost importance to political

inquiry, such as how media perform as conduits of information in democratic

systems and why representational gaps persist in this country and others.

1 Audrey McLaughlin, former leader of the federal New Democratic Party. Quoted in Sharpe (1994: 33). 2 Lippmann (1919:35). Chapter One 2 Introduction

This dissertation investigates the gendered3 aspects of televised election

news in Canada, and contributes to understanding about news and its place in and

influence over the political process in important ways. This is the first book-

length and most in-depth investigation of the nexus between news, politics, and

gender in the Canadian setting. The following chapters engage with questions

about the extent of sex-differentiated coverage in Canadian television election

news and the impact of that coverage on citizens’ political perceptions and

decisions. If gendered news influences citizens’ perceptions and decisions,

gendered news, by extension, will have an impact on elections and perhaps

particularly on women politicians’ electoral prospects. This causal chain is not

difficult to conceptualize given recent evidence that news can matter. We know

that news can affect citizens’ political judgments, both directly and indirectly,

leading many scholars to view news media as a significant political actor in its

own right.

1.1 News Matters

There have been remarkable swings in scholarly consensus about the mass impact

of media. We are currently in the third period in the study of media effects, each

characterized by its distinctive view of media impact or potential for impact. The

first period saw its beginning around the time of World War I. Inspired by the

3 I make a firm distinction between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ throughout the dissertation. I understand gender as the “socially learned behaviour and expectations that distinguish between masculinity and femininity” (Peterson and Runyan 1999: 5). Accordingly, the term ‘sex’ refers to the biological division of organisms into male and female, while the term ‘gender’ refers to socially-conditioned meanings that a culture attaches to biological sex differences. Chapter One 3 Introduction

apparent successes of war-time propaganda campaigns, the 1920s witnessed

ascendance of the notion that media wield substantial powers of persuasion over public values and positions (e.g., Lippmann 1922).

A second period in the study of media effects started roughly in the 1940s and dominated until the early-1970s. Scholars in this period rejected the

‘persuasive media’ model in favour of a ‘minimal effects’ paradigm. Led by

Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet (1944 and 1948; see also Trenaman and

McQuail 1961 for UK data), the idea was that political preferences were

extremely stable – due mainly to strong partisan loyalties – and there was little

change throughout campaigns. The effect of political communication seemed to

be reinforcement of existing partisan loyalties and political attitudes rather than persuasion (e.g., Klapper 1960; Mendelsohn and O’Keefe 1976). In fact, in line with the ‘uses and gratifications’ studies, scholars discovered that it was not uncommon for viewers to interpret new information so that it corresponded with

their pre-existing beliefs and preferences (e.g., Blumler and Katz 1974). As

Blumler and Gurevitch (1988) point out,

given such labels as selective exposure, selective perception and selective recall, their linking thread was the idea that many people used their prior beliefs, both as compasses for charting their course through the turbulent sea of political messages, and as shields, enabling them to rehearse counter-arguments against opposing views.

Not all citizens were seen as equally resistant to media influence. One of

the groups thought to be more susceptible to campaign communications were

“marginal individuals who have low information on the given election and

general apathy regarding the political process” (McGuire 1986: 226). Indeed, such Chapter One 4 Introduction

citizens would have looser partisan attachments, if any at all, and therefore were

potentially more open to persuasion. There was evidence corroborating this theory

(e.g., Atkin et al. 1973). However, there was always the possibility that less-

politically-interested floating voters paid less attention to campaign

communications, rendering them less reachable for persuasion in the first place.

The third and current period of media effects research has established a

‘not-so-minimal effects’ thesis. The shift in outlook among scholars is due to

changes both in the political environment as well as the evolution of the tools and

data analysis methods available for media-effects research. According to Blumler

and Gurevitch (1988), the minimal-effects paradigm was “part and parcel of an

overall view that placed far more emphasis on the underlying stability of the

world of politics than on its flux” (245). However, the political landscape has

changed in several important ways since the beginning of the ‘minimal-effects’

era in the 1940s, and some of these changes may have opened more space for

political communications to affect citizens’ political perceptions and behaviour.

Partisan loyalties have weakened and voter volatility rates have climbed,

phenomena characteristic to some degree of most countries of the developed West

(e.g., Dalton, McAllister, and Wattenberg 2000). The diminishing pool of voters with standing commitments to particular parties may translate into more opportunities for media to exert public impact.

Research in the third period has focused on agenda-setting and priming effects of television news media, both of which have implications for the effects of gendered news. News media can perform an agenda-setting function when Chapter One 5 Introduction

particular issues and policies are selected for attention (Cohen 1963), and news can influence the evaluative criteria citizens use to judge governments,

candidates, and policies (Iyengar and Kinder 1987; Iyengar, Peters, and Kinder

1982; Krosnick and Kinder 1990). Media can play a role in elections, and this is

reflected in the often-intense partisan competition for coverage and control of the

news agenda during campaigns. Media can influence voter mobilization during elections, and news media can potentially impact the vote through processes of

agenda setting, priming, and framing. By extension, media can exert an influence,

often indirect, on the electoral prospects of parties and candidates. Findings have

been modest, partly because of the difficulty of studying media effects and partly

because the influence of media is contingent on several intervening variables,

including “information-processing ability; critical awareness of television; direct

experience of other sources providing confirmation or disconfirmation of TV

messages; social structural position; and patronage of various forms of

programme content” (Iyengar and Kinder 1987: 260). These important variables

cannot be ignored in media effects studies.

As noted above, developments in both the media environment and the

tools used to study media effects have contributed to the rise of this third period.

The rise of television – a visual media – has been consequential. Television news

has become the news source of choice for most people, although the Internet is

clearly gaining among Canadian youth according to the most recent figures from

Ipsos-Reid (Deveau 2005). Data collected by the 2000 Canadian Election Study

(CES) show that 52 percent of Canadians received most of their information about Chapter One 6 Introduction

the 2000 Canadian federal election campaign from television, compared to 23

percent from newspapers and only 11 percent from radio (Blais et al. 2002a: 35).

Surveying the past four decades of Canadian Election Studies, Gidengil and her colleagues (2004) note that while television and newspapers were tied in

importance as news sources in the late-1970s, by the mid-1980s, television had

become the leading source of political information (31; see also Milner 2002).

Public preference for televised news is characteristic of most advanced

democracies (Ansolbehere, Behr, and Iyengar 1993; Dalton 2000; Gidengil et al.

2004).

Citizen preference for television news means that most people consume

the form of news that is most stylized, fast-paced, and seemingly realistic. News

is a constructed product that is the sum of editorial and journalistic choices.

Newsmakers make daily choices about what to cover, how it will be covered, and

in which order. Of the infinite world of current affairs, the choice of which events

and personalities will be covered is only the first step, and this process proceeds at

a rapid pace, particularly in the case of television news. Deciding how stories will

be covered – or more accurately, ‘packaged’ – largely involves the (often

unconscious) selection of news frames. According to Bennett (2003), “framing

involves choosing a broad organizing theme for selecting, emphasizing, and

linking the elements of a story such as the scenes, the characters, their actions,

and supporting documentation” (42). A typical news story can be framed in a

variety of ways. For example, Mendelsohn (1996: 8) notes that a campaign story

can be framed as a contest between competing parties and platforms; as a Chapter One 7 Introduction

‘horserace’ between front-running candidates; or as an example of public

discourse about the future direction of the country. As will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter, news about politics commonly is couched in the language of war, sports, and games (e.g., Bennett 2003). Several scholars argue that this has important implications for how women politicians are covered and how they are perceived by viewers/voters (e.g., Gidengil and Everitt 1999, 2003a, and 2003b; Sampert and Trimble 2003; Trimble and Sampert 2004). The overarching point for this discussion is that how viewers understand and interpret a story depends in part on how it is framed by newsmakers.

The ascendancy of television news has been accompanied by further political changes, including the rise of the twenty-four hour news cycle; the personalization of politics; the professionalization of politics; and the ascendancy of a new cadre of communications and image specialists. Of course, these changes are interrelated. The information and communications revolutions have amplified the speed and ease of news gathering and dissemination, giving rise to a ‘round-

the-clock’ news cycle. The ascendancy of electronic media, especially television,

is linked to the personalization of politics (Iyengar 1991; Iyengar and Kinder

1987; Wattenberg 1995), because visual media privilege personality and image

and thereby encourage citizens’ thinking about politics to focus on the specific

and the personal as opposed to the thematic and the systematic. Lastly, the

heightened importance of image and the increased sophistication of modern

campaigning require a class of political experts adept at manipulating political

communications and ‘packaging’ politicians for public viewing (e.g., Carty 1992; Chapter One 8 Introduction

Carty, Cross, and Young 2000; Cross 2004; Cross and Young 2006). Taken together, these and other changes have produced a highly mediated political world.

While the political environment may have become more fertile ground for media influence, the political effects of media are notoriously difficult to disentangle. The work of early minimal-effects scholars – who viewed media as having little influence on collective opinions, perceptions, and decisions about politics – has been challenged. At the same time, considerable debate remains about the precise impact of media on mass publics. The ‘not-so-minimal effects’ camp does not hold that media have far-reaching powers of persuasion. Rather, the focus is on cognitions as opposed to attitudes (Blumer and Gurevitch 1988).

As Blumer and Gurevitch explain, attitudes are “summary evaluations of objects” while cognitions are “stored information about these objects” (1988: 249). The relationship between the two is that attitudes can be based on cognitions, a key link in work on media priming.

In an overview of the state of media effects research written twenty years ago, McGuire expresses a cautionary note about methodological issues in the study of media effects:

communication researchers might with well-deserved modesty argue that considering all the weaknesses in our empirical research, it is surprising that we find even slight statistically significant relationships, rather than surprising that we fail to demonstrate the sizable effects suspected to exist (1986: 208).

McGuire goes on to remind readers of specific problems in this area of inquiry, such as imprecise measurements of media exposure (Ibid). Indeed, it was not Chapter One 9 Introduction

uncommon for early researchers to rely on respondents’ memories of what they

watched, read, or heard in news media. Now, there are highly-sophisticated devices for measuring exposure to television, for example. These devices measure

not only which television channel a person watches and for how long, but they

also measure how proximate an individual is to the television, which means that time spent out of the room while the television is turned on can be discounted in

media effects studies.4

The point is that scholars have been aware of methodological difficulties

in media effects research for some time. As mentioned above, the rise of the third

period of media effects research – which takes media influence seriously – is not

simply a function of changing political or media realities. Advances have been

made in the tools and methods available for studying media effects and, by

extension, in our ability to detect whether and how media influence political

cognitions, judgments, and behaviour. The implication is that media had political

effects all along, but scholars have become better at detecting and measuring

these effects. In the last few decades, scholars have refined the practise of

experimental research on political communications (e.g., Iyengar 1991; Iyengar

and Kinder 1987). Others have used panel studies or the rolling cross-section

4 The most well-known of such devices is the Portable People Meter (PPM), created by a company called Arbitron. On its website, Arbitron describes the product: “the Portable People Meter is a mobile-phone-sized device that consumers wear throughout the day that works by detecting identification codes that can be embedded in the audio portion of any transmission.” The logistics of the PPM are relatively simple. Each participant wears the passive device, which automatically records the wearer's exposure to any medium that has inserted an inaudible code into its audio programming. When a unique inaudible code is detected, the PPM registers, records, and time-stamps the signal. At the end of the day, each participant’s media use is downloaded by a docking station that simultaneously recharges the PPM device. For further information, see http://www.arbitron.com/portable_people_meters/home.htm

Chapter One 10 Introduction survey design to measure media use and effects (e.g., Blais et al. 2002a). All three of these methods – experiments, panel studies, and rolling cross-section surveys – provide powerful bases for causal inference. Nonetheless, it remains true that media effects are notoriously difficult to detect and measure.

1.2 Gendered News

Because news matters, gendered coverage matters. Political communications have direct and indirect effects on citizens’ political perceptions and behaviours, meaning that gendered aspects of news have potential consequences for elites and citizens. Sex-differentiated coverage of politicians can be problematized in two ways: for its distortion to public discourse and for its impact on collective attitudes and political decisions.

The news media system has several public functions: civic forum, mobilizing force, and watchdog (Norris 2000: 22). As a civic forum, the news media system is a vital component of a Habermasian “public sphere” which

“represents a meeting place or debating forum mediating between citizens and the state, facilitating informed deliberation about the major issues of the day” (Ibid.:

25). Democracy requires an information system that facilitates vertical links between citizens and decision makers, as well as sets of horizontal links that connect citizens with each other and political decision makers with each other.

Media bear partial responsible for these functions. Normative theories of media and democracy must evaluate whether information provided by media enhances democratic life and citizenship. Ideally, this entails an accessible, pluralist media Chapter One 11 Introduction

that accurately represents the diversities of opinion and perspectives that exist in a

polity. Media plurality has been conceptualized conventionally in terms of the

“free trade of ideas” and has been measured by the number of media outlets (and

thus, presumably, perspectives) available (Curran 2000: 123). However, “the

amount of political news tells us nothing about its quality” (Norris 2000: 27).

“Pluralist theory”, Norris explains, “emphasizes that as a civic forum the news-

media system should reflect the political and cultural diversity within a society,

providing a fair and impartial balance, so that all voices can be heard in political

deliberations” (Ibid.).

The gender implications of media’s role as a civic forum are myriad;

several are related vitally to this dissertation. News media should devote proportional attention to women politicians, as their numbers warrant. To do otherwise downplays women politicians’ perspectives and contributions to political life, and imparts an impression among viewers that the contributions of women office holders to political life are less newsworthy or valuable than those of their male counterparts. At a symbolic level, gender imbalances in both

quantity and quality of coverage may damage opportunities for women viewers to

identify with women politicians. News media visibility of women politicians may show viewers that women and their concerns are politically relevant, that women can forge successful political careers, and that women are not anomalous in this historically male-dominated sphere. In addition to adequate quantities of coverage of women politicians, news media should refrain from using irrelevant stereotypes and inappropriate metaphors in coverage of male and female politicians, their Chapter One 12 Introduction

issue positions, ideologies, and activities. As will be discussed in more detail in

subsequent chapters, news media in Canada, the United States, and other

advanced democracies often fall short on these two benchmarks of gender-

balanced political coverage.

Concerns about gendered news stem also from the knowledge that news

can have a measurable impact on collective political attitudes and decisions.

Evidence is not straightforward or without inconsistencies, as will become clear in

Chapters Three and Five. Nonetheless, in particular circumstances sex-

differentiated media coverage can negatively affect public perceptions of female

politicians and by extension, women politicians’ electoral fortunes. In addition,

there can also be strong sex-of-viewer reactions, whereby women viewers are

especially turned off by the manner in which female candidates are presented. In

normative terms, this evidence can be used to critique news. Originating in the

United States, advocates of the ‘public journalism’ movement have criticized the

mainstream news media system for its allegedly negative contribution to public

life, including its lack of substantive issue coverage, its ‘infotainment’ format, and

its increasingly cynical tone (e.g., Charity 1995; Glasser 1999; Rosen 1994). The

movement calls for journalists to enrich public political life by altering news

practices and formats, which will ideally enhance citizen knowledge of and

engagement in politics. The spirit of the public journalism movement can also be

applied to coverage of women in politics. The goal of public journalism is to

enhance democratic engagement; types of coverage that systematically turn off

sizeable segments of the public are counterproductive to this goal. Chapter One 13 Introduction

1.3 Objectives

This study of gendered aspects of Canadian election news analyzes three groups: the politicians, male and female, who are the subjects of news; the people who comprise news audiences; and the journalists and news organizations that produce and deliver television news. None of these groups exist in isolation. Rather, the three are mutually dependent: politicians rely on media to reach voters and opinion leaders;5 media need politicians as content and audiences as consumers; and audiences rely on media for information. Thus, the three groups must be conceptualized as forming a ‘triangle’, each depending on while at the same time influencing the others. The implication, of course, is that all three points in this triangular relationship bear some responsibility for news content and the tone of public discourse, a point that will be emphasized through the chapters that follow.

5 ‘Opinion leader’ is a concept that arose from Lazarsfeld and his colleagues’ two-step flow of communication theory (Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet 1944 and 1948; Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955; see also Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee 1954). One of the important findings of their work is that mass media messages do not reach audiences in one large wave. The two-step flow model contends that some people receive media messages directly, while others receive media messages through other people (opinion leaders). As Katz and Lazarsfeld contend in Personal Influence, “ideas, often, seem to flow from radio and print to opinion leaders and from them to the less active sections of the population” (1955: 32). Opinion leaders comprise the lynchpin of the two-step flow model. Opinion leaders tend to be heavy media users, and they are perceived by others and by themselves as having influence over others’ opinions. Ultimately, the point is that the messages some people receive from media are filtered through patterns of social contact. Lazarsfeld and his colleagues did not see opinion leadership as static or automatic. It is not a general personal trait, but refers to specific issues. A person can be an opinion leader on one set of issues (e.g., finance and trade) and not on another (e.g., environment) (see also Merton 1949). Those most typically associated with opinion leadership tend to be prominent public figures such as politicians, clergy members, and celebrities. Yet, the possibilities for opinion leadership are much wider. A person whose friends and family perceive as an expert on an issue can be an opinion leader, particularly if the group discusses politics and other current issues, which would provide an opportunity for the opinion leader to influence those in his/her social network. Chapter One 14 Introduction

This dissertation focuses primarily on whether and to what extent

Canadian political news is sex-differentiated, and if so, how this influences the attitudes of citizens and the media strategies of politicians. This dissertation is squarely within a ‘media effects’ line of inquiry, for the main questions to be answered are: Is news imbalanced, and is imbalanced news consequential? While attention is paid to competing arguments about the origins of gendered news, which inevitably inform the theoretical approach to the dissertation, the causes of imbalanced news are not the primary focal point. To adequately analyze why news is imbalanced along gender lines – or even ethnic or class lines – is a task rightly reserved for its own full-length study. However, questions about the role and influence of newsworkers on the tone and content of Canadian news are given close attention in Chapter Five. In keeping with the focus on the effects of media coverage, the dissertation also examines politicians’ understandings of media and how they formulate media strategies to deal with real or perceived disadvantages in media coverage. This portion of the dissertation focuses on comparative analyses of male and female politicians, but gender is only one factor among many – including regional background, partisanship, and ideology – that shape media coverage and experience.

The dissertation utilizes a powerful combination of data (described in more detail in the next section and extensively in Chapter Three on data and methodologies) to test four sets of propositions:

I. There are fundamental and systematic differences in television news coverage of female and male politicians in Canada, and these differences can result in less beneficial coverage for female politicians relative to their male counterparts. Chapter One 15 Introduction

II. In the newsroom, a journalist’s sex has little impact on the manner in which female politicians are presented in individual news stories. News biases do not occur at the individual level, but at the structural level as a result of culturally-constructed gender-role norms, the political economy of the news business, and the sociology of newswork.

III. Certain forms of gendered news coverage negatively affect citizens’ evaluations of news stories and perceptions of female politicians, particularly attack-style coverage. In other words, gendered coverage can have negative consequences for female politicians.

IV. Women politicians are keenly aware of sex-differentiated media treatment and attempt to compensate for news imbalances with conscious media strategies. In other words, gendered news affects women politicians’ self-presentations to citizens through media.

Combined, these four propositions test key questions in research on women, media, and politics: Is coverage of men and women the same? Do women journalists offer more beneficial coverage of women politicians? Do audiences react negatively to sex-differentiated coverage? Do woman politicians perceive challenges attaining positive coverage? It is a dissertation about the gendered aspects of Canadian televised election news, but its findings can be applied to a variety of contexts and issues. The chapters that follow have implications for the coverage of politicians from other historically-marginalized groups, such as ethnocultural minorities, as well as applications for women in other countries. In fact, stated slightly differently, the propositions investigated in this dissertation address fundamental questions in media-effects research generally: What role do journalists play in news production? Do media distortions occur at the individual or at the systemic level? Does news content influence citizens’ political decisions? How do politicians strategize media presentations? Answers to these Chapter One 16 Introduction

propositions matter, because media is the primary information conduit of democratic politics. The dissertation questions how the quantity and quality of

information provided by news media influence citizens’ perceptions of politicians

as well as politicians’ own media interactions. Increasingly, work on elections and

political behaviour focuses on information (e.g., Althaus 1998; Anderson and

Goodyear-Grant 2005; Anderson, Tilley, and Heath 2005; Bartels 1996; Delli

Carpini and Keeter 1996; Fournier 2002; Howe 2006; Gidengil et al. 2004;

Kuklinski et al. 2000; Lambert et al. 1988; McDermott 1997, 1998; Popkin 1991;

Sanbonmatsu 2003, 2004), and my work contributes to this body of literature as

well. This dissertation raises questions about the quality of information voters

glean from television news – the source of most people’s political news (e.g.,

Gidengil et al. 2004).

1.4 The Canadian Case in Comparative Context

The dissertation is an in-depth study of political news in the Canadian context,

with focused analysis of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). The

Canadian case is by itself an intriguing setting in which to analyze the content,

causes, and effects of gendered political news, for the Canadian media system is

unique in several important ways, which are discussed below. At the same time,

my strategy throughout the study is to analyze the Canadian case against a

comparative backdrop.

From the perspective of news content and the political economy of news

media, the Canadian case presents an interesting research puzzle. Canada’s Chapter One 17 Introduction televised media is comprised of both public and commercial media outlets,6 and there are good reasons to expect that the public broadcaster, the CBC, would provide televised news coverage that is roughly gender-balanced. First, as a public broadcaster, the CBC should be more resilient to the economic pressures that typically confront broadcasters, at least in principle. Compared to commercial broadcasters, such as CTV and Global, the CBC does not rely as heavily on advertising revenues. The largest direct source of CBC funding comes from the government through an annual Parliamentary appropriation. Thus, the CBC’s programming decisions, including its news reportage, should be more independent and less influenced by the need to attract advertising dollars and audience share. Indeed, the rationale for creating the CBC in the 1930s was to counterbalance the influence of commercialism on communications.

6 “Public broadcasting” – or “public service broadcasting”, as it is known through much of Europe, Oceania, and Latin America (Brown 1996a) – refers to broadcasters that receive some or all of their funding from the public, whether from voluntary donations – as is the case with the American Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the US – licence fees, or from government subsidies. Worldwide, government funding is the most common form of funding for public broadcasters. Non-commercial broadcasting is called “public broadcasting” in North America and “public service broadcasting” in much of Europe and Latin America (In Canada, the national public broadcaster is the CBC. The CBC receives part of its operating revenues through an annual Parliamentary appropriation. While it is a public broadcaster, the CBC sells advertising revenues and does not collect a licence fee. A television licence is an official licence required in many countries for all owners of a television receiver. Licensing is common in Africa, Asia, and Europe, but not in countries of North and South America. Essentially, licensing fees are used as a form of tax for the financing of public broadcasters. In addition to the CBC, several provinces in Canada also support public broadcasters, such as TVOntario (TVO) and Télé-Québec. Commercial broadcasting – which is also referred to as private or for-profit broadcasting throughout this dissertation – is the practice of broadcasting for profit. The hallmark of commercial broadcasting is the placement of paid advertisements during interruptions in regular programming. The price of advertising slots depends on a range of factors, but the chief factor is a show’s ratings. Advertisers pay more to air commercials during programming that attracts a higher number of viewers, naturally, because more people will see the commercial and become aware of or motivated to obtain the advertised product or service. Therefore, because a commercial broadcaster’s revenues depend on how large an audience they can deliver to advertisers, commercial broadcasters are, in theory at least, much more sensitive to ratings than their public counterparts. In Canada, commercial broadcasters include CTV and Global. Chapter One 18 Introduction

Due to the fact that the CBC receives part of its funding through

Parliamentary appropriation, the CBC is required to report annually to Parliament.

In other words, the CBC is accountable to public officials and, by extension, it is

also accountable to the Canadian public. The CBC’s annual reports over the past

decade have emphasized the concrete steps taken by the organization to eliminate gender inequality in its programming and in the composition of its staff (e.g.,

CBC 2002b, 2003a, and 2003b). The CBC has taken steps to promote fairness and equity in broadcasting and follows strict guidelines for sex-role portrayal in programming, as outlined in its Gender Guidelines (Canadian Broadcasting

Corporation 1998). Similarly, the CBC also promotes progressive employment

equity policies that have resulted in rough gender parity, at least in terms of the

numbers of men and women, in the CBC workforce. Consequently, of all

mainstream broadcast media outlets in Canada, the CBC should be least likely to

deliver television coverage of election campaigns that is systematically gendered.

On the other hand, while the CBC is a unique player in the Canadian

media system, its ability to promote gender equality in programming and staffing

has arguably been hobbled, and part of the reason may be its changing economic

realities. In other words, the CBC has become less immune to financial pressures,

and this may be having an impact on its capacity to fulfil its mandate of gender

equity in programming and staffing. There have been governmental cutbacks to

the CBC, particularly in the early- to mid-1990s, and as a result, the CBC has become increasingly reliant on advertising revenues to finance its programming

(e.g., CBC 2004; Chidley and Turbide 1996; Hackett 2001; Hoskins, McFadyen, Chapter One 19 Introduction

and Finn 2001). Advertising revenues are the second largest direct source of funding for the CBC (Boardman and Vining 1996) – second only to Parliamentary appropriations – and account for about a fifth of the CBC’s overall budget and about 40 percent of its English-language TV network budget.7 In other words, the

televised news content analyzed in this dissertation (English-language national

news) derived 40 percent of its funding from advertising sales. Plainly, the CBC cannot afford to ignore the political economic considerations that drive private news outlets, such as attention to advertising revenues and ratings. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that the CBC competes with commercial Canadian networks for audience share and, perhaps more importantly, also with powerful

American commercial networks such as CBS, NBC, ABC, and CNN. Due to these and other developments, distinctions between public and private broadcasting in Canada have become increasingly blurred, and public broadcasters cannot be considered in isolation from private broadcasters. Market pressures affect both types of media, leading, ultimately, to doubts that the CBC’s news coverage is any more or less gendered than that of private commercial broadcasters. In general, studies comparing the CBC and other networks or types of media have reported few differences in coverage (e.g., Frizzell and Westell

1989; Nevitte et al. 2000; Wagenberg et al. 1988), raising important questions about the CBC’s role in Canadian communications.

7 “CBC future uncertain if tories win election,” Times Colonist, January 22, 2006; See also, “CBC fact sheet”, May 16, 2000, Available at: http://www.cbc.radio- canada.ca/speeches/20000516factsheet.shtml Chapter One 20 Introduction

Another unique feature of the Canadian media system is its role in nation- building and identity-formation. As Taras explains (1999),

Sharing a border with the largest economic, military, and entertainment power on the planet, plagued by deep linguistic and regional differences, and having undergone a series of painful national unity and constitutional crises in recent history, Canada must depend on its media system to be a cultural and information lifeline in a way that other countries need not (4).

Debate about national content in Canada’s broadcasting system, government subsidies for Canadian magazines, and other protective measures attest to the integral social and political roles occupied by the country’s media system beyond those of simply providing information and entertainment. In many ways, Canada has relied on media to define itself (or what it aspires to be), or, as Taras puts it,

Canada has relied on media to create “a public” (Ibid: 10). This has been a difficult task given Canada’s proximity to the US, “the largest producer and broadcaster of mass-audience programming in the world” (Boardman and Vining

1996: 48). Maintaining “national communication sovereignty” (Collins 1990: 4) has been challenging for Canada.

Particular attention to the role of public broadcasters in the nation-building function of media is warranted. Of the eight principles of public broadcasting, three of these are related to questions of identity, nation-building, and unity:

“geographic universality”, “concern for national identity and community”, and

“catering for minorities” (Brown 1996b: 4).8 These principles closely mirror

8 The other five principles are: “broadcasting to be directly funded by the viewing and listening audience”, “independence from government and vested interests”, “catering for all interests and tastes”, “quality of programming”, and “creative freedom for program makers” (Brown 1996b: 4). Chapter One 21 Introduction

several of the objectives of the 1991 Broadcasting Act, the legislation that governs the CBC. The Act identifies the following objectives for the CBC’s programming: “be predominantly and distinctively Canadian”, “contribute to shared national consciousness and identity”, and “reflect the multicultural and multiracial nature of Canada”.9 The Broadcasting Act also notes that public

broadcasting should “through its programming and the employment opportunities

arising out of its operations, serve the needs and interests, and reflect the

circumstances and aspirations, of Canadian men, women and children, including

equal rights….”10 In other words, gender equality is meant to be part of the national identity promoted in Canadian communications. If media in general, and public broadcasters in particular, perform important nation-building and identity- formation functions, one of the questions raised in the context of this project is how gender equality (or inequality) in political news fits into Canada’s vision of itself?

The Broadcasting Act provides lofty goals for Canadian broadcasters in

general and for the CBC in particular. Yet, the case can certainly be made that

among public broadcasters worldwide, the CBC confronts distinct challenges to

fulfilling the principles of public broadcasting and the specific mandate outlined

for it in the Broadcasting Act. First, the CBC competes with powerful American

commercial broadcasters for audience share, which creates immense pressures for the CBC to bring its programming in line with that of American broadcasters

(Boardman and Vining 1996: 48). Second, half of the CBC’s funding for its

9 Canada Broadcasting Act, Statutes of Canada 1991, c. 11, sec. 3.1 (m). 10 Ibid: sec. 3.1 (d)(iii). Chapter One 22 Introduction

English-language national news programming is derived from the sale of advertising time, as noted above, necessitating responsiveness to ratings.

While there are several reasons to privilege the Canadian case, my task throughout the dissertation has been to situate Canada within a larger comparative context. The topics analyzed in this dissertation have wide applications to other times and contexts. Perhaps most obviously, the focus on gender has universal applications. It is important to avoid “essentialism, ahistoricity, and false generalization” (Martin 1994: 631) when analyzing gender and gender relations, because gender norms are produced and maintained within cultural and political

structures and intersect with other markers of difference, such as class, ethnicity,

and sexuality, to produce multiplicative forms of difference and oppression (e.g.,

Butler 1999). Attention to difference, however, does not mean that comparison is

impossible, or even undesirable. While specific manifestations of gendered power

relations – whether in the state, in society, or in media – vary wildly from one

country/region to the next, the fact remains that gender inequality is a global

phenomenon. Moreover, because media – a cultural product – reflect the

collective values of society, gendered news production and gendered coverage are

issues that have no national home. The United Nations Fourth World Conference

on Women, held in Beijing in 1995, identified media as one of 12 sites requiring

strategic action due to the fact that gendered production and programming are

global patterns.11 Thus, due to the nature of its subject matter, this dissertation draws heavily on literature from the UK, continental Europe, the US, and beyond.

11 United Nations. Report of the Fourth World Conference on Women. A/CONF.177/20, chap. 4(j), 1995. Chapter One 23 Introduction

In fact, at various points through this dissertation, my analyses encompass countries of the developing world as well, such as India and South Africa. Like

Canada, both of these countries are former British colonies with strong traditions of relying on public broadcasting to cement regional and ethnic divides. While it is rare for scholars of media and political communications – in fact, scholars in most fields of political inquiry – to cross the boundary between developed and developing worlds, my stance from the outset is that such boundaries are in many ways conceptual and deserve to be traversed more often.

In terms of situating Canada within a broader comparative context, special attention is paid to the US. Much of the work on media and political communications generally, as well as the specific literatures on media effects, the political economy of media, and gendered media is American in origin. More importantly, the media systems of the two countries – and the political systems more generally – are closely intertwined. While our media system is predominantly Canadian-owned, American content is prevalent (Vipond 2000).

This has been the reality of Canadian communications from the beginning, that is,

North-South communications have always been at least as important as (if not more important than) East-West internal communication. The fact that the first

Canadian telegraph lines were constructed for cross-border, rather than domestic, communication (Vipond 2000) is indicative of the orientation toward Canada’s southern neighbour. Not only does American content figure heavily in Canadian programming, but journalistic training in the two countries boasts “striking similarities” (Johansen, Weaver, and Dornan 2001: 469; see also Skinner, Gasher, Chapter One 24 Introduction

and Compton 2001). While there are important US-Canada differences in

journalism education, the factors that are similar include “the pattern of historical

development; curricular emphasis; relations with professional colleagues; and

future challenges” (Johansen, Weaver, and Dornan 2001: 469). Curricular

similarity in the two countries is the result, in part, of the direct influence of

American practices, for “the founders of Canada’s first two journalism programs

– which set the pattern – each studied closely the philosophy underlying the

curriculum of Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism” (Ibid: 473). In other

words, early journalism programs in Canada, which established the form that

subsequent programs would take, were consciously designed to emulate American

training. Combined, the two factors – high American content in Canadian

programming and similar journalism training in the two countries – likely mean

that news production and coverage in the two countries is, likewise, highly comparable.

1.5 Organization Of The Dissertation

While this introductory chapter has provided a cursory discussion of some of the

relevant themes and past research on gender and political news, Chapter Two

provides an elaboration of the analytical framework that underpins the

dissertation.

Chapter Three outlines the data and methods presented in the dissertation.

This chapter focuses both on the strengths and weaknesses of the data and tools

used for the research. Chapter One 25 Introduction

Chapter Four provides a comprehensive analysis of the CBC’s English-

language national televised coverage of the 2000 federal election campaign. The data are derived from a content analysis conducted by the Canadian Election

Study (CES).12 These data permit a thorough investigation of the choices made in

collecting, editing, and packaging television news. Structural and substantive

news content are analyzed for systematic differences in coverage of male and female leaders and candidates.

Chapter Five focuses on the individul journalists who present news, the second component of the politician-viewer-journalist ‘triangle’. Accounts conflict

over whether the sex of newsworkers influences how people and events are

covered. The 2000 CBC media content data set facilitates an investigation of this

question, thereby enhancing knowledge of why gender imbalances exist in

political news. Themes addressed in this chapter include the number and status of

women in Canadian television news outlets; the division of news stories between

male and female news personnel; whether female newsworkers are more likely to

cover female politicians and/or news sources; and whether the tone and/or content

of women’s stories differs from those of their male colleagues.

12 Data from the 2000 Canadian Election Study were provided by the Institute for Social Research, York University. The survey was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and was completed for the 2000 Canadian Election Team of André Blais (Université de Montréal), Elisabeth Gidengil (McGill University), Richard Nadeau (Université de Montréal), and Neil Nevitte (University of Toronto). Neither the Institute for Social Research, the SSHRC, nor the Canadian Election Study team is responsible for the analyses and interpretations presented here. Chapter One 26 Introduction

Chapter Six addresses the question of impact on viewers. A recent review of the current state of the literature on women, media, and politics notes that

much of the research on the media’s treatment of women in politics is clearly descriptive. Perhaps this is why only a few such research articles … have found homes in top political science journals. Building models to test the impact of media content on audiences and political actors might help to rectify this problem (Larson 2001: 228).

This chapter assesses how attack-style coverage of men and women politicians influences how viewers react to news stories. The data set analyzed in this chapter is a media response study conducted as part of the 2000 CES. Participants viewed and rated the 163 English-language CBC news stories that are content analyzed in

Chapter Four. This media response study presents a unique opportunity for research on women, politics, and media for two reasons. First, participants’ ratings can be linked with the parallel content analysis data for the very same stories. Thus, differences in ratings among the participants can be explained by reference to news content. Second, the audience response study participants were also surveyed by the 2000 Canadian Election Study, which provides rich information on their partisan affiliations, political attitudes, socio-demographic background characteristics, leader and party ratings, and so on. This unique and powerful combination of the three-wave CES,13 the content analysis of the CBC

13 The CES is a nation-wide, rolling cross-section survey that interviews people from all ten provinces. Since 1988, the Canadian Election Study has been conducted in three segments or waves: a campaign-period survey, a post-election survey, and a self-administered mail-back questionnaire. The CES is designed as a panel. The people who participate in the first wave of the study (campaign-period survey) are re-contacted to complete the subsequent two components. Technical aspects of the CES are discussed further in Chapter Three, and further information can also be found in the technical documentation provided by the CES on its website: http://www.ces- eec.umontreal.ca/documents/CES_TD_001.pdf. The 2000 Canadian Federal Election includes a campaign-period survey of 3,651 respondents, a post-election survey with 2,862 of the campaign Chapter One 27 Introduction

news, and the audience ratings of the CBC news permits comprehensive

investigation of how particular aspects of news coverage influence audience

ratings of politicians’ news depictions.

Chapter Seven turns to analysis of the politicians themselves. This chapter

assesses the positions of female and male politicians as subjects and manipulators

of news. Focusing on differences in the media experiences of male and female politicians, important questions addressed include how female politicians perceive

their media coverage and how they compensate for any imbalances in their own

coverage, real or perceived. Empirical analyses of a series of in-depth interviews

with male and female Members of Parliament illustrate how media interaction is

understood and managed by men and women politicians.

Chapter Eight concludes the dissertation by drawing linkages among the triangle of actors involved in political news: politicians, citizens, and

newsmakers. Based on the results of quantitative and qualitative analyses

presented in preceding chapters, conclusions are drawn about the tone and content

of Canadian political news in terms of gender impartiality in coverage and

whether gender imbalances, where they exist, are consequential. The chapter also hypothesizes about the implications of audience reactions to gendered news for the political careers of women candidates and office holders. Finally,

survey respondents, and a self-administered mail-back questionnaire completed and returned by 1,535 of the post-election survey respondents. The response rate for the campaign-period survey in 2000 was 60 percent. The re-interview rate was 78 percent for the post-election survey (i.e., 78 percent of the campaign-period survey respondents), and 53 percent for the mail-back questionnaire (i.e., 53 percent of the post-election survey respondents). For the 2000 CES, surveying outside Quebec was conducted by the Institute for Social Research (ISR) at York University, and surveying in Quebec was conducted by Jolicoeur & Associés, a Montréal-based polling/research/marketing firm. Chapter One 28 Introduction prescriptions for reform are explored. Indeed, given the important functions of news media as both a civic forum and the information system for democratic life, it is difficult and perhaps undesirable to avoid normative statements about avenues for change.

Chapter Two 29 Analytical Framework

CHAPTER TWO

Analytical Framework

This chapter develops the theoretical foundations of the dissertation. The

‘gendered mediation’ thesis (Fountaine and McGregor 2002; Gidengil and Everitt

1999, 2000, 2003a, and 2003b; Sreberny-Mohammadi and Ross 1996) guides work on news content. The chapter starts with an examination of the first phase in

research on media, politics, and women, which focused on news visibility and

blatant stereotyping of women politicians. While visibility and explicit

stereotyping are still important focal points for scholars, the gendered mediation

thesis represents a refinement of analytical focus by directing attention to the

more oblique and, therefore, potentially more harmful gender imbalances in news

coverage of politicians. The gendered mediation thesis holds that news is a

predominantly masculine narrative (Rakow and Kranich 1991), and there are two

reasons for this. First, news media reflects the culture in which it is rooted, and

this includes culturally-constructed gender-role norms and stereotypes. Second,

the staffing, organizational structure, and political economy of the news media

industry reinforce masculinism in the news product.

While the gendered mediation thesis rests on two very solid premises, I

make a theoretical contribution to this literature by grappling directly with

questions about the extent to which news media are responsible for gendered

patterns of coverage. Indeed, media content is a combination of provision and

presentation – of real-world events and of how those real-world events are

interpreted and presented by newsmakers. At the very least, this raises the Chapter Two 30 Analytical Framework

potential that some component of observed patterns of coverage is attributable to

the speech and behaviour of women and men politicians themselves. This is a

thorny question, and one that few scholars of women and political communications have addressed seriously. Yet, it is the most practical way to

approach the relationship between politicians and newsmakers, because that

relationship is not static or one-sided, but dynamic and mutual.

In addition to news media content, the dissertation also examines media

effects, which requires the use of additional theoretical tools. In terms of media

effects, two groups of political actors are examined. First, the dissertation

analyses how public opinion is affected by news portrayals of men and women

politicians. Cognitive psychology literature on audience reactions to counter-

stereotypical behaviour is the primary theoretical tool used for these analyses.

Second, the dissertation also examines how politicians understand, experience,

and navigate news media. This is a commonly-overlooked component of media

effects research, that is, how elites themselves influence interactions with

newsmakers depending on: 1) elites’ beliefs about news practices and coverage

and 2) elites’ strategic goals toward which news interaction is directed. These are

important considerations when talking about media effects, because politicians’

self-presentations to citizens occur through media, for the most part. This chapter

explores work on self-presentation and symbolic interactionism, which guides

analyses of differences in men and women politicians’ understandings of and

interactions with news media in Chapter Seven.

Several themes connect the literatures that comprise the theoretical spine Chapter Two 31 Analytical Framework of this project. The focus on culturally-constructed gender-role norms is a common theme connecting all the chapters. Gender stereotypes affect all aspects of the news system from what journalists present as news to how viewers interpret political actors they see in news to how men and women politicians present themselves to newsmakers in order to communicate with citizens/voters through news. Norms allow people to predict, explain, and ultimately judge how others ought to behave, and the system of shared meanings and symbols according to which our society operates has strict standards for masculine and feminine behaviour that naturally infuse our political communications.

Another theme joining all aspects of the dissertation is its dual focus on macro- and micro-level factors. The important macro-level factors analyzed are the sociology of newswork, the political economic relations of the media system, and, obviously, societal norms about appropriate gender-role behaviour. These macro-level forces affect individual-level behaviour for all three groups of actors analyzed through the dissertation: the journalists who produce news; the citizens who view and interpret news; and the politicians whose multiple roles in news include both ‘subject’ as well as strategic actor.

2.1 Phase One: Visibility and Blatant Stereotypes

In the past, comparisons of news coverage of men and women politicians tended to highlight three patterns: women received much less coverage (Gingras 1995;

Robinson 1978; Robinson and Saint-Jean 1991 and 1995); they were covered as novelties and outsiders; and their portrayals contained overtly sexist or gender- Chapter Two 32 Analytical Framework

specific stereotypes and language (e.g., Robinson and Saint-Jean 1991 and 1996).

This type of research tended to focus predominantly on measuring the time and

space allotted to men and women politicians in news, as well as on the manifest

content of news.1 Examinations of manifest content focused squarely on overtly

stereotypical2 or sexist reportage – in other words, coverage of women that presented their gender as a (or the) main issue. Scholars working on race, politics, and media have noted similar patterns with respect to coverage of African-

American members of Congress. News coverage tends to emphasize the race of

African-American Congress members, while rarely mentioning the race of white members (e.g., Zilber and Niven 2000a, 2000b). This parallel body of research highlights the general pattern in news coverage to highlight the ‘alien’ or

‘anomalous’ characteristics of political actors from historically-marginalized groups. White maleness is implicitly understood as the norm for those in political office. When women and visible minorities gain office, their otherness becomes a focal point of ensuing coverage.

In terms of visibility, prior to the 1980s there were relatively few female politicians in Canada for news media to cover. Until the mid-1970s, women never occupied more than five seats in the House of Commons, resulting in a legislature that was perennially less than two percent female. The small group of women

1 Manifest content refers to the objectively identifiable characteristics and messages of a communication (e.g., Berelson 1952; Gerbner et al. 1969; Holsti 1969; Krippendorff 1980, 2004). Distinctions between different classifications of media content are elaborated in further detail below. 2 No consensus exists among social psychologists on the definition of stereotype. However, many scholars offer definitions roughly similar to the following: stereotypes are “clusters of preconceived notions regarding various groups” in which there are “strong tendencies to overgeneralize about individuals solely on the basis of their membership in particular … groups.” (Baron and Byrne 1977). Chapter Two 33 Analytical Framework

involved in partisan politics prior to the mid-1970s did not receive substantial

media attention (Gingras 1995; Robinson 1978; Robinson and Saint-Jean 1991

and 1995). Also, women were only infrequently assigned prestigious posts within

parties, resulting in less media visibility for political women before they became

candidates (Robinson and Saint-Jean 1995: 179). Women politicians were

unknown to journalists and the public prior to being elected, and media coverage

of women office holders after their election did little to change this. Even when

female politicians occupied prominent political roles, media coverage has tended

to marginalize their credentials. The following is a telling example:

[A]fter the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, The Journal aired a ‘special’ on the condition of foreigners detained in Iraq during which the Tehran hostage crisis was recalled. Instead of drawing on Flora MacDonald’s expert knowledge as Canada’s external affairs minister during that period, The Journal assigned the commentary roles to former ambassadors Allan Gotlieb (Washington) and Ken Taylor (Tehran). (Robinson and Saint-Jean 1991: 135)

This was part of a general tendency for news media to neglect, marginalize, or

trivialize women politicians, a phenomenon Tuchman (1978) has called

“symbolic annihilation”.

In terms of the nature of coverage, research on early women politicians

demonstrates that media of all types tended to concentrate on the physical

appearances, family connections, domestic arrangements, and romantic lives of

women politicians. In other words, coverage was overtly gender-specific. In their

analysis of what they call the ‘first generation’ of women politicians in Canada,3

3 Robinson and Saint-Jean (1991 and 1995) divide Canadian women politicians into three ‘cohorts’: 1) women born roughly in the 1920s; 2) women born around the outbreak of WWII; and 3) women born after 1960. Overall, the ‘first generation’ of political women served prior to 1970, Chapter Two 34 Analytical Framework

Robinson and Saint-Jean (1995: 139) present an example of manifestly gender-

specific coverage translated from an article that appeared in La Presse in 1952.

The title of the article was ‘Un minister bien chapeauté’ [a well-hatted minister],

and it noted,

Our immigration minister Mrs. Ellen Fairclough travels, meets people and wears a hat much more often that do the majority of Canadians. Since becoming a federal cabinet minister in 1957, Mrs. Fairclough has travelled some 240,000 miles, mostly in Canada, and has worn more than three dozen hats. The functions she has attended over the last four years have permitted her to wear several styles of headgear that are not specifically feminine. While flying, she wore a helmet used by pilots for protection in case of accidents.

The article mentioned little about Fairclough’s policies or duties as immigration minister; rather, it focused on how many and what styles of hats she had worn.

A curious reader may wonder where the harm lies in this type of coverage of women politicians. The above quotation does not say anything explicitly derisive about Fairclough. In addition, journalists do comment on the appearances and personal lives of men as well. When Preston Manning, the former leader of the now-defunct Reform Party, had a hair and wardrobe makeover in the run up to the 1997 Canadian federal election campaign, a burst of news coverage examining his new image ensued. Likewise, coverage focusing on dress and appearance was not uncommon for former Canadian Prime ministers Pierre Trudeau and Brian

Mulroney. Trudeau was often depicted as a dashing ‘man-of-style’, and reporters and pundits regularly mentioned Mulroney’s penchant for designer shoes. More recently, former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s donning of a denim shirt

and the second and third generations served after 1970. Thus, the classification encompasses information about the women’s ages and on the eras in which they served. Chapter Two 35 Analytical Framework

at several points during the 1993 campaign earned him the nickname ‘Marlboro

Man’. The shirt was intended to make him appear more youthful and ‘hip’ next to the younger Kim Campbell, PC Prime Minister and Chrétien’s rival in the 1993 federal election. Politicians, campaign advisors, academics, and citizens all agree that appearance is important in politics. In addition to a politician’s issue positions, character, and past record, the right image is a vital ingredient in making a successful appeal to the electorate.

While personal image is important for male and female politicians alike, intense or protracted coverage of exterior appearance is not and never has been the norm for male politicians. More important, commentary on the clothes, appearances, or personal lives of men does not automatically tie in to their gender.

Coverage of personal appearance has different and potentially more damaging implications for women than it does for men. Naomi Wolf makes the point quite forcefully in her well-known book, The Beauty Myth:

Aren’t men, too, expected to maintain a professional appearance? Certainly: They must conform to a standard that is well groomed, often uniformly clothed, and appropriate to their context. But to pretend that since men have appearance standards it means that the genders are treated equally is to ignore the fact that … men’s and women’s appearances are judged differently; and that the beauty myth reaches far beyond dress codes into a different realm (1997: 48).

The principal argument of Wolf’s book is simple: while women have breeched societal power structures with increasing boldness and success since the 1950s,

“the ideology of beauty is the last one remaining of the old feminine ideologies that still has the power to control those women whom second wave feminism would have otherwise made relatively uncontrollable…” (Ibid.: 10-11). Chapter Two 36 Analytical Framework

Culturally speaking, women have long been seen as objects of beauty

intended for the male gaze, and discussion of women’s physical appearances in

political news necessarily directs attention to their gender. Emphasis on women

politicians’ looks not only draws attention to their gendered identities, it implicitly

raises questions about their political competence. Culturally-constructed gender identities have paired men/masculinity with the public sphere, the mind, objectivity, and rationality. Women/femininity, on the other hand, have been associated with the private sphere, the body, subjectivity, and emotion (e.g.,

Elshtain 1974; Hekman 1987; Oakley 2000; Okin 1979). Following this, womanhood and femininity are not associated automatically with rationality, competence, and leadership. Therefore, news coverage that calls attention to the physical appearances of women politicians can buttress deeply-rooted unconscious assumptions that women’s principal value is in their aesthetic, as opposed to their cerebral, attributes (e.g., van Zoonen 1994 and 2005).

Past research has also focused on reportage of women politicians’ sexual attributes, marital status, and parental status. Beginning in the early twentieth century, ‘spinster’ stereotypes were used to frame suffragists and the suffragist movement in the press, and “women politicians viewed through this lens [were] portrayed as serious, preachy, competent and hard-working because they lack household responsibilities” (Robinson and Saint-Jean 1991: 137). This label was applied often to former Canadian Members of Parliament (MPs) Flora

MacDonald, Pat Carney, and Pauline Jewett. At the opposite extreme was the

“woman of easy virtue” label (Robinson and Saint-Jean 1995 and 1996). Chapter Two 37 Analytical Framework

Reporters have also tended to describe female politicians in terms of their family

relationships. Typically, this has meant connecting women to their male family

members, such as the common use of ‘wife of’ or ‘daughter of’ designations. Use of familial references devalues women’s own accomplishments and status by implicitly attributing political success to male relatives (Robinson and Saint-Jean

1991).

With the passage of time and the accumulation of research, evidence has become increasingly mixed about women’s visibility in political news. Cases of relative parity in the volume of coverage for men and women candidates have multiplied in a variety of national contexts (e.g., Carroll and Schreiber 1997;

Devitt 2002; Everitt 2003; Gidengil and Everitt 2000 and 2002; Kahn 1994;

Smith 1997). There have even been cases where news coverage of women office holders has outpaced that of men. News visibility of women freshmen Congress and Senate representatives following the 1992 US elections was greater than that of first-term male representatives (Carroll and Schreiber 1997). Granted, the 1992

‘Year of the Woman’ was an exceptional round of elections that witnessed a

virtual doubling of the number of women in Congress. However, press coverage

of women elected in 1992 did not fade as the term progressed. In fact, coverage

of the 24 women elected in 1992 increased through 1993 and 1994, and most

articles about these women representatives were featured in the front or national

news sections of the papers (Carroll and Schreiber 1997). As the novelty of the

‘Year of the Woman’ class faded, women office holders have continued to

command considerable media attention in the US. This relative gender balance in Chapter Two 38 Analytical Framework

news visibility was borne out in the 1994 senatorial and gubernatorial contests.

Controlling for incumbency and race competitiveness, Smith (1997) has found

little evidence of systematic gender differences in quantity of print coverage in

these 1994 campaigns.

In other contexts, however, gender disparities in news visibility continue

(e.g., Gingras 1995; Kahn and Goldenberg 1991; Lemish and Tidhar 1999;

Monière and Fortier 2000; Norris 1997b; Sampert and Trimble 2003; Serini,

Powers, and Johnson 1998). To date, researchers have done a poor job of explaining why the volume of coverage of women politicians is proportional to their political presence in some contexts and not in others.

Unlike mixed evidence of imbalances in visibility, there is general

agreement that coverage emphasizing women’s gendered identities continues to occur with regularity. For example, Everitt’s (2003) analysis of the 1999 New

Brunswick provincial election reported that coverage of Elizabeth Weir, the New

Brunswick NDP leader and the only woman leader in that campaign, was considerably more likely to focus on her appearance than were stories about the male leaders. In general, mentions of marital and parental status are more numerous in news stories of women politicians than those of men (e.g., Devitt

2002; Everitt 2003; Jamieson 1995; Piper-Aiken 1999; Ross 2002). In Canadian federal politics, Liberal Cabinet Minister Belinda Stronach’s political success has been repeatedly tied to her father, Frank Stronach (Trimble 2004, 2005, and

2006), the founder and chairperson of Magna International Inc, a multi-million dollar car parts manufacturing company. Former New Democratic Party (NDP) Chapter Two 39 Analytical Framework

leader Alexa McDonough has received the same treatment, particularly in the

earlier years of her career. Reporters were often quick to refer to McDonough’s

family wealth as well as her father’s connection to Tommy Douglas.4 The implicit

message was that McDonough achieved her political position due in part to her

father’s money as well as to his connections within the Cooperative

Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and its successor party, the NDP. Stories about

male candidates, in contrast, are more likely than those about women to mention

the candidate’s occupation, political service, and accomplishments (Davis 1982;

Jamieson 1995).5 Men’s political achievements are attributed to their skills and

experiences, while women’s achievements are credited to their connections to

powerful men. Differences in mentions of professional accomplishments and

political service are particularly striking in light of the fact that women in

Canadian federal politics tend to be better qualified for office than their male

counterparts (Black and Erickson 2000 and 2003), at least in terms of educational

attainment and prior political experience.

Particularly objectionable sexist reporting also continues to occur,

although infrequently. The most recent evidence in the Canadian context involves

Belinda Stronach, originally a Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leadership

4 McDonough was the daughter of successful Halifax brick manufacturer Lloyd Shaw. In addition to being wealthy, Shaw was a socialist and served as the first national research director of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), the predecessor to the NDP. Shaw was a personal friend of CCF leader Tommy Douglas, and was well connected to the powerful inner circle of the party. 5 Jamieson (1995) notes that similar patterns characterize coverage of candidates’ spouses. Female spouses are identified typically by their first names with no reference to their professions. Stories that mention male spouses usually include their full names and their professions (170-171). While the focus of this thesis is on news coverage of politicians themselves, such evidence is suggestive of the systematic nature of media norms guiding the reportage of men and women in the public sphere. Chapter Two 40 Analytical Framework

candidate and MP, who crossed the floor of the House of Commons to join the

Liberal Party and Prime Minister Paul Martin’s Cabinet in May 2005. Reportage

of Stronach’s run for the leadership of the Conservative Party in 2004 was littered

with references to her clothes, her blond hair, and her personal life (e.g., Trimble

2004 and 2005). Stronach was called the “It-Girl of the political right” in the

Globe and Mail, Canada’s newspaper of record, and her leadership campaign was

compared to “Paris Hilton starring in The Simple Political Life” (Trimble 2004).

When Stronach defected from the Conservative Party to the Liberal Party, several

male politicians publicly accused her of ‘whoring’ or ‘prostituting’ herself for a

cabinet post. Media reported these statements widely, and published editorial

pieces and political cartoons that played on the incident. One cartoon, for

example, showed Stronach in bed with Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin, with

Stronach telling Martin, “I've always liked a Liberal man with a big caucus”.6 The

play on words in this case surely requires no further elaboration. The cartoon

sexualized Stronach and her relationship with the Prime Minister and made

gender, rather than her partisan defection, the primary focal point. Stronach is not

the first Canadian politician to change party affiliation; however, gender-specific

story angles and sexual innuendos are not standard in coverage of male party

switchers, such as Jean Lapierre, Scott Brison, and Keith Martin.7 Reacting to the

6 The cartoon was created by Danny Pruden, a political cartoonist whose work appears in the Winnipeg Sun. This particular cartoon appeared in the May 18, 2005 edition of the Winnipeg Sun. 7 Jean Lapierre, Liberal MP for Shefford, Quebec left the Liberal caucus in 1990 to sit as a member of the Bloc Québécois. Lapierre later returned to the Liberals, and won election as a Liberal MP in the 2004 Canadian federal election. Scott Brison left the Progressive Conservatives (PC) in 2004 to join the Liberals. Brison’s decision to switch parties was due to the PC merger with the Canadian Alliance to form the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) in 2004. Keith Chapter Two 41 Analytical Framework

stir about Stronach’s defection, CBC Newsworld ran a story about party- switching by male MPs. Looking for the most insulting news item from the last case of male party-switching (Brison), the worst their researchers could find was a headline reading, "Turncoat MP damages party".8

Despite these and other incidents, blatant stereotypes and sexist reportage

have diminished gradually in political news (e.g., Carroll and Schreiber 1997;

Norris 1997b; Smith 1997; Tremblay and Bélanger 1997). In fact, there are recent

studies that find no significant patterns of gender stereotypical news coverage

(e.g., Norris 1997b). Improvements in news may be due to women’s increased

participation in the sphere of formal politics, which may have both decreased their

novelty value and enhanced their credibility as politicians. Indeed, more and more

women occupy prominent political roles as executives, cabinet ministers, high-

level judges, and senior civil servants. Additionally, news organizations have undertaken internal reforms intended toward eliminating the worst and most palpable aspects of sexist reportage from news. American newspapers have adopted style manuals aimed at eradicating gender stereotyping (Jamieson 1995).

Parallel efforts have been undertaken in Canada. The CBC has developed its

Gender Guidelines, a document that aims to ensure language used to report women is gender-neutral (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 1998). The

Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) and the Canadian Association of

Broadcasters (CAB) have adopted similar guidelines on sex-role portrayal. The

Martin left the Canadian Alliance in 2004 to join the Liberals upon the former’s merger into the CPC. 8 CBC Newsworld. 18 May 2005. Chapter Two 42 Analytical Framework

goal is to promote gender-neutral language and reporting styles in Canadian news

production. The ‘gendered mediation’ thesis posits, however, that ostensible

gender neutrality in the language of news reporting is not an effective response

for the imbalances that exist in coverage. In fact, the typical result is that women

are covered like men, because news is male-dominated and has been constituted

according to masculine conceptions of politics and political leadership.

2.2 The ‘Gendered Mediation’ Thesis

Developed over the past decade, the ‘gendered mediation’ thesis is a “new phase

in the study of women, politics, and the media” (Gidengil and Everitt 1999: 48).

The original articulation of this approach in Sreberny-Mohammadi and Ross’

(1996) work on women MPs in Britain has been further refined by Canadian

(Gidengil and Everitt 1999; 2000; 2003a; and 2003b) and Australian scholars

(Fountaine and McGregor 2002).

The gendered mediation thesis is not a departure from past approaches,

but a refinement and progression of analytical focus. The gendered mediation

thesis goes far beneath the surface – beyond the unequivocal use of stereotypes

and sexist language in news – to identify how and why seemingly gender-neutral

news presents distorted and, in some cases, disadvantageous depictions of women

politicians. The objective of the gendered mediation thesis is to examine the more

oblique – and therefore potentially insidious – gender imbalances in political

news.

As noted above, the gendered mediation thesis is rooted in two core Chapter Two 43 Analytical Framework

premises. First, news media reflects the culture in which it is situated; second, the

inner mechanics of the news media industry, which is male-dominated, reinforce

the masculine character of the news product. Both of these premises have

empirical weight from a variety of disciplines. The idea that news media reflects

the culture in which it is situated is conventional wisdom among the bulk of

communications scholars. For example, the work of Gamson and his colleagues

(e.g., Gamson 1988; Gamson and Modigliani 1989) identifies several major

factors that shape media discourse about politics, and one of these is “cultural

resonances”, or what Benson calls “culturally available symbols and themes”

(2004: 277). Indeed, journalism is a human endeavour that cannot occur outside

the systems of shared meanings produced by a society.9

Likewise, the notion that news is male-dominated in the broadest sense of

the word – in terms of its personnel, structure, and organizational culture – is a

well-mined topic in the literature (e.g. Chambers, Steiner, and Fleming 2004;

Claringbould, Knoppers, and Elling 2004; De Clercq 2003; Miller and Miller

1995; Mills 1997; Monière 2000; Ross 2001; van Zoonen 1994). Contributing to

the weighty evidence, Chapter Five of the dissertation presents evidence that the

Canadian television news system is both dominated by men and distinctively

masculine in its structure, operation, and culture.

Stemming from these two starting points – news reflects society and news

is male dominated -- the gendered mediation approach identifies several inter-

9 In addition to reflecting culture, media simultaneously engage in the production of meaning and symbols, which are then transmitted to citizens. In other words, media is not simply a passive mirror of society and its norms, for the reality is much more complex. Chapter Two 44 Analytical Framework related and empirically-testable hypotheses about how news covers women politicians compared to their male colleagues. All of these hypotheses were either neglected or not thoroughly specified in early work on women, media, and politics. For the complexion of news content, the gendered mediation thesis predicts that:

• Frames used to present politics and the archetypical politician are commonly masculine in character, because this is the way that politics has been framed historically and because men and masculinity dominate news.

• News exaggerates the counter-stereotypical behaviours of women politicians. Again, this is a product both of gendered norms of behaviour and of a news system that prioritizes dramatic and surprising behaviour.

• On the whole, news presents a more mediated, filtered image of women politicians’ words and actions compared to coverage of male politicians.

• Women politicians tend to be linked with social or ‘care’ issues more than their male colleagues, and male politicians tend to be linked more with ‘hard’ political issues, such as defence, the economy, and foreign affairs. The pattern is a function of sex-role stereotypes that associate women with warmth, compassion, and communality and men with strength, aggression, and instrumentality. The tendency is also a function of time pressures in news production, which lead reporters to use stereotypes in reportage of lesser-known politicians.

• Women journalists cannot compensate for gendered coverage of women politicians, because gendered news is deeply rooted in cultural norms and the mechanics of news production, neither of which can be easily, thoroughly, or quickly rehabilitated by individual women journalists.

To date, work within the gendered mediation thesis has dealt relatively little with the last two hypotheses. For example, Gidengil and Everitt have analyzed how men and women journalists used verbs of reported speech in an article on campaign coverage of the 1993 Canadian federal election (2003b). Yet, their article does not aim to provide a comprehensive account of men and women journalists’ behaviour in the profession, particularly the constraints women Chapter Two 45 Analytical Framework

journalists face in their male-dominated and –defined occupation. Each of the inter-related hypotheses and its underlying rationale are examined in greater detail

below.

Obviously, the gendered mediation thesis pushes scholars of women,

media, and politics beyond the manifest aspects of news content. Fundamentally,

the framework seeks to identify and explain the imbalanced aspects of seemingly-

neutral reportage. The gendered mediation approach also questions, but has never

systematically tested, how gendered reportage that masquerades as neutral

influences citizens’ perceptions – public opinion, in other words – of politicians.

There are several reasons why the research agenda has come to focus on the more

complex issue of oblique gender imbalances in news. First, issues related to news

visibility and explicitly stereotypical or sexist coverage have been well identified

and documented in past literature. While these are still important concerns for

scholars of gender and political communications, evidence suggests that the

visibility of women politicians has improved and that explicitly sexist coverage

has diminished, as noted above. Certainly, the volume of coverage apportioned to

women politicians continues to matter for both symbolic and substantive reasons.

However, the point is that visibility is a secondary concern within the gendered

mediation thesis, for high news visibility means little if coverage of women is

unfavourable.

Second, women have entered the political sphere in significant numbers

over the past couple of decades across countries of the developed west. This

raises the expectation that blatant stereotypes and “women-specific narrative Chapter Two 46 Analytical Framework frames” (Gidengil and Everitt 2000 106) have and will continue to become less prevalent in political news as women have become less novel in formal politics.

We can no longer assume news media will ignore political women; neither can we assume that where imbalances in volume of coverage exist that such imbalances will be as large or as widespread as they were in the past. Automatic assumptions that women politicians face a visibility hurdle must be discarded, because who gets coverage is likely more a function of the political context and the individual characteristics of the politician him or herself.

Third, and most importantly, the gendered mediation thesis reflects the dominant approach to media effects research that has developed over the past few decades. Recall from Chapter One the discussion of the third period of media effects research, which has established that media’s influence on citizens is predominantly indirect. Media research on agenda setting, priming, and framing is centred on the multiple complex ways that seemingly routine choices made in the structure, format, and style of news influence how citizens think about politics. Work on agenda setting, for example,

reflects a shift from preoccupation with attitude and opinion change … towards a concentration on the contributions of the media to the formation of frameworks through which people regard political events and debates. Furthermore, the mass media are seen to perform this role, not by analyzing and arguing the merits of different issues, but by the manner in which they select, highlight and assign greater prominence to some issues rather than to others (Blumler and Gurevitch 1988: 262).

Likewise, a similar approach informs work on media framing,10 which is a core

10 According to Gitlin (1980: 7), “media frames are persistent patterns of cognition, interpretation, and presentation, of selection, emphasis, and exclusion, by which symbol handlers Chapter Two 47 Analytical Framework component of the gendered mediation thesis. Virtually all issues, events, and people can be framed in multiple ways, and newsmakers’ frame selection affects how citizens think and feel about political issues, processes, and actors (e.g.,

Ghanem 1997; Gitlin 1980 and 1994; Iyengar 1991; Entman 1991 and 1993;

McCombs, Shaw, and Weaver 1997; Norris 1997a; Terkildsen and Schnell 1997).

According to Entman's (1993: 52) definition, the meaning of framing is “to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described.” Framing is a subtle process, which means that gendered news frames are not always immediately identifiable in the way that blatantly sexist or stereotypical reportage is. Thus, news frames that are not gender-specific, but which define political events or issues in ways that have negative implications for how women politicians will be perceived and judged are more insidious and potentially more difficult to eradicate. For these and other reasons, the focus on routinely organize discourse, whether verbal or visual” (see also Entman 1991 and 1993; Gitlin 1994; Iyengar 1991; Terkildsen and Schnell 1997). Frames provide coherence, context, and understanding to news stories by applying a “conventional ‘peg’” (Norris 1997a: 2), an angle, or a story line (Mendelsohn 1996: 8). In other words, frames provide structure to the people, events, and ideas reported in a news story by applying an interpretive story-line that implicitly signals to audiences which aspects of a story are most important as well as how to think about the facts, ideas, or events. Central to theories of framing is the idea that frames are inherently about choice, because people, events, and ideas can usually be framed in a variety of ways. The application of one frame over others represents a choice, however inadvertent or unconscious. A perennial favourite for election stories is the horserace frame. In the international arena, news coverage of terrorism routinely chooses a perpetrator-victim frame which simplfies the political, economic, and cultural complexities behind terrorist activity and also unambiguously assigns blame for terrorist attacks (e.g., Cohen and Wolfsfeld 1993). Inevitably, frames “call attention to some aspects of reality while obscuring other elements” (Entman 1993: 55). This is consequential for audiences. Research on survey methodology shows that question wording, essentially a matter of how a question is framed, influences how respondents perceive a question (e.g., Fine 1992). Ghanem (1997) argues that the same logic applies to news, for frames can have an impact on how audiences perceive the events, issues, and people presented in a news story depending on the ‘story-line’ or ‘peg’ selected for the presentation of a story. Chapter Two 48 Analytical Framework framing within the gendered mediation thesis represents an innovative advantage over past research approaches.

A final point to be made before examining specific hypotheses is that the social, organizational, and economic meta-level forces shaping the news system produce imbalanced news in general. Gendered reportage is one example of distortion in the news product. Similar patterns of imbalanced coverage are well established in the case of historically-marginalized ethnic groups, such as

African-Americans in the US Congress (e.g., Zilber and Niven 2000), and the very same economic, social, and organizational forces appear to be at work in both cases. Indeed, racial stereotypes influence how African-American members of Congress are depicted in news, and part of the explanation for race- differentiated coverage is the absence of Blacks from positions of power in media and in forging definitions of what counts as news and how news should be presented.

2.2a Masculine Frames

Turning to in-depth analysis of the hypotheses generated from the gendered mediation thesis, the concept of framing figures prominently in the approach. As noted above, news frames provide a ‘storyline’ linking people, events, and issues in a news story (e.g., Ghanem 1997; Gitlin 1980 and 1994; Iyengar 1991; Entman

1991 and 1993; Norris 1997a; Terkildsen and Schnell 1997). Frames structure news stories by providing an interpretive lens to the collection of facts reported in a story, thereby indicating to audiences how they should think about the Chapter Two 49 Analytical Framework information presented. Scholars working with the gendered mediation thesis have provided powerful evidence that the dominant frames applied to political news are masculine. Particular attention has been given to the prevalent use of language and metaphors drawn from the historically-masculine domains of war, sport, and games. Researchers have illustrated, for example, that the bulk of metaphors used to describe election campaigns and particularly televised leaders’ debates are related to war, sport, or militarized violence (Gidengil and Everitt

2003a: 568). Print headlines are peppered with words such as fire, attack, blitz, tackle, and hammer as well as metaphors such as takes aim, gang-up, and one- two punch (Sampert and Trimble 2003; Trimble and Sampert 2004). The emphasis on conflict also extends to the visual imagery and body language preferred by newsmakers. Aggressive gestures, such as finger pointing and fist clenching, provide good fodder for news stories and provide dramatic imagery for audiences (e.g., Gidengil and Everitt 2003a).

The most widely used frame or ‘story-line’ for election coverage is the horserace frame (e.g., Brady and Johnston 1987; Iyengar, Norpoth, and Hahn

2004; Mendelsohn 1993; Robinson and Sheehan 1983; Wagenberg el al. 1988).

The horserace is also a good example of a masculine game frame, because it presents elections as competitive matches between contending candidates, focusing on “who is ahead, who is behind, who is gaining, who is losing, what campaign strategy is being followed, and what the impact of campaign activities is on the candidate's chances of winning'' (Joslyn 1984: 133). The horserace frame depicts politics in an individualized and uncomplicated manner, largely Chapter Two 50 Analytical Framework

ignoring complex issues and policy debates.

How do masculine frames affect perceptions of women politicians? At

first glance, news appears fair in that it uses the same frames to report both male

and female candidates. This is in contrast with gender-specific frames that focus

on women’s looks or their gendered identities as daughters, wives, or mothers.

However, gender neutrality is not synonymous with covering women like men.

War, sport, and game frames are masculine to the extent that they focus on

activities such as horseracing and boxing that not typically thought of as

‘feminine’ or suitable for women. War, sport, and game frames are also masculine in terms of the traits they evoke. For example, success in a horserace requires speed, strength, competitiveness, aggressivity, temerity, and spirit. These characteristics are typically associated with men/masculinity, a point that is elaborated in further detail below. Surely, women do not lack such attributes; rather, the point is that women/femininity are not automatically associated with such traits. These points are even more significant in light of evidence that women candidates are more likely to receive horserace coverage than their male rivals (Kahn 1994; Kahn and Goldberg 1991 and 1997), likely because women’s electoral viability is commonly questioned.

On the other hand, it is possible that horserace coverage benefits women candidates. Reportage highlighting a female politician’s lead in a hotly contested riding may suggest that her candidacy is competitive. There has been little evidence for this interpretation, however.

The application of masculine frames to describe women politicians can Chapter Two 51 Analytical Framework

appear unnatural to viewers, triggering a “basic schema incompatibility” (Butler and Geis 1990). To use Entman’s words: "journalists may follow the rules for objective reporting and yet convey a dominant framing of the news that prevents most audience members from making a balanced assessment of a situation"

(1993: 57). The idea of a woman landing a ‘knockout blow’ or ‘keeping her stick on the ice’ is at odds with culturally-defined norms of ‘feminine’ behaviour.

Historically, women have not been associated with war, sport, and games and, therefore, are not automatically credited with the traits needed to succeed in these domains, such as aggression, strength, autonomy, and competitiveness. If a job or a social role has been occupied by only one type of person, it is natural that the role would become synonymous with that type of person over time. More concretely, because men have enjoyed a near-monopoly on the domains of war, sport, games, and politics, men and masculine traits have become synonymous with these activities. Therefore, the use of masculine news frames that equate

political debate with boxing matches and elections with horseraces imparts – or,

perhaps more accurately, reinforces – the idea that women are alien to politics or

that they do not possess the traits required to successfully compete.

To explain the dominance of masculine frames in political reportage, we

must examine both the cultural construction of politics as well as the inner

mechanics of the news system. Politics and the social role “politician” have been

constructed in a masculine image. The culture reflected in and reinforced by news

media is one that is male-dominated and which has defined politics according to

masculine understandings and experiences. Men are more numerous, powerful, Chapter Two 52 Analytical Framework

and visible in the political sphere. In addition, masculinity and stereotypically

masculine traits set the standards for political leadership. Attributes

characteristically associated with the archetypical politician include strength, independence, autonomy, resolve, and competence (Huddy and Terkildsen 1993a; see also Funk 1997; Kinder et al. 1980; Ridgeway 2001; Shanks and Miller 1991;

Mondak 1995; McCurley and Mondak 1995). These are stereotypically male attributes, as are traits such as aggression, forcefulness, and decisiveness (e.g.

Best and Williams 1990; Heilman 2001). Feminine stereotypes, on the other hand, tend to associate women with warmth, passivity, expressivity, and cautiousness

(e.g., Best and Williams 1990; Broverman, Vogel, Broverman, Clarkson, and

Rosenkrantz 1972; Huddy and Terkildsen 1993a), as well as communal rather than agentic goals (e.g., Bem 1974 and 1993; Spence and Helmreich 1978). On the whole, these stereotypically feminine traits are not readily associated with political leadership or the archetypical politician.

Empirical tests have provided evidence that stereotypically masculine traits are more readily associated with the social role ‘politician’. For example, competence is consistently identified with political success, particularly ascension to political executive posts, while empathy is considered the least crucial attribute (Kinder et al. 1980, as cited in Huddy and Terkildsen 1993a; see also Bean 1993; Brown et al. 1988).11 Huddy and Terkildsen (1993a) find that for

11 Note that there is some debate about whether or not empathy, warmth, and trustworthiness are becoming more important as political character attributes, particularly given the series of public governance scandals that have happened in the US (e.g., Enron) and Canada (e.g., Sponsorship Scandal, HRDC) in recent years. Indeed, several authors have pointed out that we may see men and women both starting to emphasize traditionally ‘feminine’ traits in their self- presentations to citizens and media. Chapter Two 53 Analytical Framework

a variety of political offices – from a president to a local councilor – a ‘good’

politician is attributed with more masculine than feminine traits. This may be the

key to understanding why American election simulations conducted with the participation of college students revealed that between equally qualified male and female candidates, students assumed the male would win (Sapiro 1982).

Clearly, men and women’s presumed strengths are differently valued in political leadership. Georgia Duerst-Lahti (2006), a specialist of gender and leadership, examines Clinton Rossiter’s “classic list of presidential duties: Chief of State, Chief Executive, Chief Diplomat, Commander-in-Chief, Chief

Legislator, Chief of the Party, Voice of the People, Protector of the Peace,

Manager of Prosperity, Leader of the Free World”. Duerst-Lahti’s assessment of these roles reveals plainly their masculine bent. She notes, for example,

The term chief is seldom associated with traditional women’s work, and women as commanders are even more rare. The ‘protector’ role has been almost exclusively a masculine endeavor…. ‘Voice’ is only recently something women have been known to have…. (Ibid.: 313; see also Duerst-Lahti and Kelly 1995).

Conventional standards of political leadership privilege masculine personality traits, and this is reflected in reportage that frames politics in terms of war, game,

sport, and the horserace.

The cultural construction of politics and the archetypical politician are

only part of the explanation for masculine news frames. Further buttressing the

tendency toward masculine news frames is the fact that the news system is itself

male-dominated. As noted above, this is the second fundamental premise

underlying the gendered mediation thesis. Two meta-level factors in particular Chapter Two 54 Analytical Framework

govern how news is produced: the sociology of newswork and the political

economy of the media system, both of which are male-dominated. Arguably,

researchers within the gendered mediation approach have not paid as much

attention to the internal mechanics of the news system as they have to the

influence of culturally-constructed gender-role norms and stereotypes. Benson

(2004) claims this is a pervasive problem in the study of political

communications, for scholars pay little attention to the sociology of media as an

independent variable, at least beyond vague references to “media-specific

factors”, “news routines”, and or “journalistic role perceptions” (Ibid.: 276). This

oversight is folly. In order to understand our political information system, “the

first step is to look beneath the surface of the news to see how images of society

and politics are produced and distributed” (Bennett 2003: 30). Thus, one of the

objectives of this chapter – and of the relevant sections of the dissertation, in fact

– is to provide in-depth and concrete analysis of the linkages between the

organizational and financial aspects of the media system, on the one hand, and specific patterns of coverage and reception, on the other.

Sociologists have pointed out that news is the product of predictable, uniform, routinized processes (e.g., Tuchman 1973 and 1978; Schlesinger 1978;

Schudson 1989), challenging the idea that news can be ‘objective’ or ‘impartial’.

The sociological perspective on the production of news is rooted in the sociology of work tradition and, more generally, in organizational or bureaucratic theory

(e.g., Schudson 1989). Viewed through this lens, scholars have illuminated how the routines of journalism and the characteristics of news organizations influence Chapter Two 55 Analytical Framework

news output.

There is practically an ironclad, though somewhat mythical, creed that guides newswork. Ericson, Baranek, and Chan (1987: 120) call it an

“occupational ideology”. Journalism has constituted itself according to norms of

objectivity, impartiality, and independence, as noted at the opening of the last

chapter. Clearly, the profession defines good journalism according to procedural

criteria; good journalism depends primarily on how news is collected and

produced, not on the substantive content of reportage. Arguably, norms of

objectivity, impartiality, and independence reflect a male conception of the

profession and a decidedly masculine way of approaching news and the people

who become news subjects. For example, detachment, impartiality, and the

“fetishization of facts and factuality” are common journalistic practices (e.g., van

Zoonen 1998). The journalist “assumes the role of a politically neutral adversary....” because “journalists see adversarialism as an important counterpoint to becoming too close to their sources” (Bennett 2003: 194; see also Mindich

1998; Tuchman 1978; Schudson 1978). While it is desirable that journalists

maintain professional distance from politicians and other official news sources,

the need to project an appearance of politically-neutral adversarialism is arguably

part of the reason news frames focus on games, war, sports, and the horserace, all

of which emphasize conflict and competition. Journalism has pitted reporters

against news subjects, particularly when the subjects are politicians. News is

written and spoken in a masculine language that focuses on conflict, drama, and

competition, which reflects a masculine preoccupation with winning, according to Chapter Two 56 Analytical Framework

a variety of scholars (e.g., Covert 1981; van Zoonen 1998).

The political economic structure of the news media industry reinforces the

masculine character of news. Generally speaking, one of the unique economic

aspects of most televised media is its indirect financing, for “the product being

sold is not programming to viewers but viewer exposures to advertising

messages” (Hoskins, McFadyen, and Finn 2001: 19). Reliance on advertising revenues forces news outlets to pay close attention to the size and characteristics of their audiences. As Hoskins and his colleagues note,

the price paid for advertising will depend on the number of viewers (and their demographics)... A broadcaster maximizes revenue by providing a program … that maximizes either the total audience or the total audience from the desired demographic segment (2001: 19).

It will come as no surprise that advertisers and marketers target their messages to

high-income groups. “The whole psychology of marketing is to go for the cream”

(James 2000: 36), according to an article from industry periodical Marketing. If

advertisers aim to target their messages to high-income consumers, newsmakers

must pay attention to their ability to deliver this audience segment to their

advertisers. In turn, since the profile of the consumer ‘cream’ is affluent, it is also

disproportionately male, white, and older. Keeping ratings high among this

segment of the news audience undoubtedly requires a certain approach to news

topics and angles – presumably, an approach that avoids confronting the dominant

societal assumptions about gender-role norms. In other words, the political

economic organization of news media produces tendencies toward a particular

type of coverage that is geared toward maintaining rather than challenging the Chapter Two 57 Analytical Framework

status quo. Given conventional stereotypes about men and their interests,

newsmakers have likely assumed that male viewers prefer conflictive,

controversial, and quick-paced coverage that does little to challenge the notion

that politics is a largely male preserve, at least in terms of the traits required to

succeed in a political career.

2.2b Exaggeration of Counter-Stereotypical Behaviours

Another hypothesis put forward by the gendered mediation thesis is the prediction that counter-stereotypical behaviours on the part of women politicians are exaggerated in news coverage, particularly instances of female aggression.

Gidengil and Everitt’s work on coverage of televised leaders’ debates provides some evidence for this hypothesis (Gidengil and Everitt 1999, 2000, and 2003a).

In coverage of the English-language leaders’ debate for the 1993 Canadian federal election, Gidengil and Everitt found that finger pointing, fist clenching,

and interrupting figured more prominently in post-debate coverage of the two

women leaders than in that of the three male leaders. Yet, in reality, the male

leaders engaged in these behaviours more often than the women did, as analysis

of the unedited debates revealed. Similarly, content analyses of television

coverage of the 1993 and 1997 Canadian federal election campaigns reveals how

aggressive verbs such as attack, accuse, and slam are used disproportionately to

report the speech of female politicians (Gidengil and Everitt 2003b: 221-2).

If news exaggerates the aggressive behaviour of women politicians, the

explanation rests again with cultural norms as well as the exigencies of news Chapter Two 58 Analytical Framework

production. Newsworthiness is defined by several criteria, and ‘the unexpected’

is one of the stronger cues of newsworthiness (e.g., Bennett 2003; Ericson,

Baranek, and Chan 1987). As Ericson and his colleagues note, news “focuses

upon what is out of place: the deviant, equivocal, and unpredictable” (1992: 233).

Thus, a female politician acting even moderately aggressively can create a “basic

schema incompatibility” in which actual behaviour contradicts deeply-held

cultural norms of appropriate female action and demeanor (Butler and Geis 1990;

Hitchon and Chang 1995). Since surprising or unexpected behaviours are

particularly newsworthy, instances of female aggression may be exaggerated in

news stories.

2.2c The Filtered Female

The third major hypothesis identified by the gendered mediation approach is that

the behaviour of female politicians is more mediated or filtered than that their

male colleagues. To explain why women’s actions and speech are more filtered

than those of their male colleagues, scholars working within the gendered

mediation paradigm have typically relied on Rakow and Kranich’s (1991)

concept of “woman as sign” in news. According to Rakow and Kranich (1991),

women function in news as “signs” or conveyors of meaning, rather than authors or creators of meaning. Indeed, news is a masculine discourse that reflects our culturally-constituted norms and expectations. Therefore, men “do not ordinarily carry meaning as ‘man’ because the culture assumes maleness as given” (Ibid.:

13). Rakow and Kranich are quite clear that the sign ‘woman’ does not Chapter Two 59 Analytical Framework

necessarily reflect reality. Indeed, “’woman’ has meaning not because it refers to

some real, pregiven entity that the word tags but because it is different from another sign ‘man’” (Ibid.: 10). The difference for women, however, is that they

do not define what ‘woman’ means. The category ‘woman’ has already been

rigidly defined by our culture, and women’s role in news, therefore, is to

passively reflect this culturally-bound ‘other’ juxtaposed against the male subject.

The consequences of women’s function as sign in news are various.

Primary among these is that women’s authority as creators of meaning is

undermined, and this happens through a variety of news practices. For example,

women are underrepresented as prestigious news sources, for few experts or

pundits are female (e.g., Bridge 1995). Women tend to be portrayed in news as

passive rather than speaking subjects, as private rather than public individuals,

and these portrayals often show women as victims of crime, natural disaster, or

domestic conflict (Rakow and Kranich 1991: 14). Indeed, women

disproportionately speak in the news as “anonymous [examples] of uninformed

public opinion, as housewife, consumer, neighbor, or a mother, sister, wife of the

man in the news, or as victim of crime, disaster, or political policy. Thus, not

only [do] women appear less frequently, but they [tend] to speak as passive

reactors...rather than as participants....” (1991: 14; see also Meyers 1994 and

1997; Potter 1986). Clearly, there are important parallels here with other work,

particularly that of Tuchman on the “symbolic annihilation” of women in news

(1978; see also Gerbner and Gross 1976). Tuchman (1978) and Rakow and

Kranich (1991) essentially agree that women’s treatment by media is Chapter Two 60 Analytical Framework

characterized largely by women’s omission, trivialisation, and/or condemnation

(Tuchman 1978).

Applied to news coverage of politicians, the concept of “woman as sign”

(Rakow and Kranich 1991) leads to several expectations of sex differences in politicians’ coverage. First, women politicians will be seen less often as speaking

news subjects (in sound bites, for example) compared to their male colleagues.

This may mean that women receive fewer sound bites in news stories compared

to men or that women receive shorter sound bites. The result is the same: less air

time for direct communication with viewers/voters in their own words and

voices.

Second, women politicians’ speech will be paraphrased, interpreted,

and/or analyzed more often than that of their male colleagues. This is another

way that news undermines women’s abilities to create their own meanings and

represent their own views – in other words, to speak for themselves and for other

women. Past research demonstrates that this particular mode of filtering women

politicians is common practice in news coverage of women candidates. For

instance, during the 1993 Canadian federal election campaign, 43 percent of

statements made about Jean Chrétien in coverage of the English leaders’ debate

were classified as descriptive; yet, only 31 percent of the statements made about

Kim Campbell’s debate performance were descriptive (Gidengil and Everitt

2000). Campbell’s coverage was mainly interpretive, telling voters not only what

she did and said but, more importantly, what her actions and words meant or

signified. Similar practices occur in American media. Print coverage of Elizabeth Chapter Two 61 Analytical Framework

Dole’s presidential bid included fewer direct quotes and more paraphrasing of her

speech compared to her male opponents (Aday and Devitt 2001; see also Devitt

2002).

Finally, when women politicians’ speech is analyzed or interpreted, news

stories will be less likely to include evidence linking the analysis to reality. In other words, newsmakers will be less likely to explicitly tie their analyses of women politicians to the women’s past actions, speech, or political beliefs. To be clear, I do not contend that newsmakers produce these sex differences in coverage knowingly or maliciously. Rather, like Rakow and Kranich (1991), my analyses of news content and production reflect the belief that “news media personnel work within a taken-for-granted meaning system in which it simply makes sense to do these things” (1991: 12).

2.2d Issue Coverage

The existence of gendered issue coverage for women politicians is a fourth hypothesis following from the gendered mediation thesis. Two patterns of sex- differentiated coverage are important here. First, women tend to receive less issue coverage in general (e.g., Braden 1996; Devitt 2002; Kahn 1996; Kahn and

Goldenberg 1991 and 1997), despite the fact that women candidates tend more than their male colleagues to make issues “a cornerstone of their campaigns”

(Kahn and Gordon 1997: 74). Second, when issues are presented in stories about women politicians, the focus tends to be on stereotypically ‘feminine’ issues, such as health, welfare, education, and ‘lifestyle’ topics (e.g., Kahn and Goldberg Chapter Two 62 Analytical Framework

1991; Norris 1997b). The message sent to viewers is that women have less

interest and expertise in what have typically been considered the most important

policy fields, such as foreign affairs, trade and the economy, and defence.

Attributing responsibility for these patterns of gendered issue coverage is difficult, although it is clear that newsmakers are not solely to blame for the association between women politicians and ‘soft’ political issues. Policy ‘pink- collar ghettos’ have been the norm in many governments. The general pattern has been one of assigning women politicians to lower prestige positions in policy fields such as health care, education, and culture, examples of what are

collectively referred to as “housekeeping portfolios” (Studlar and Moncrief 1999:

381). This pattern has held for a variety of political postings from legislative

committee assignments to cabinet appointments (e.g., Brodie 1977; Bashevkin

1993; Davis 1997; Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson 2005; IPU 1999;

Moon and Fountain 1997; Reynolds 1999; Rodriguez 2003; Skjeie 1991; Studlar

and Moncrief 1999), although some of these authors note an upward trend in women’s success at “cracking the inner circle” over time (Escobar-Lemmon and

Taylor-Robinson 2005: 838; see also Bashevkin 1993; Davis 1997; Erickson

1997; Moon and Fountain 1997). Across Canada, the US, Western Europe, and

Australia, women politicians have been disproportionately located in ‘feminine’

policy spheres. In addition, women politicians’ self-presentations to voters – for

example, in political advertisements (e.g., Kahn 1996; Shames 2003) and on

Congressional websites (Niven and Zilber 2001) – are more likely than those of

men to emphasize social issues and women’s issues. Whether women politicians Chapter Two 63 Analytical Framework

emphasize social issues because they are sincerely inclined toward them or

because they think voters will perceive such issues to be areas of strength because

of their gender is not entirely clear. Likely, choice of focal issues varies by

individual woman politician.

Issue coverage that links women with ‘feminine’ issue areas is an accurate

reflection of reality, at least in part. However, the idea that newsmakers play some

role in this process is probable given the core premises of the gendered mediation

thesis. First, in terms of the mechanics of the journalistic profession, we know that

journalists operate under continual time pressures, and we also know that

journalists tend to be generalists rather than specialists regarding the depth of

knowledge they possess about their topic assignments (e.g., Ericson, Baranek, and

Chan 1987 and 1992). Even when reporters do have specialized knowledge in

areas such as law, international economics, or environmental politics, they tend

not to be assigned to stories or beats within their expertise with any degree of

regularity (Ibid). Because reporters are generalists with daily deadlines, they do

not have enough time to gain expertise about every topic or politician they report.

The constraints of the job, therefore, encourage reporters to rely on ‘low-

information shortcuts’ (Popkin 1991) – in the language of the political psychology literature – to fill in the blanks. Zilber and Niven (2000a) argue that the complexity of reporters’ jobs encourages them to “categorize” members of

Congress (33). In turn,

categorizing members encourages the media to stereotype some as concerned about … agriculture, some about taxes, and some about racial issues. In the process, members predominantly receive coverage only on ‘their’ issue and can come to be stereotyped as Chapter Two 64 Analytical Framework

knowing or caring only about that issue (Ibid.: 33-34; see also Zilber and Niven 2000b).

Zilber and Niven’s article focuses on African-American members of Congress

and the tendency of their coverage to focus on racial issues. However, the pattern is general. Race is simply the most obvious or cognitively-available cue in the

case of visible minority legislators. In the case of women politicians, the

distinguishing trait is sex, and thus, women tend to be associated with issues

commonly perceived as ‘feminine’, such as education, health, and welfare. In

fact, because women are relative newcomers to politics who are less likely to be

long-sitting incumbents and less likely to hold high-profile positions, such as

cabinet member, house speaker, or party whip, journalists are less likely to have a

wealth of specific information about women politicians. Consequently,

journalists may be more likely to rely on gender stereotypical thinking to link

women with ‘feminine’ policy domains.

The use of stereotypes to compensate for information gaps is a well-

established topic in the voting behaviour literature, as well. Voters tend to use

traits like race and gender, both of which typically are readily recognizable, to

impute issue concerns and positions to candidates about whom they know

relatively little (e.g., Burrell 1994; Huddy and Terkildsen 1993b; Kahn 1992 and

1994b; Leeper 1991; Matland 1994; McDermott 1997 and 1998; Rosenwasser

and Seale 1988; Sanbonmatsu 2002; Sapiro 1982 and 1983). Plainly, this is a

process that people use generally to compensate for information deficits, and the

idea that journalists resist this practice is improbable. Chapter Two 65 Analytical Framework

2.2e Women Journalists

Finally, the premises of the gendered mediation thesis provide grounds for

pessimism that increasing the number of women journalists within news outlets

will improve coverage of women politicians. It is certainly true that women are

poorly represented in the ranks of journalism, particularly in powerful, prestigious, decision-making positions, an issue explored at length in Chapter

Five. Improvements have been made in terms of the openness of this historically male-dominated profession, but inequities still exist in Canada and around the globe. For example, the number of women employed with the CBC has increased every year since 1988, resulting in rough parity in the numbers of men and women employed with the network (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 2002,

2003a, 2003b, and 2003c). The enhanced presence of women within the CBC reflects its status as a publicly-owned organization as well as its commitment to gender equity in news coverage and staffing decisions, at least in numerical terms.

However, Chapter Five provides compelling evidence that equality in numbers is not matched by equality in influence over news programming. Similar to the spheres of politics and business, Bashevkin’s (1996) “the higher, the fewer” rule applies to journalism as well. Generally, as we move up the echelons of both print and broadcast journalism, the fewer women we see.

Increasing women’s representation in news outlets is often touted as a prescription for masculinist reportage (e.g., Chambers, Steiner, and Fleming 2004;

Liebler and Smith 1997; Mills 1997). In line with ‘difference’ theorizing (Gilligan Chapter Two 66 Analytical Framework

1982), which suggests that women tend to have different issue priorities and unique styles of inter-relation and communication, there are reasons to believe that if women achieved sufficient decision-making power in news organizations and if the news system were organized differently, a uniquely female way of doing news may gradually emerge. However, increasing the number of women in the profession is not sufficient by itself to instigate widespread change in reporting styles. News imbalances or distortions are endemic throughout the system. Gendered news is a function of system-level factors, although these manifest at the individual level. News is gendered because it reflects societal norms about appropriate gender-role behaviour, and this is not something female journalists can adjust through their news styles. The sources of gendered news are too deeply-ingrained and complex for staffing reforms to be a proper solution.

While women journalists have very few levers through which to influence the news product, we must also make sure not to simply assume that women journalists are inclined to reform coverage of politics, which has not been firmly corroborated by empirical evidence. Despite the facts that individual journalists wield little actual power and we are not even certain that women journalists want to become feminist champions within their news organizations, the sex composition of the news workforce still matters a great deal, because it can affect citizen perceptions of the role of women in political life. News media are important political actors in their own right. By extension, the relative dearth of women reporters in on-screen political reportage does little to challenge traditional notions that politics and news are male domains or to show citizens Chapter Two 67 Analytical Framework that women are natural and competent political commentators. On the other hand, increasing women’s numbers in the newsroom, particularly in visible or decision- making positions, may inadvertently legitimate the dominance of masculinism in news. Indeed, as long as news outlets and professional journalism as a whole continue to increase the numbers of women within their ranks, the appearance of gender-neutral reportage can be maintained. In other words, because the public face of news is increasingly female, citizens and newsmakers alike may tend to assume that the presence of women guarantees coverage that not only presents men and women politicians in the same manner, but benefits and/or hinders them in the same manner as well.

While pessimism is warranted about women’s ability to change the news system, this is not to claim that individual journalists have no impact at all. Van

Zoonen (1994) provides evidence that women journalists are more likely than their male colleagues to seek female spokespersons when it is possible to do so, and Weaver (1997) reports that women journalists can be more sensitive to audience needs than their male counterparts. In the Canadian context, journalist sex can influence news. In coverage of the 1993 federal election, for example,

Gidengil and Everitt (2003b) found that the speech of female leaders was more likely to be reported by female journalists whereas male reporters were more likely to report the speech of male leaders. It is also worth noting that coverage by female reporters may not be entirely beneficial for political women, despite common assumptions. Analyses of the 1993 election coverage reveal that female reporters were particularly likely to use aggressive or negatively-charged verbs to Chapter Two 68 Analytical Framework report the speech of female leaders (Gidengil and Everitt 2003b).

In short, gender inequities characteristic of news media staffing are symptomatic of the gendered nature of the profession itself, and increasing the number of female reporters is not an appropriate solution to gendered reportage.

News biases are a function of systemic-level factors, not individual-level characteristics. By this logic, the number and status of women employed by news organizations is an issue of secondary importance to how news is defined and collected, as well as the inner mechanics of news production and the professional culture to which all new journalists are socialized.

2.3 A Theoretical Addition: Media Content as Provision Plus Presentation

The gendered mediation thesis is on solid ground. There are good reasons to expect that news presents distorted representations of women, because news reflects a gendered culture and, as a profession, news is controlled and defined by men and masculine conceptions of politics. However, there is a deeper issue that few scholars of women and political communications have dealt with in a serious manner. Media content at any given time is a combination of provision and presentation. Provision is what the politicians (or other news subjects) provide in terms of the substance of speech, the manner of speech and behaviour, and the staging of the event that is being covered. Some individuals speak more articulately or have more publicly-appealing mannerisms, for example, and this quite naturally makes for better news coverage, irrespective of how newsmakers edit and package news stories. A politician who has the ability to state an issue Chapter Two 69 Analytical Framework position in an articulate or clever way likely gets more sound bites in news than her comparatively less articulate colleagues, because it is easier for newsmakers to extract good sound bites from footage. The point is that how a politician acts and speaks, as well as what a politician says to journalists, influence the resultant coverage she receives. All politicians bear some individual responsibility for the quantity and nature of their news coverage.

Media content is also a function of how newsmakers select, edit, interpret, and present what politicians say and do, as previous sections of this chapter underscore. If the study of communications, including its political forms, has one truism, it is the idea that news coverage is a stylized and incomplete depiction of real-world people, issues, and events. At every stage of the news-making process, there are multiple openings for newsmaker influence: selecting what will be presented as ‘news’, providing interpretive frames for stories, and packaging stories with sound, graphics, and other imagery. These are just a sampling of the ways that real-world events are filtered in the news process. This process is not inherently undesirable or conspiratorial. The myriad ways that reality is filtered by news are simply a natural function of the facts that the mechanics of news require filtering and news is a human endeavour.

The fact that news content is a combination of provision and presentation complicates the study of political communications. In the context of news coverage of women politicians, we are uncertain about the extent to which differences in men and women’s news coverage accurately reflect reality. While measuring sex differences in news coverage of men and women is relatively Chapter Two 70 Analytical Framework

straight-forward, we cannot determine with absolute certainty which portion of

sex differences in coverage is due simply to real-world differences in behaviour and which portion of the observed male-female differences is a distortion attributable to news media. This line of thought is seldom explored in analyses of women, media, and politics, for much of the published work assumes that sex- differentiated news coverage of politicians is attributable to distortions introduced

by news. While failure to critically examine this assumption is a widespread

weakness in the literature, there are notable exceptions. For example, Gidengil

and Everitt’s work (1999, 2000, 2003a, and 2003b) systematically compares

politicians’ behaviour in leaders’ debates with post-debate coverage, and they are

among the few scholars who pay serious attention to the provision-presentation

dilemma.

To assume that observed sex differences in political coverage are

attributable to media alone is problematic in light of known gender gaps in

attitudes and behaviours. Stated plainly, we know that men and women differ.

Abundant evidence grounded in political science, psychology, and sociology

illustrates that there are real and measurable differences between men and women

in terms of their political issue positions (e.g., Conover and Sapiro 1993; Everitt

1998 and 2002; Gidengil 1995; Gilens 1988; Goldstein 2001; Hewitt, and Allsop

1996; Norris 1988; Norris and Inglehart 2003; O’Neill 2002; Shapiro and

Mahajan 1986; Wilcox, Fite, and Genest 1990), modes of inter-relation and moral

reasoning (e.g., Gilligan 1982; Noddings 1984; Keller 1984; Belenky et al. 1986; and Ruddick 1989), and legislative styles (e.g., Rosenthal 2000), to give just a few Chapter Two 71 Analytical Framework examples of relevant gender gaps in beliefs and behaviours. Therefore, it is plausible, if not wholly likely, that men and women are reported differently in news in part because they behave differently in politics. This is not to say that sex differences in coverage are fully accounted for by male-female differences in behaviour, but that some portion of sex-differentiated coverage must be due to real-world male-female differences. This is a fact we should be quick to recognize in collective efforts to understand, explain, and predict patterns of news coverage.

An example illustrates the point well. In 1990, Kim Campbell – then

Minister of Justice and Attorney General in the Conservative government headed by Brian Mulroney – posed for a now-famous photograph that featured her holding her Minister of Justice robe in front of her.12 Campbell’s shoulders were bare, and the image was intended to playfully imply that she was nude behind the robe. Two years later, when the portrait was shown in Ottawa, it caused a media stir. According to Campbell’s autobiography (1996: 232), the British press called her “The Madonna of Canada”. Originally, Campbell had not planned to say

12 Campbell’s picture was taken by Barbara Woodley for Woodley’s book, Portraits: Canadian Women in Focus (1992). According to an interview with Woodley in BC Bookworld, "I wanted to photograph Kim Campbell with her cello… She explained to me that several pictures of her with her cello had already been taken. Nevertheless, to oblige me, she went downstairs to get ready to do the cello photo. She had wanted to wear her Minister of Justice robe, which at that time—in 1990—she had just received. She had brought the robe with her. It was on a hanger with the cellophane from the dry cleaners. I had explained to her that I couldn't take that photo because I'd already taken a picture of Supreme Court Justice Beverley McLachlin wearing her robe. As I was setting up, I saw the robe on the hanger with the plastic around it. I thought perhaps she could hold the robe in font of her. The bare shoulders was entirely my idea. She agreed to it because she has some artistic sense. She knew having a blue blazer and pearls and a scarf behind a black robe wouldn't work. It would take away the simplicity and strength of the robe. We both wanted to create a strong simple portrait emphasizing the robe in front and the woman behind it. Getting the robe into the picture was what was most important to her all along. That’s exactly how the photo came about. Kim Campbell never even saw the photo until it was exhibited publicly in Vancouver in 1990.” See: http://www.abcbookworld.com/?state=view_author&author_id=5991. Chapter Two 72 Analytical Framework

anything about the portrait or its news coverage, but she reports telling the press,

“the difference between me and Madonna [is] the difference ‘between a strapless evening gown and a gownless evening strap’” (Ibid.). The point of this anecdote is not to blame Campbell for the nature of media coverage of the portrait. The issue is more complex. In the real-world events of her political career, she sexualized herself by posing for a photograph that suggested she was nude. If media then used sexualized or gender-specific narrative frames to report her –

such as comparing her to the singer, Madonna – the difficult question scholars

must ask is whether this is a result of media presentation or of Campbell’s speech

and behaviour? In fact, Campbell’s portrait was probably a miscalculated move

for any politician, male or female. Yet, knowing that media play on gender

stereotypes, as Campbell obviously did judging from her reflections on her

political career (1996), women politicians may be wise to avoid providing

obvious triggers for gender-specific coverage. As Chapter Seven explores in great

detail, many women politicians feel confronted with conflicting choices about

such issues. Drawing media attention to one’s clothing or body – as Campbell did

throughout the 1993 federal election campaign with reference to her weight, for

example – is thought by some women to diffuse potentially harmful coverage by

taking control of such issues – beating news media to the punch, so to speak.

How, then, should researchers use their methodological and theoretical

tools to grapple with the challenge of separating provision from presentation in

the study of political communications? In the case of gender-specific patterns of

coverage, how can we know the extent to which media are responsible, if at all, Chapter Two 73 Analytical Framework

for presenting women politicians differently? An obvious first step is to use

multiple tests or measurements of media content. Research that analyzes different

aspects of coverage and multiple actors in news will be better placed to

disentangle the relative influence of provision versus presentation on observed coverage. The use of multiple tests to examine hypotheses provides firmer evidence on which to base conclusions. Analyses presented throughout the

dissertation adhere to this principle.

A second strategy that contributes toward sorting out the relative influence

of provision and presentation in news content is the comparison of coverage with

real-world behaviour whenever possible. This is very seldom done, although there

are exceptions. As noted previously, Gidengil and Everitt’s comparisons of leaders’ behaviour in actual debates with post-debate news coverage are rare

examples (1999, 2000, 2003a, and 2003b). The next chapter explores the

provision/presentation distinction more extensively, but Gidengil and Everitt’s

work, for example, shows that both provision and presentation are causally related

to sex differences in patterns of coverage.

2.4 The Impact of News

News content and its effects are the focal points of this dissertation. In fact,

analyses of the impact of gendered news – both on audiences’ perceptions of politicians (Chapter Six) and on politicians’ understandings of and self-

presentations to news media (Chapter Seven) – are among the primary scholarly

contributions of this dissertation. Relative to analyses of content, examinations of Chapter Two 74 Analytical Framework

the impact of conventional patterns of news reportage are rare. The dearth of

scholarship on news impact or reception is due in part to the problematic nature

of testing media effects. Studies are challenging to design and organize, and

media effects are difficult to disentangle from the impact of other variables,

especially since scholars are often unsure about intensity of attention and which

media sources are consumed, even among high-volume watchers, readers, and

listeners. There are a host of challenges in this field of research, and these are

reflected in the ebbs and flows that have characterized prevailing wisdom about

media effects since the early twentieth century, as discussed in the introductory chapter.

News has the potential for significant impact on citizens’ political behaviour as well as on politicians’ strategic self-presentations to citizens. This is especially true of television news, which is the most widely consumed news medium and is regarded as highly credible by mass publics (e.g., Bower 1985).

The theoretical underpinnings of news reception analysis are drawn from work on cognitive and social psychology and, in the case of women politicians, sociological work on symbolic interaction and impression management.

Certainly, at the individual level, large-scale social forces are weighty influences on how audiences and women politicians react to news. Collectively-held stereotypes influence how news audiences interpret the speech and behaviour of men and women politicians, just as stereotypes influence how women politicians strategically present themselves to newsmakers and citizens. In other words, gender-role norms and stereotypes affect the selection and presentation of news Chapter Two 75 Analytical Framework as well as how this news product is received and interpreted by individuals in the political system. As noted above, the pervasive impact of gender-role stereotypes is one of the unifying themes of the gendered mediation thesis, as well as the dissertation in its entirety.

2.4a News Reception: Audiences

The most obvious and immediate drawback of sex-differentiated news comes from imbalances in quantities of coverage. While improvements have occurred in women politicians’ news visibility, there is some evidence that women continue to receive less coverage and poorer placement of coverage. This can be analyzed following the logic of the media agenda-setting thesis, which suggests that the issues media are most attentive to become the issues the public describes as most important (e.g., Behr and Iyengar 1985; Iyengar and Kinder 1987; Kosicki 1993;

McCombs 1993). Arguably, a similar dynamic may occur for coverage of personalities as well. Audiences may ascribe greater importance to those people who feature prominently in news, leading to impressions that women politicians are less important or weighty political actors than their male colleagues. In addition, without sufficient exposure to news about female candidates, voters may be less familiar with the names, party affiliations, and issue positions of women office holders. Analysis of mixed-sex Senate races suggests this is the case. Using data from the American National Election Study (NES) pooled

Senate Election Study, Kropf and Boiney (2001) report that print media exposure heightens respondents’ recognition of candidates’ names, but significantly less so Chapter Two 76 Analytical Framework

for female candidates (88).13 This can affect women politicians’ electoral

prospects, since voters are unlikely to cast a ballot for someone whose name they

do not recognize (Goldenberg and Traugott 1987; Mann and Wolfinger 1980).

Beyond election outcomes, we must also consider the long-term impact of news coverage. There is a role model effect to consider, for high news visibility

of women office holders and candidates increases the political engagement of

adolescent females (Campbell and Wolbrecht 2006).14 Visibility increases the

likelihood that young women will learn of female candidacies, and visibility also

implies that women’s candidacies are viable and important, depending, as always,

on the quality of coverage. Given well-documented female lags in political

interest (e.g., Verba, Burns, and Scholzman 1997), political knowledge (e.g.,

Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996; Fournier 2002; Gidengil et al. 2004; Gidengil et

al. 2005; Verba, Burns, and Scholzman 1997), and forms of political activism

beyond voting (e.g., Burns et al. 2001; Cross and Young 2004; Gidengil et al.

2004; Stolle, Hooghe, and Micheletti 2005; Young 2002; Young and Cross 2002

and 2003; Young and Everitt 2004), there are certainly good reasons to advocate

fairness in quantity of coverage if it boosts pre-adult female political engagement.

While differences in quantity and placement of news coverage can be

consequential, the quality of women politicians’ news coverage carries greater

importance. This is a primary tenet of the gendered mediation thesis. High

13 Kropf and Boiney’s (2001) modelling includes controls for candidate and opponent spending, candidate quality, as well as respondent partisanship, political interest, education, and political knowledge. 14 Campbell and Wolbrecht (2006) also find that high quantities of coverage of female politicians decrease adolescent boys’ political engagement. Chapter Two 77 Analytical Framework

visibility can become a liability when coverage of women is distorted or

unfavorable. The public responds to the tone of political news. For instance, on

the whole, voters are turned off by overly aggressive behaviour (e.g., Mutz and

Reeves 2005; Schrott and Lanoue 1992) and can be demobilized by attack

advertisements (e.g., Ansolabehere et al. 1994; Ansolabehere and Iyengar 1995;

Germond and Witcover 1996; Kahn and Kenney 1999; but see Finkel and Geer

1998; Freedman and Goldstein 1999; Lau et al. 1999; Wattenberg and Brians

1999).15 Public distaste for overly negative news may be particularly detrimental for women politicians according to evidence that female aggressiveness is exaggerated in news compared to instances of male aggressiveness (Gidengil and

Everitt 1999, 2000, 2003a, and 2003b). While people are turned off by aggressive language generally, women viewers may be particularly repelled, suggesting that sex-differentiated news also has sex-of-viewer effects (Gidengil and Everitt

2003b). By implication, media exaggeration of their aggressiveness may hinder

women’s electoral prospects and popular ratings, especially among female

viewers.

Media content is not solely responsible for negative perceptions about

female politicians. Viewers’ cognitive and attitudinal ‘baggage’ is also at work.

Gender stereotypes are pervasive, and these influence perceptions of women

politicians. How media may be implicated is in activating the use of stereotypes

15 The effects of attack advertisements on voters are a source of ongoing debate. In terms of the impact on turnout, the evidence is fairly equally divided between the demobilization camp and the not-demobilization camp. In fact, in some contexts, attack ads appear to have a mobilizing effect on voters (e.g., Finkel and Geer 1998; Freedman and Goldstein 1999; Wattenberg and Brians 1999). This debate is given more extensive treatment in Chapter Six, but it seems that one of the thorniest problems in this research area is how attack ads are defined and measured (Kahn and Kenney 1999). This may account for the mixed and sometimes divergent findings. Chapter Two 78 Analytical Framework in judgments about male and female politicians (e.g., Power, Murphy, and

Coover 1996). Theories of media priming hold that by drawing attention to some issues, problems, or traits, news can set the standards by which viewers judge candidates and office holders (e.g., Iyengar and Kinder 1987). By emphasizing national security issues over health care issues, for example, media can indirectly influence the public to place greater value on politicians who are perceived to be capable handlers of national security issues, border control, and defence spending. News frames that present campaigns as horseraces couched in the language of war, sport, and games may indirectly influence viewers to seek candidates capable of landing the ‘knockout blow’, of ‘hammering his opponent’, of ‘crossing the finish line first’. By highlighting male-dominated issues and linking politics to the historically masculine domains of war, sport, and games, women may be disadvantaged. Culturally-defined sex-role norms inhibit conceptualizing women in these ways, as explained in preceding sections of the chapter. The situation is exacerbated when women receive lower volumes of coverage than their male colleagues. Lacking concrete knowledge about individual candidates, viewers/voters are more likely to rely on gender stereotypes to make inferences about women politicians (e.g., Kahn 1992;

McDermott 1997 and 1998; Sapiro 1982). Given the traits and roles typically ascribed to women in common gender stereotypes, skepticism is warranted about citizens’ likelihood of automatically inferring that a relatively-unknown female candidate can best opponents in a campaign.

Chapter Two 79 Analytical Framework

2.4b News Reception and Navigation: Politicians

In addition to audiences, conventional patterns of news coverage also affect

politicians. Almost universally, success in politics, however defined, is contingent

on creating and maintaining a favourable public image. This is accomplished

largely through a process that social psychologists call ‘impression management’,

defined as the goal-directed activity of regulating or controlling information in

order to influence the impressions formed by an audience (Schlenker 1980 and

2003). Impression management can be conscious or unconscious, and it can

involve managing perceptions of people, events, objects, or ideas (Ibid.). When an individual tries to guide perceptions social observers form of her/his own image, this activity is referred to as ‘self-presentation’. The most famous work on the subject is Goffman’s The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959).16 A

sociologist best known for his work on human interaction, Goffman uses the vocabulary of the theatre to explain how people ‘stage manage’ the images they attempt to convey to those around them. Indeed, Goffman originated the term

‘dramaturgy’ for this type of impression management. The crux of his analysis is the idea that interaction is like a “performance”, shaped by the environment as well as the audience and constructed to provide others with “impressions” in line

with the chosen ends of the “actor” (1959: 17). Van Zoonen (2000b, 2005, and

2006) follows a similar line of thought in her analysis of the construction of the

16 While Goffman’s methods have been criticized, the concepts he uses and the way he theorizes impression management in social interactions have proven influential in various branches of social science research. In the political context, particularly good applications of Goffman’s framework are found in work on campaign advertisements (e.g., Kaid and Davidson 1986; Nesbit 1988). The work of Bystrom et al. (2004) illustrates quite powerfully the usefulness of Goffman’s work for analyzing political self-presentations, particularly from a gender perspective. Chapter Two 80 Analytical Framework

political persona.

While impression management and self-presentation can be fairly

straightforward in personal, face-to-face interaction, politicians’ communications

to citizens occur largely through media. Some forms of political communication

are controlled by the politician – such as political advertisements and candidate

websites – and others are not, particularly news media. Politicians’ lack of control

over news coverage introduces a substantial degree of uncertainty into the

impression-management process. Self-presenting for news requires a two-step

exercise in prediction. Like all social actors, politicians must anticipate how their audiences will perceive the self-presentation. This is common for any self- presenter, who must adopt forms of speech, posture, gesture, and dress, for example, appropriate for the intended audience. By itself, this step is challenging for politicians, whose political communications are intended typically for heterogeneous audiences numbering in the hundreds of thousands or even millions (Kaid and Davidson 1986). However, for politicians – for all public figures, for that matter – there is an added step, as anticipation of audience reception is contingent on prediction of news coverage. A politician contemplating how audiences will react to a particular style of self-presentation must first predict which events will be chosen as news and how her speech and behaviour will be presented. Therefore, self-presentations are tailored for two audiences: the public (voters, opinion leaders, constituents, or whomever) and newsmakers. Anticipation of how news will cover politicians’ speech and behaviour may be particularly important in the case of televised news. The Chapter Two 81 Analytical Framework

intimate, visual style of televised news masquerades as ‘reality’ for many audiences (Mutz and Reeves 2005), irrespective of the fact that news is a highly-

edited, polished projection of the political world. Thus, while most people are

aware in principle that news is a condensed, stylized version of ‘reality’, the

seeming realism of televised news tends to discourage questioning whether its

take on political events and people is accurate or sufficiently complete.

Aside from a few notable exceptions (e.g., Bystrom et al. 2004; Ross

2002; Ross and Sreberny 2000), scholars have largely neglected in-depth,

systematic examination of how women politicians (the topic of study, after all)

understand their media coverage and what strategies, if any, they adopt to

navigate news media. A considerable blind spot in the literature has resulted. This blind spot is particularly prominent in the Canadian context, where the voice of

women politicians is virtually absent from the academic study of political

communications. Indeed, none of the academics associated with the study of

women, media, and politics in Canada – Gidengil, Everitt, Trimble, Sampert,

Gingras, Robinson, and Saint-Jean – have investigated women politicians’ own

experiences. Several journalists have written book-length studies based in part on

first-hand interviews with women politicians about their experiences (e.g., Sharpe

1994). However, even in the case of more popularly-oriented books, none deal

specifically with women politicians’ relationships with and understandings of

media.

The lack of attention to women politicians’ own voices, particularly in

academic work, is problematic on at least three counts. First, our understanding of Chapter Two 82 Analytical Framework

women, media, and politics is inevitably incomplete without the shared

experience of women politicians. Second, the meagre amount of research that has consulted women politicians about their own experiences with news media suggests that they are distinctly aware of the potential news perils they face as

women and that they do pursue different media strategies than their male

colleagues, in part because of their past treatment as women. Autobiographies

written by Canadian women politicians provide similar evidence. A variety of

women who have reflected on their political careers in written works – from Kim

Campbell to Rosemary Brown to Sheila Copps –17 have discussed both gendered

media treatment as well as strategizing to avoid gendered reportage (e.g., Brown

1989; Campbell 1996; Carstairs and Higgins 2004; Copps 1986 and 2004;

Fairclough 1995; McLaughlin 1992; McTeer 2004). The third reason to critique

the absence of systematic analysis of women politicians’ own understandings of

news media is forward-looking. Prescriptions for the improvement of news

coverage of women politicians would be bolstered if based on the intimate, first-

hand knowledge of the ‘insiders’.

Based on a series of personal interviews with Canadian politicians as well

as analysis of women’s political autobiographies, Chapter Seven assesses the

17 Kim Campbell was elected to the Canadian House of Commons in 1988, became Canada’s first Minister of Justice (1990-1993) and Minister of National Defence (1993). Campbell became Prime Minister in 1993, having taken over the leadership of the PC party from Brian Mulroney that same year. Rosemary Brown was a long-serving member of the BC legislature (1972-1986) and was the first black woman to be elected to public office in Canada. She ran for the national New Democratic Party (NDP) leadership in 1975, and after four ballots, she finished a close second in the race. Sheila Copps is a former federal Liberal Cabinet Minister and Liberal leadership candidate. Copps’ career began in provincial politics, for she sat as a Liberal member in the Ontario legislature from 1981-1983. She ran for a federal seat in 1984, and was an MP until 2004. Chapter Two 83 Analytical Framework

consequences of women’s different media strategies and self-presentation styles,

ranging from less collegiality with reporters to pre-emptive self-censure of speech

and actions to avoidance of certain events or situations altogether. The outcome is a more constrained – or at least differently-constrained – environment in which

women office seekers construct likeable, credible, and ‘electable’ public images.

2.5 Summary

This chapter has provided a basis for the empirical analyses in the chapters ahead.

The chapter has laid out the theoretical framework for examining how three groups of political actors – newsmakers, politicians, and citizens – simultaneously create, reinforce, and react to gendered aspects of the news media system in

Canada and, indeed, most Western democracies. The gendered mediation approach is particularly useful for identifying the more hidden and insidious ways that seemingly neutral news content presents differing portraits of men and women politicians (Chapter Four). The gendered mediation approach also tells us why women journalists are likely to have little impact on rehabilitating gendered coverage, even if they are inclined to do so (Chapter Five). In keeping with the focus on stereotypes and gender-role norms, social psychology theory on how individuals react to counter-stereotypical information establishes predictions for citizens’ responses to portrayals of women politicians in the media reception study (Chapter Six). Finally, a modified version of Goffman’s theory of self- presentation that takes into account the fact that politicians’ self-presentations to voters occur largely through news media provides the basis for analyses in Chapter Two 84 Analytical Framework

Chapter Seven of the dissertation. As a final step before turning to substantive empirical analyses, the next chapter outlines the data and methodologies

employed in the chapters that follow.

Chapter Three 85 Data and Methods

CHAPTER THREE

Data and Methodologies

The previous chapter set up the theoretical framework that guides empirical analyses throughout the dissertation. Following the exposition of my theoretical framework, this chapter outlines the data and methodologies that are employed through the following chapters (Four through Seven), including the advantages as well as the limitations of the data and methods selected for the dissertation.

3.1 Data

The dissertation uses four main data sources to test hypotheses about news content and reception:

1. Data derived from a content analysis of CBC’s televised coverage of the 2000 Canadian federal election campaign

2. Data derived from a unique media reception study

3. The 2000 Canadian Election Study (CES)

4. A series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with Canadian federal politicians

The first three data sources, which were collected as part of the 2000 CES, are linked in a powerful and unique way that provides grounds for causal inference about how citizens respond to different styles of news. The fourth data source, a set of personal interviews with Canadian politicians, is also unique, for scholars of gender and political communications in Canada have rarely consulted with men and women politicians about their own understandings of and strategies for news

Chapter Three 86 Data and Methods media coverage. Each of the data sources is described in much greater detail below.

3.1a Content Analysis of CBC’s 2000 Campaign Coverage

The first data source is derived from a content analysis of English-language televised news aired by the CBC during the 2000 Canadian federal election campaign.1 This content analysis was conducted as part of the CES. The stories analyzed come from three different CBC news programs: The National, the station’s flagship, English-language newscast aired nightly on weekdays, CBC-TV

Saturday Report; and CBC-TV Sunday Report. Each news story broadcast during the main news segment of CBC’s programs for the entire 35-day campaign period was content analyzed.2 This results in a total of 163 stories.

The author and another McGill graduate student constructed the coding instrument in conjunction with members of the CES team3 (See Appendix One for details about the coding instrument). Two additional McGill political science graduate students independently coded the 163 news stories. In other words,

1 While comprehensive analyses of both English- and French-language election coverage are desirable, the data set to be used for this dissertation does not include analysis of election coverage by Radio-Canada, the French-language counterpart to the CBC. Indeed, comparability between the French- and English-Canadian media realms is questionable (e.g., Antecol and Endersby 1999; Elkin 1972; Fletcher, 1981, 1987; Siegel 1983). Thus, the dissertation focuses exclusively on English-language election coverage. 2 The ‘main news segment’ of the CBC’s news programs refers here to the first half-hour of the shows where the main news is covered in traditional, short stories. The second half of CBC’s news programs tends to provide more in-depth coverage, extended interviews with public figures, and even short documentary-type specials on current affairs. The second half of the three news shows tends to adhere more to a newsmagazine format than to a traditional news story format. 3 The 2000 CES team was comprised of André Blais, Elisabeth Gidengil, Richard Nadeau, and Neil Nevitte. In terms of constructing the coding scheme, substantial input also came from Agnieszka Dobrzynska, a postdoctoral fellow with the Canadian Research Chair in Electoral Studies (CRCES) at the Université de Montréal.

Chapter Three 87 Data and Methods development of the coding instrument and the actual coding were done by separate groups of people. Coders did approximately 15 hours of coder training, and the objectives of the training sessions were to explain what the coding instrument’s categories meant, communicate expectations about coding, provide

‘rules of thumb’ for variables where subjective judgment inevitably was involved

(such as the coding of tone of voice), and instruct coders how to record the coding. As part of the training, the coders practiced using the coding instrument by content analyzing select portions of CBC television news coverage of the 1997

Canadian federal election. Practice coding sessions permitted concrete discussion of potential difficulties with the coding instrument as well as an assessment, or

‘pre-test’, of the coding instrument’s validity. Several minor revisions to the coding instrument were made following coder training. Only when intercoder reliability was high in practice sessions did the coding of the 2000 election news begin in earnest. On average, intercoder reliability4 tended to be high for the final

4 Intercoder reliability is also referred to by terms such as ‘intercoder agreement’, ‘interrelator reliability’, ‘interrelator agreement’, or ‘interjudger reliability’, all of which have the same meaning. For work on communications, intercoder reliability is “the extent to which the different judges tend to assign exactly the same rating to each object” (Tinsley and Weiss 2000: 98). In other words, intercoder reliability provides a numerical value that represents the extent to which two or more people assigned the same scores to content analysis categories. In content analysis, intercoder reliability measures the validity of the coding scheme and the resulting data (e.g., Neuendorf 2002). Calculating intercoder reliability is especially important for content analysis schemes that include a lot of subjective variables, such as the tone of a message, as opposed to strictly objective questions about length of a communication, for example. In such cases, an acceptable intercoder reliability rate enhances the researcher’s confidence that “the judgments of coders are intersubjective, that is, those judgments, while subjectively derived, are shared across coders, and the meaning therefore is also likely to reach out to readers of the research” (Potter and Levine-Donnerstein 1999: 266; see also Singletary 1993). There are a variety of ways to measure intercoder reliability – Popping (1988) identified 39 – although there appears to be a consensus in the literature that reporting of percent agreement is not the preferable method (e.g., Dewey 1983; Lombard, Snyder-Duch, and Bracken 2002, 2003; Potter and Levine- Donnerstein 1999; Riffe and Freitag 1997), because it is “overly liberal” (Lombard, Snyder-Duch, and Bracken 2002: 587). Also referred to as ‘simple agreement’, ‘percentage of agreement’, ‘raw percent agreement’, or ‘crude agreement’ (Ibid.: 590), percent agreement is simply the percentage

Chapter Three 88 Data and Methods dataset. Cohen’s kappa is the intercoder reliability measure I used (Cohen 1960,

1968), and it was calculated using SPSS (kappa option in cross-tabulations).5 A selection of 25 variables from the content analysis data set resulted in an average kappa of 0.92.6

Content analysis is a powerful tool for political communications research

(Bystrom et al. 2004; Frey et al. 1991; Kaid and Wadsworth 1989). In his classic text, Holsti (1969) identifies three objectives of content analysis: to make inferences about the antecedents (or causes) of communications; to analyze and make inferences about the characteristics of communications; and to make inferences about the effects of communications. This dissertation uses content

of coding answers on which the two coders agree, and its major drawback is that it fails to account for agreement between coders that occurs by chance alone. Percent agreement calculations tend to be particularly weak when there are fewer categories in a content analysis coding scheme (Ibid.). The coding scheme used in this dissertation has a high number of dichotomous categorizations (i.e.,yes/no categorizations, see Appendix One), which makes percent agreement calculations of intercoder reliability unreliable. Instead, I use the Cohen’s kappa to calculate and report intercoder reliability. Kappa has its drawbacks (e.g., Brennan and Prediger 1981), although it is a dramatic improvement on percent agreement calculations because it takes into account agreement between coders that would occur by chance (Cohen 1960, 1968). Due to its strengths, kappa “is the most widely used measure of interjudge reliability across the behavioral science literature” (Perrault and Leigh 1989). 5 Cohen’s kappa has a range of 0 - 1. Larger values indicate a higher level of agreement between two or more coders, and smaller values indicate a lower level of agreement. While there are no universally accepted thresholds for acceptable intercoder reliability, “coefficients of .90 or greater would be acceptable to all, .80 or greater would be acceptable in most situations, and below that there exists great disagreement” (Riffe, Lacy, and Fico 1998:145). In a meta-analysis of 200 articles indexed in Communication Abstracts that used the term ‘content analysis’ and were published from 1994-1998, Lombard, Snyder-Duch, and Bracken (2002: 599) report that “the mean minimum accepted reliability level was .75.” 6 The average kappa score of 0.92 is comfortably within the acceptable zone (Riffe, Lacy, and Fico 1998). It should be noted that while the average kappa for the intercoder reliability tests I conducted was 0.92, the values ranged across variables from a high of 1 (perfect agreement between the two coders) to a low of 0.79. Intercoder reliability tended to be higher for variables measuring objective or structural aspects of news, such as which party a story was about, which reporters appeared in the story, and whether the story featured pictorial displays, such as a party logo or a graph. Reliability tended to be relatively lower for variables that required coders to make judgments about journalists’ tone or to distinguish between descriptive, analytical, and evaluative commentary from journalists, for example. The strategies I used to deal with discrepancies between coders are explained fully in relevant sections of the upcoming chapters.

Chapter Three 89 Data and Methods analysis and other research methods to engage with all three of these objectives.

In formal terms, content analysis is “a research technique for the objective, systematic and quantitative description of the … content of communication”

(Berelson 1952). Measurements of content, in other words, are reliable, replicable, and comparatively objective (see also van Zoonen 1994; Krippendorf 2004). As with all research endeavours, research design is a critical first step, and content analysis is conducted according to a plan. The steps involved in carrying out a content analysis include: defining the unit of analysis; selecting and defining content categories, deciding on a system of coding, and carrying out the analysis

(Holsti 1969; see also Singleton et al. 1988).

Defining the unit of analysis is a crucial step common to all social science research, whether it is done consciously or not. As Singleton and his colleagues point out (1988: 349), the unit of analysis in content analysis is referred to as the

“recording unit”. It is the unit to which the content categories are applied. In the case of the content data used in Chapters Four and Five, the unit of analysis varies. At points, analysis focuses on a whole news story (such as what party the story was about or what place the story occupied in the story line-up in that day’s newscast). Other times, the focus is on the sub-story level, and a news story is dissected in order to examine its constituent components. The coding scheme utilized was quite extensive, and it coded the lead-in, voice-over, sound bite, clip, and wrap-up segments of each news story.7 Dissecting news stories in this way is

7 A lead-in is the introductory segment of a story where an anchor presents the story or stories to come. In other words, a lead-in is used to draw and maintain audiences’ attention. A wrap-up is the concluding segment of a news story by a reporter, usually talking in front of a

Chapter Three 90 Data and Methods good practice, generally speaking, because smaller units of analysis can be content analyzed more easily and more dependably than larger units of analysis, such as a whole news story, because smaller recording units contain less information (e.g., Weber 1985).

In addition to defining units of analysis, content analysis also involves constructing categories and classifications for content. As Singleton and his colleagues note, “to the extent that human coders are used, selecting and defining the categories for content analysis is analogous to deciding on a set of closed- ended questions in survey research” (1988: 348). Coders use the content categories to answer ‘questions’ about a piece of communication, such as how long a news story was in minutes and seconds or how many times a particular word or phrase was mentioned in a political party’s platform. Coders’ ‘answers’ are recorded in a data set, which is used for quantitative analyses. The content analysis categories that produced the media data analyzed in Chapters Four through Six were developed through an extensive process. As noted above, the author and another graduate student colleague constructed the coding scheme – as the content analysis categories are collectively called – in conjunction with the

CES research team.

Communications content is further classified according to its structural and substantive features, and one of the primary advantages of the gendered

camera. A sound bite is video footage of a person who is shown and heard talking in his or her own words. A clip is video footage of a person that is accompanied by a voice-over from a reporter or anchor. In other words, the difference between a clip and a sound bite is who is doing the talking. In a sound bite, it is the news subject who speaks; in a clip, it is a reporter or anchor who speaks. Each of these components in the ‘anatomy’ of a news story is elaborated in fuller detail in Chapter Four.

Chapter Three 91 Data and Methods mediation approach is that it focuses on both. According to Krippendorff (2004), an established expert on the methodology of content analysis, structural content refers to the physical characteristics of media and usually involves measurements of space and time. Structural measurement of print news can include the number, length, and width of columns in a story or the size and prominence of headlines in a story. Measurement of the structural features of television news typically involves counting the number of stories, the length of stories, the length of sound bites, or the placement of stories in relation to one another.

Substantive content refers to what has been said, written, or represented in a communication, and it can be further divided into manifest and latent content

(Holsti 1969; Neuendorf 2002; Riffe, Lacy, and Fico 2005). Manifest content is the objectively identifiable characteristics and messages of a communication or what is “physically present and countable” (Gray and Densten 1998: 420; see also

Berg 1995). For example, analyzing the manifest content of news stories can involve counting the number of times certain words or phrases are used in a story.

This is the type of analysis done in examinations of the use of war, game, and sport metaphors in framing political news (e.g., Gidengil and Everitt 1999;

Lawrence 2000; Sampert and Trimble 2003; Trimble and Sampert 2004).

Latent content refers to “the deep structural meaning conveyed by messages” (Berg 1995: 176). Content analysis coding techniques are not used to literally code latent content. Rather, latent content refers to the inferences drawn from manifest content in order to determine what a communication means or signifies, such as whether a communication reflects poorly or positively on a

Chapter Three 92 Data and Methods political party. Latent coding is an interpretive reading of manifest content that is heavy on drawing inferences. Manifest coding, on the other hand, is very low on inference. Analysis of latent content involves drawing out the deep meanings underlying the manifest, or physically-present, communications data. For example, inferring that news media’s use of masculine imagery (manifest content) in coverage of women candidates is detrimental for women because “we do not conventionally think of women as either warriors or prize fighters” (Gidengil and

Everitt 2003b: 211) is a judgment about how the manifest content reflects on women candidates. As Gray and Densten point out (1998: 420), “this approach is consistent with the identification of latent variables in quantitative analysis where a latent variable is a hypothesised and unobserved concept that can only be approximated by observable or measured variables.” Due to the subjective nature of analyzing latent content, Holsti (1969) suggests that “inferences about latent meanings of messages … require corroboration by independent evidence.” In other words, Holsti would agree that subjecting hypotheses to multiple tests with a variety of data and variables combined with an overarching mixed-method research approach leads to greater confidence in the generalizeability of interpretations from latent content. This is precisely the perspective guiding this dissertation.

Media and politics research varies in content focus. Work on gender and media has characteristically focused on both the structural features and the substantive content of communications. In fact, links are often drawn between structural and substantive content. For example, Robinson and Saint-Jean’s work

Chapter Three 93 Data and Methods on Canadian women politicians analyses women’s volume of coverage as well as the sex-role stereotypes used in substantive coverage of women, and on both types of measures they conclude that media coverage tends to trivialize women politicians (e.g., Robinson 1978; Robinson and Saint-Jean 1991 and 1996). Early generations of women politicians in particular were either ignored or were featured in later, less important segments of daily newspapers and nightly newscasts (Ibid.), suggesting that the women were not serious political actors.

Similarly, in terms of the substance of media reports, news that focuses disproportionately on women politicians’ appearances, families, and romantic lives trivializes women as candidates by focusing on information that has little relevance to their policy positions, political experience, or potential as elected officials.

The following chapters study both the structural and substantive content of television election news in Canada. Obviously, both are important. Considerations of time and space are critical for television broadcasters. There is a vast world of current events to report, and prime-time television space is valuable. Each item that appears in news represents a series of choices about what to report, what to ignore, and which stories will receive priority placement in the line-up of the newscast. For office holders and candidates, there are definite preferences about when and how long one is featured in a nightly newscast.

Substantive content is equally important. In fact, the gendered mediation thesis holds that parity in men and women’s volume of coverage means little if women are portrayed unfavourably. How a politician is portrayed conveys myriad

Chapter Three 94 Data and Methods messages to viewers about image, competence, ideology, demeanour, dedication, and electoral viability. Newsmaker decision making is important here as well, including choices about how a story will be framed and which visuals will be included. Analyzing both types of content in tandem is a powerful test of gender differences in news coverage, for this allows the ‘cross-checking’ of evidence between different categories of news content. If both structural and substantive content display consistent gender imbalances, this is interpreted as strong evidence of systematic gender imbalance in news.

Like all methods, content analysis has its critics. For example, van Zoonen

(1994: 69) claims that

the focus on manifest media content forms an important limitation of content analysis since the researcher is prevented from reading between the lines of media output, and is expected not to ‘dig’ below the manifest level of analysis or to descend to the level of latent meanings and associative conclusions.

There are two rebuttals to these types of criticisms. First, van Zoonen has a fairly restricted view of content analysis, and clearly ignores the application of content analysis for the examination of latent meanings, symbols, and messages in political communications. Second, few political communications researchers ignore the latent meanings contained in media output, and the preceding paragraphs on the use of content analysis within the gendered mediation approach illustrate this point nicely. Commonly, the sole motivation for measuring manifest content is to make inferences about the underlying messages, symbols, or meanings.

Chapter Three 95 Data and Methods

3.1b Media Reception Study

The second data source analyzed in the dissertation comes from a unique media reception study conducted as part of the 2000 CES. Fifty-six people participated in the media reception study. Participants were selected among those who had participated in all three waves of the Canadian Election Study, and the selected participants were all from the Toronto area. The purpose of the study was to have the 56 participants view and rate the same 163 CBC news stories that were content analyzed by the CES. This makes for a total of 9,046 ratings of news stories.8 This setup permits testing of how participants’ ratings of news stories are affected by the content, tone, and style of news. For each story, participants were asked if the story was “very good, quite good, neither good nor bad, quite bad, or

8 There are a relatively small number of excluded and missing ratings. Participants in the media reception study viewed and rated two stories about Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc Québécois (BQ). These are excluded in my analyses. The media reception study was conducted in Toronto and had no francophone participants, which is why I do not analyze their ratings of the BQ, a party that fields candidates only in Québec. It is not unprecedented to exclude a party from content and news-rating analysis if it is not competitive in a region and, therefore, is unlikely to receive news coverage. For example, in their comparison of trained and untrained coders, Nadeau and his colleagues (1998) excluded the BQ from the English-language national news (CBC and CTV) shown to untrained coders, and the same was done for coverage of the NDP shown on French- language news (SRC). In addition, another reason why I do not analyze media response study ratings of Duceppe/BQ stories is because I do not content analyze coverage of Duceppe/BQ in Chapter Four. There are several reasons for this decision. First, there is little coverage of Duceppe/BQ in the English-language media (e.g., Blais et al. 2002a, Goodyear-Grant, Maioni, and Soroka 2004). Second, English-language national media tend to focus disproportionately on Duceppe’s performance in the English-language leaders’ debate – likely because this is one of the only campaign events where the BQ leader speaks English rather than French. Third, Duceppe’s stores tend to contain translated speech (from French to English), which results in more-mediated clip coverage as opposed to less-mediated sound bite coverage. Fourth, English-language national coverage of Duceppe and the BQ tends to focus on constitutional issues (Blais et al. 2002a), likely because the BQ is “almost entirely associated with the question of Quebec sovereignty” (Ibid.: 43). Thus, there is little if any value in including news ratings of stories about Duceppe and/or the Bloc. In addition to the excluded ratings of the Duceppe/Bloc stories, several of the participants in the audience response study did not record ratings for some of the news stories. Whether this was intentional or inadvertent on the part of the participants in question is not known. Obviously, while there are over 9,000 ratings, each of these is not purely independent. Statistical procedures are used in analyses to account for the non-independence of ratings, as is explained in further detail in Chapter Six.

Chapter Three 96 Data and Methods very bad for the party” that was the main focus of the story. Ratings were coded on a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 equals very bad, 3 equals neither good nor bad, and 5 equals very good.

While the media reception study was conducted using the actual news stories that were aired on the CBC during the election, the study was not done in real time. News stories were viewed and rated through the course of one day in a conference room at a hotel in Toronto after the election was over.

The media response study has its limitations. It is a small-N study conducted with 56 participants, all of whom were from the Toronto area. Due to the small number and geographic concentration of the participants, it is important to interpret and generalize results cautiously. This sample is by no means representative of the Canadian population as a whole. On the other hand, because participants were from the same city, this holds constant the influence of both region and urban/rural residence on reactions to televised election news.

Additional benefits of these data are multiple, and these benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. The media reception study was not conducted with a student sample. Using participants drawn from student populations is common in media effects research, and research on women, media, and politics is no different

(e.g., Sapiro 1982; Gidengil and Everitt 2003b). It is also beneficial that nearly half the 56 participants were women. A fairly even sex distribution is obviously a crucial factor when testing for a sex-of-viewer effect, as Chapter Six explains in further detail. In addition, the combination of data is highly powerful. These data present a unique opportunity to examine how the content of news affects public

Chapter Three 97 Data and Methods evaluations of news. Participants in the audience reception study rated precisely the same news stories that were content analyzed. Finally, it is a positive that the news stories used in the media reception study are real news stories aired during the 2000 federal election campaign. In contrast, many experiments on citizen perceptions of news and campaign advertisements use artificial or manipulated stories/ads. The use of real news stories makes the results more valid and more generalizeable to how people respond to news in non-experimental settings.

3.1c The 2000 Canadian Election Study

The third data source used in the dissertation is the 2000 Canadian Election Study.

Participants in the audience reception study were drawn from the pool of people from the Toronto region who responded to all three waves of the 2000 CES, as mentioned above. Hence, there is voluminous data on the participants’ sociodemographic characteristics and political predispositions. Statistical analyses of how participants in the media reception study rate political news are able to take into account their sex, age, educational attainment, partisan predispositions, baseline feelings about leaders, and typical media habits. How people respond to politicians in the news is affected by a host of underlying, social-psychological factors, and it is an undeniable advantage to be able to contextualize participants’ evaluations of news with this type of background information. In sum, this matrix of interrelated data sources is the only one of its kind produced in the Canadian setting and perhaps even in the world. It is a highly powerful combination of data that reveals much about what is in news, how citizens respond to news content,

Chapter Three 98 Data and Methods and what impact their own traits and political predispositions have on their evaluations of televised political news.

3.1d Semi-Structured Personal Interviews

The final major source of data presented in the dissertation (Chapter Seven) is a series of semi-structured personal interviews conducted by the author with federal politicians in Canada. All of the interviewees were either current or former MPs, several of them were also Cabinet members, and one – Kim Campbell – was a former Prime Minister. Campbell was the only interviewee retired from political life at the time the interview was conducted.

It is a general task for most social researchers to select samples for study, whether they are samples of people, organizations, events, times periods, or places. It is impossible to analyze everything that occurs, so decisions must be made about how to focus one’s efforts. With my semi-structured interviews, the target population, federal MPs, was obvious. The issue to address was which MPs

I should interview. My approach to targeting MPs incorporated elements of conventional research designs, particularly theoretical sampling and “snowball” or convenience sampling (Warren 2001).9 With theoretical sampling, “the interviewer seeks out respondents who seem likely to epitomize the analytic criteria in which he or she is interested” (Ibid.: 87; see also Charmaz 2001; Glaser and Strauss 1967). All MPs possess the primary criteria of being federal-level politicians that have fought an election campaign and, therefore, have experience

9 Theoretical sampling is also referred to as “purposeful sampling”.

Chapter Three 99 Data and Methods dealing with a variety of news media. Since all MPs were possible interviewees, the most important task, then, was to decide which types of MPs to target. My general strategy was to target MPs so that comparison was built into the design of this qualitative component of my research. Comparison and control are fundamental bases of good research design, whether quantitative or qualitative

(e.g., Bechhofer and Paterson 2000; King, Keohane, and Verba 1994).

In targeting MPs for interview, my overriding concern was to obtain interviews with MPs of both sexes and from all three nationally-competitive political parties, the Liberal, Conservative, and New Democratic parties. Securing the participation of members of all three of these parties was essential, because

“the philosophy of responsive interviewing suggests that reality is complex; to accurately portray that complexity, you need to gather contradictory or overlapping perceptions and nuanced understandings that different individuals hold” (Rubin and Rubin 2004: 67). This entails selecting “interviewees whose views reflect different, even contending, perspectives” (Ibid.: 64).

Beyond sex and partisanship, I also targeted MPs by region, experience in federal politics, age, and visible minority status. Several of these factors overlap.

Partisanship and region tend to correlate given that conservative MPs – whether members of the defunct Reform/Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties or the relatively new Conservative Party of Canada10 – have tended to

10 The right wing of the Canadian party system has undergone several major changes from the late-1980s to the present. Founded in 1987, the Reform Party of Canada was a western- based party rooted in feelings of regional alienation and a populist-flavour institutional reform agenda. Initially, the Reform Party drew much of its support from people who had historically supported the federal Progressive Conservatives (Laycock 2001). The Reform Party was

Chapter Three 100 Data and Methods represent constituencies in western provinces, particularly Alberta and BC, and have been much less prevalent in Ontario, Quebec, and the Atlantic provinces.

This overlapping of region and partisanship was particularly strong from 1993 to

2003, when the two right-wing parties, the Reform/Canadian Alliance and the

PCs, were separate entities. The Reform/Canadian Alliance was a regional party that claimed little support outside of the West. Age and political experience have also tended to overlap among MPs. The comparatively young MPs are less likely than the comparatively older MPs to be ‘seasoned veterans’ with multiple stints in

Parliament under their belts, so to speak. In short, my plan from the beginning was to converse with men and women MPs from different backgrounds representing diverse partisan and regional perspectives.

It was perhaps most difficult to obtain interviews with visible minority

MPs, particularly given their relatively small number in the House of Commons.

However, my stance was that the participation of visible minority MPs was necessary if my interviews were to faithfully represent the experience of federal- level politicians with media. Gender is not the only marker of difference that tends to attract stereotyped coverage. Moreover, I made every effort to include visible minority women among my interviewees, because the intersectionality of gender and visible ethnic difference likely produce unique experiences of media interaction and news coverage.

reconstituted as the Canadian Alliance (in full, the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance) in 2000. From 1993 to 2003, the Reform/Canadian Alliance replaced the PCs as the party of the right in Canada and the other contender for government power alongside the Liberal Party. In December 2003, the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives came together to form a new party, the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC). The founding of the CPC represented the culmination of a decade-long effort to (re)unite the right in Canadian federal politics.

Chapter Three 101 Data and Methods

A priori research designs do not always work out, of course, especially considering constraints imposed by time and access. It was apparent from the beginning that gate-keeping was going to be an obstacle. This was particularly true of my access to Liberal MPs, who were government members at the time.

Among Liberal MPs, it was especially difficult to obtain interviews with Cabinet members, whose schedules typically permit little time for interviewing. Telephone and email communications with MPs were never direct; instead, my interview requests were routed through administrative staff. I used a combination of contact methods, always combining phone calls with follow-up emails. In my emails to

MPs and their office staffs, I always included a short description of the research project and my full contact details. When I did not receive responses, I followed up with second emails and phone calls. Many of the MPs I contacted never responded to me, and many others responded to deny interviews, usually because of over-burdened schedules. Ultimately, while my approach was to target a wide variety of MPs from different backgrounds, regions, parties, and with different levels of political experience, the reality was that I interviewed whoever agreed to participate. As it turns out, I had more success securing interviews through MPs’ own personal recommendations, that is, when one MP I had interviewed personally requested a fellow MP (usually a member of the same party) to also meet with me for an interview. In the literature, this is known as the “snowball” or convenience method.

In total, 27 MPs were interviewed, 18 women and nine men. The fact that the following analyses are based on interviews with politicians of both sexes helps

Chapter Three 102 Data and Methods to bridge a gap in the research literature, for it permits more direct comparison of men and women politicians’ attitudes toward news media and strategies for attaining favourable coverage (or avoiding unfavourable coverage). Politicians all face challenges in attaining coverage and attaining positive coverage, irrespective of their gender. The objectives of this set of interviews were, first, to assess how men and women politicians understand media and their media relations; second, to determine whether men and women had different experiences of media; and, third, if so, to explore the consequences of women’s distinctive understanding of media in Canada. Comparative analysis is only possible when both men and women are interviewed. Yet, of the few scholars that have examined women’s self-conscious reflections on media and media navigation (e.g., Ross 2002; Ross and Sreberny 2000; Tremblay 1999), interviews with male politicians are rarely conducted.

The partisan distribution of the 27 politicians I interviewed is as follows: nine Liberals, 12 Conservatives, and six New Democrats. The Liberals were in power during all of the interviews, so these nine interviewees were government members. In addition, Kim Campbell is counted as a government member because she occupied several important ministerial portfolios in former Conservative

Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s cabinet, as well as the role of Prime Minister herself for much of 1993. Thus, the majority of the interviews were conducted with opposition MPs – 11 of the 12 Conservatives and six New Democrats, for a total of 17 opposition MPs. Explicitly identifying the number of opposition MPs is important, because their views on media treatment may diverge in important

Chapter Three 103 Data and Methods ways from those of government members. This point is elaborated in further detail throughout the discussion of the interviews.

Interviews were conducted in a semi-structured style. What this means is that interviewees were given a list of topics/questions prior to the meeting, typically about a week in advance (see Appendix 4 for the list of topics/questions), which was used to guide, though not determine, the course of the interviews. As opposed to structured interviews, however, the semi-structured style provides room for each interview to vary, whether in terms of the question ordering or asking unique follow-up questions, for example (e.g., Marshall and

Rossman 1995; Weiss 1994). This format permits flexibility in the direction of the conversation. One of the primary benefits of the semi-structured style is that it permits the interviewer to pursue interesting topics as they spontaneously arise as opposed to following the pre-formulated list of questions to the letter. Indeed, for a large portion of the interviews, participants raised issues not previously considered by the author, and these issues in turn became a focal point of the interview.

One of the benefits of using broad topics/questions is that interviewees have some autonomy in choosing how they will approach an issue or frame their responses. For example, in response to the question “How would you characterize your news coverage or that of other Members in the House of Commons?” (See

Appendix Five) some participants focused quite specifically on news coverage of

Question Period, particularly the opposition members. Other members focused on differences in coverage in national versus local media. Broad topics/questions

Chapter Three 104 Data and Methods provide room for interviewees to interpret a question and choose for themselves how they will proceed in answering. This is itself beneficial for the researcher, because it provides a very distinct view as to which aspects of media and news coverage are salient for different politicians. In this way the researcher allows some room for interviewees to influence the conversation agenda, while at the same time gently guiding the discussion with periodic interjections and follow-up questions. This can be challenging. Ultimately, the point was to give interviewees some leeway to choose their own topics of discussion. There is a salience issue to consider: what interviewees chose to talk about was often as important as their position on the topic.

Upon receiving the list of interview topics, each interviewee was informed explicitly that any topic could be eliminated from the list ‘no-questions-asked’.

This strategy ensured that there was no discomfort or unease about the direction the interview might follow. None of the interviewees chose to veto topics.

In accordance with the ethics guidelines followed by McGill and the Tri-

Council for research involving human participants, interviewees were given explicit guarantees of confidentiality both in writing on informed consent forms as well as verbally in conversation with the author at the start of each interview. In a separate section of the informed consent form, participants were asked whether they would give permission to use their names or identifying characteristics in this dissertation. Six of the 27 interviewees signed this portion of the form.11 Among the 21 interviewees who chose to retain anonymity, 17 gave verbal permission to

11 The six who gave permission to be identified were Ed Broadbent, Kim Campbell, Stockwell Day, Gurmant Grewal, Rahim Jaffer, and. Alexa McDonough.

Chapter Three 105 Data and Methods the author to include any part of the discussion in the dissertation, and the other four indicated through the course of the interview what was ‘on the record’ and what was ‘off the record’. While the majority of interviewees (18) were women, only two women, Kim Campbell and Alexa McDonough, agreed to be identified in the research. In contrast, four of the nine men gave their permission to do so.

Obviously, it was impossible to ask an interviewee why permission for identification was denied. While it may be remiss to speculate about the reasons behind women’s plain preference for anonymity, especially compared to the men, it certainly suggests that women politicians may be more guarded, perhaps because of negative experiences with media, being quoted out of context, or being misquoted altogether.

Interviewees were not told in advance that the topic of the dissertation was related specifically to analysis of gender issues or women in politics. Rather, interviewees were told that the research is focused on media coverage of elections and politicians.12 This tactic was necessary in order to prevent priming interviewees. The goal was to ensure interviewees would speak openly, candidly, and spontaneously about their own experiences without leading them toward any specific topic or opinion. At the end of each session, if the interviewee had not mentioned any type of gender issue, a specific question was posed asking their thoughts on the idea that stereotypes or biases affect Canadian televised news.

12 The series of interviews was vetted and approved by McGill’s Research Ethics Board I in conformity with the requirements of the McGill University Policy on the Ethical Conduct of Research Involving Human Subjects and with the Tri-Council Policy Statement on the Ethical Conduct of Research Involving Human Subjects. Thus, the selective release of information about the topic and objective of the research was approved prior to the start of the series of interviews. See Appendix Six for the Certificate of Ethical Acceptability of Research Involving Humans that was granted by McGill’s Research Ethics Board I.

Chapter Three 106 Data and Methods

Ultimately, it was important to obtain their thoughts on the idea of gender imbalances in coverage and what politicians can do to circumvent unfair media practices, but it was equally intriguing to allow time for participants to raise such issues on their own if they were so inclined.

The interviews were conducted primarily over the winter and spring of

2005, although the interview with Kim Campbell occurred in September 2005. A few of the interviews occurred in the summer months. Each interview tended to be in the range of 40 to 50 minutes, and all but one of the interviews occurred in either the parliamentary or constituency office of the participant. The exception was the interview with Kim Campbell, which was conducted via telephone.

The time spanning mid-2004 to late-2005 was an unusual period in the recent history of Canadian politics. The Liberal government under Prime Minister

Paul Martin had a minority in the House from June 2004 to January 2006. During this year-and-a-half of Liberal minority rule, there were several incidents that threatened the tenure of this minority government, most notably the budget process in the winter of 2005.13 In fact, a large number of the interviews (18) were conducted the week the budget was introduced in the House. In addition, the inquiry into the Sponsorship Scandal14 may have made members of the House,

13 Budget votes are traditionally considered confidence motions in Parliamentary systems. If a government’s annual budget were defeated by a majority of members in the House of Commons, this would be seen as a declaration of non-confidence in the current government, the Parliament would be dissolved, and an election would ensue. Because the Martin Liberal government had a minority in the House during the 38th Parliament (2004-2005), the budget tabled in February 2005 was certainly in danger of being defeated in the House vote. The 2005 budget was passed on June 23, 2005 (third reading) by a vote of 152-147, and the Martin minority government continued to serve until November 2005. 14 Also referred to as ‘AdScam’ or ‘Sponsorgate’. The federal government set up a fund following the 1995 referendum on Quebec sovereignty to help promote federalism and Canadian

Chapter Three 107 Data and Methods particularly government members, more wary of discussing media or more critical of media. However, the scandal had no real gender element, which means that it likely had little effect on how men and women perceived media coverage of the

Liberal Party, the government, or the individuals alleged to have been involved.

A major event occurred during the time frame of the interviews that may have had particular impact on attitudes toward media, especially among women

MPs. Belinda Stronach’s decision to leave the Conservatives and join the Liberal caucus was the focus of intense media attention for about a week in May 2005.

While her partisan switch itself generated plenty of coverage, media attention focused particularly on off-colour remarks made by several male politicians about her ‘prostituting’ or ‘whoring’ herself for political gain, as discussed previously in the dissertation. Coverage also focused a lot on her relationship with Conservative

MP Peter MacKay. Four of the interviews – three with women and one with a man – were conducted after this event. All four of these interviewees mentioned the event, and one talked at length about it. This is certainly a factor to consider in

sentiment in Quebec. The program ran from 1996 to 2004. The fund was overseen by the Public Works Department, headed at the time by Alfonso Gagliano, who was Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's Quebec lieutenant at the time. The fund was badly managed and misused. In the early spring of 2002, Chrétien asked Auditor General Sheila Fraser to launch a full investigation. Fraser released her report on Feb. 10, 2004, which outlined that $100 million of the $250 million sponsorship program was awarded to Liberal-friendly advertising firms and Crown corporations for little or no work. Not long after Chrétien’s departure from the Liberal leadership post in December 2003, Prime Minister Paul Martin asked Justice John H. Gomery to head up a public inquiry into how the Sponsorship Program was handled. Its official title was the Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities. Martin fired Gagliano, who had been appointed ambassador to Denmark. Five days later, Martin promised to resign if there was evidence that he knew about fraud in the program. Testimony in the inquiry started in September 2004. Justice Gomery released his first report on November 1, 2005, and his final report on February 1, 2006. The final report consisted mostly of recommendations for changes to the civil service and its relation to government. The Sponsorship crisis was a key issue in the 2004 and 2006 Canadian federal election campaigns, and became a rallying point for Conservative critics of the long-serving Liberal Party. For more on the Sponsorship Scandal, see CBC News Indepth: http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/groupaction/

Chapter Three 108 Data and Methods analysis of these four interviews, because the Stronach event may have primed the salience of gender-role stereotypes in news reporting for these four interviewees.

As a final note, while Chapter Seven focuses primarily on the series of personal interviews conducted by the author, excerpts from women politicians’ autobiographies are analyzed, where relevant. Indeed, these books were written by women politicians themselves and provide another way to look at women’s own understandings of news media.

3.2 Statistical Methods

This dissertation is designed to provide multiple tests of the various hypotheses that were discussed in Chapters One and Two. There are two senses in which I engage in multiple testing of hypotheses. First, the dissertation combines a variety of quantitative data sets together with qualitative data gathered in the form of personal interviews (and to a lesser extent, analyses of websites and autobiographies). Thus, this dissertation is a mixed methods, or multi-method, study, defined by the new Journal of Mixed Methods Research as “research in which the investigator collects and analyzes data, integrates the findings, and draws inferences using both qualitative and quantitative methods in a single study or program of inquiry.”15 Examining political communications using a mixed methods approach strengthens conclusions and provides more weight to the idea that conclusions are generalizeable beyond the specific time and place that is the central focus of this project, that is, the Canadian federal election of 2000.

15 The Journal of Mixed Methods Research. See: http://www.sagepub.com/journal.aspx?pid=11777

Chapter Three 109 Data and Methods

Margaret Levi has articulated the benefit of this approach nicely, stating, “another means of subjecting the findings to the norms of falsification is through demonstration that another methodology altogether produces the same results”

(1997: 34). In fact, some have called mixed methods research a “third methodological movement” in social research. Recent work includes texts devoted to the mechanics of mixed method research (e.g., Brewer and Hunter

2005; Creswell 2002; Tashakkori and Teddie 2002) as well as the creation of a new journal, the Journal of Mixed Methods Research, which will release its first volume in January 2007. Mixed methods research is relatively rare, despite its advantages. “Triangulation is one of the buzzwords of the day” Levi claims “but although many scholars will appeal to support provided by other forms of research, few actually investigate their problems with a variety of methods”

(1997: 34).

Second, in sections of the dissertation where I work predominantly with one quantitative data source, I use multiple measurements to judge whether patterns of findings are consistent or robust. For example, in the next chapter on news content (Chapter Four), I examine coverage of both leaders and candidates, and I also examine different aspects of news coverage, both structural and substantive, to see if certain patterns of coverage are widely present rather than isolated occurrences. In other words, even when focusing on one data source, I devise multiple ways to test hypotheses about news content and its effects.

Turning to specific methods of examining data, three forms of statistical analysis are used in the dissertation: tabular analyses, comparisons of means, and

Chapter Three 110 Data and Methods regression analysis (ordinary least squares (OLS) and ordered logit regression).

All statistical analyses were done using Intercooled Stata, version 8.2. The majority of analyses are bivariate tabular analyses. Tests of statistical significance are performed in all cases.16 In most cases, I use the Pearson’s chi-square test for tabular analyses. In certain circumstances where the chi-square is inappropriate – in cases where 20 percent or more of cells have expected frequencies less than 5 or where there is one or more cells with expected frequencies less than 1 – I use

Fisher’s exact test to ascertain whether a relationship exists between variables in a tabular analysis (e.g., Cochran 1954; Yarnold 1970; Hogg and Tanis 2001). For tabular analyses with significant chi-square values, Cramer’s V – the appropriate measure of strength of association between the two variables – is also reported.

A variety of tests are used for comparisons of means, depending on the nature of the variables to be tested. The two-sample difference of means test, or t- test, is used to compare means of interval-level variables across the two categories of dichotomous variables. The Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney difference of means test is used in cases where the dependent variable is ordinal, not interval. ANOVA tests followed by pairwise comparisons of means are used in cases where the dependent variable is interval-level, and the independent variable assumes more than two values.17 Finally, the Kruskal Wallis test is used when the dependent

16 Strictly speaking, tests of statistical significance are not appropriate for the content analysis data, because these data do not come from a sample. Nevertheless, indications of statistical significance provide a useful way of judging the substantive importance of findings, because tests of statistical significance indicate whether patterns shown in figures and tables are likely to have occurred simply by chance. 17 In this type of case, means testing proceeds in two steps. First, the researcher performs an ANOVA F-test to see if there is an overall difference in means for all categories of the independent variable. An ANOVA F-test is an omnibus statistic that tells the researcher whether

Chapter Three 111 Data and Methods variable is ordinal and the independent variable assumes more than two values.18

Ordered logit regression is the method used to test audience reception of news in Chapter Six.19 All models in this chapter are estimated using ordered logit, and standard errors are corrected for clustering in the audience reception data, as will be explained in more detail in Chapter Six. This is the appropriate form of regression for the response variable used in Chapter Six’s analyses (the five-point news rating scale), because the variable takes discrete and ordered values (e.g., Borooah 2002; Menard 2001). The values are discrete in the sense that they are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. Since the values form a continuum representing the lowest (value of 1) to highest (value of 5) ratings of news stories, the values are also said to be ordered.20

To facilitate interpretation of the statistical findings in Chapter Six, I also present statistical simulations of expected values (probabilities) of news ratings using King and his colleagues’ Clarify routine for use with Stata statistical software (King, Tomz, and Wittenberg 2000; Tomz, Wittenberg, and King 2003).

s/he should proceed with investigating the data at hand; the F-test does not tell us which means differ from which other means across different categories of an independent variable. When the F statistic is significant, the researcher then proceeds to the next step, which is multiple comparison procedures, or mean separation tests. I use pairwise difference of means tests. In effect, the researcher is comparing specific differences in means between pairs of groups. For example, for an independent variable with four categories, pairwise comparisons of means would be done between category 1 and 2, category 1 and 3, category 1 and 4, category 2 and 3, category 2 and 4, etc. I use Tukey’s method, which tests all possible pairwise differences of means at the same time to determine if at least one difference is statistically different from 0. 18 The Kruskal Wallis test, in other words, is the non-parametric version of ANOVA and a generalized form of the Mann-Whitney test, since it permits more than two categories of the independent variable. 19 Logit regression is maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) of a regression-like model in which logit coefficients correspond to the b coefficients in OLS regression. The ordered logit model is also known as the proportional-odds model. 20 As Borooah (2002: 5) notes, “if the outcomes are coded 1, 2, 3, a linear regression would treat the difference between a 3 and a 2 identically to the difference between a 2 and a 1 whereas, in fact, the numbers are only a ranking and have no cardinal significance”.

Chapter Three 112 Data and Methods

The problem with much quantitatively-oriented political science is that interpretation is “substantively ambiguous and filled with methodological jargon”

(Ibid.: 348). The Clarify routine “is a suite of macros that use Monte Carlo simulation to convert the raw output of statistical procedures into results that are of direct interest to researchers, without changing any statistical assumptions.”21

Clarify allows a researcher to present “numerically precise estimates of the quantities of greatest substantive interest” (Ibid.: 347). In other words, we can add weight, substance, and realism to the results of our data analyses, allowing readers to grasp the material importance of the results. The simulations I present provide an interesting comparison of how individuals rate news depending on the viewers’ sex, the level of aggressivity in the news stories, and the sex of the aggressor in the news stories.

21 This is King, Tomz, and Wittenberg’s own description of the procedure. See: http://gking.harvard.edu/clarify/docs/node2.html.

Chapter Four 113 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage

CHAPTER FOUR

Sex-Differentiated News Coverage:

Evidence from the 2000 Canadian Federal Election Campaign

It is silly to expect a female rather than a male to land a knockout punch or draw the first blood, even if the male’s yearly athletic workout consists of signing his tax return and the woman is an accomplished cross-country skier. But by describing the political world in terms we comfortably associate with even the most unathletic of men, women are subtly defined as creatures alien to that habitat.1

Accumulated evidence from a variety of jurisdictions demonstrates that news coverage of male and female politicians differs. This chapter builds on past analyses using data derived from a content analysis of English-language national televised news coverage of the 2000 Canadian federal election campaign aired on the CBC. The chapter presents evidence that news coverage of men and women politicians differs in specific ways, including differences in structural elements, such as time and placement, as well as substantive elements, such as the depiction of attack-style behaviours. Much extant literature assumes that male-female differences in coverage are the result of media distortion (provision), while ignoring men and women’s own responsibility for the quantity and nature of their coverage (presentation). I grapple directly with the issue and use multiple tests of content in an effort to deal with the fact that media content is a function both of provision and of presentation. Ultimately, the chapter stakes a claim that media are partly responsible for sex-specific patterns of coverage. The chapter concludes by exploring how findings fit with established wisdom about media coverage of

1 Jamieson (1995: 175).

Chapter Four 114 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage women politicians and how patterns of coverage can be expected to affect opinion

(Chapter Six) as well as politicians’ image-crafting (Chapter Seven) – issues which look ahead to later chapters on news media effects.

4.1 Measuring News Media Content

This chapter measures media content in multiple ways in order to accomplish two goals. First, the use of multiple measures provides a comprehensive overview of the extent to which there are sex differences in coverage, and the use of multiple tests also permits analysis of which aspects of coverage are more or less likely to be sex-differentiated. Second, the use of multiple measures is one of the ways that we can start to sort out responsibility for sex-differentiated news. While the gendered mediation thesis provides a compelling basis from which to expect sex- specific distortions in the news product, we must also remember that news content is a combination of provision and presentation. This is a fundamental point throughout the dissertation, but it is seldom addressed seriously, if at all. There are various ways to start disentangling real-world events from the choices newsmakers make in selecting and presenting real-world events for news. The first step in separating the two is the use of multiple measurements of media content. Indeed, if patterns of male-female differences in coverage persist across a variety of measurements of news content for a variety of different political actors, the notion that the news process distorts coverage in specifically gendered ways is on firmer ground. In short, using multiple measurements of news content bolsters important goals of sound research: comprehensiveness and generalizeability.

Chapter Four 115 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage

The chapter presents data at two levels of analysis, the story level and the sub-story level. At points, the chapter discusses news stories in their entireties. At other points, analyses focus on the different components that comprise a news story, permitting finer analyses of the substantive and structural characteristics of coverage. At the sub-story level, three components of a news story are particularly significant: the lead-in or introductory segment of a new story, the wrap-up or concluding segment, and the sound bites and clips featured in between. Each of these components in the ‘anatomy’ of a news story is examined in further detail below.

A lead-in is the introductory segment of a story where an anchor presents the story or stories to come, usually from behind a desk in the news studio. Not all stories have lead-ins. Commonly, the first and second stories in a news program have lead-ins, although subsequent stories are generally less likely to have lead- ins. Thus, a lead-in can be thought of as an element of news production that cues audiences to the most important stories to come in the newscast, with the intention of preventing audiences from changing channels to a different program, news- oriented or otherwise. In other words, a lead-in is used as a ‘hook’ to maintain audiences’ attention.

A wrap-up is the concluding segment of a news story by a reporter, usually talking in front of a camera. Sometimes the wrap-up is a simple summary of the story; in some cases, however, the wrap-up is the segment where ‘spin’ is added to a story (e.g., Gormly 2004; Liebler and Bendix 1996; Schokkenbroek

1999; Schultz 2005). In political lexicon, ‘spin’ is a concept that refers to the act

Chapter Four 116 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage of manipulating meanings, symbols, or images in order to influence political interpretations. Typically, it refers to efforts by politicians and their advisors to maximize favourable public opinion during campaigns as well as nonelection periods, particularly for the purposes of mobilizing public opinion around policy initiatives (e.g., Gewirtz, Dickson, and Power 2004). Journalists put ‘spin’ on political events as well. The concept of spin is closely related to the idea of framing. In fact, Bennett identifies framing as one of the core components of spinning a story (2003: 134), and this is reflected in the dictionary definition of

‘spin’ as well: “a particular viewpoint or bias, especially in the media; slant”.2

Both spinning and framing involve applying an interpretative lens to a set of existing events or statements. Therefore, in cases where spin is added during the wrap-up of a story, journalists tell viewers not only what happened in the campaign that day, but also what the events mean or signify. As with lead-ins, not all stories have wrap-ups.

A sound bite is video footage of a person who is shown and heard talking in his or her own words. A sound bite is a form of direct, relatively unmediated communication from the speaker to viewers.3 In the case of national election coverage, the figures in sound bites tend overwhelmingly to be the party leaders.

To a lesser extent, sound bites are also shown of candidates, party officials, campaign workers, pollsters and other experts, as well as citizens. When

2 Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 5th ed., s.v. “spin.” 3 I refer to a sound bite as a form of relatively unmediated coverage because newsmakers choose when a sound bite starts and ends, as well as which sound bites to use in a news story. Therefore, a sound bite is not a form of completely unmediated news coverage, despite the fact that it ‘poses’ as relatively unmediated to viewer.

Chapter Four 117 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage candidates are shown in national-level news coverage, they tend to be high-profile candidates, such as Cabinet ministers or long-serving backbenchers.4 Stories vary in terms of the number of sound bites they contain. Some stories have no sound bites, some have a single sound bite, and some have many.

A clip is video footage of a leader, candidate, expert, citizen or other person that is accompanied by a voice-over from a reporter or anchor. In other words, a clip is a more heavily mediated form of coverage that features narration by a journalist rather than the subject of the clip speaking in his or her own words

(which is the case with sound bites).

In addition to different levels of media content analysis, I also use various measurements of the two categories of news content: structural content and substantive content (Krippendorff 2004), as explained in the previous chapter on data and methodologies. Structural content refers to the physical characteristics of media and usually involves measurements of space, time, and prominence.

Essentially, structural content is about visibility, and the elements analyzed in this chapter are story length; story prominence (story order and headlined news stories); the number of stories each party and leader received; the numbers and lengths of sound bites and clips included within each story; and the ratio of sound bites to clips for each leader.

4 In the context of the 2000 federal election campaign, high profile candidates were people like Sheila Copps (Liberal Cabinet member), Paul Martin (Liberal Cabinet member), Deborah Grey (long-serving and highly-vocal Alliance member; first Reform Party member elected to the House), and Bill Blaikie (NDP member and one of the longest serving members of the House at that point).

Chapter Four 118 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage

Substantive content refers to what has been said, written, or represented in a communication. Broadly, the substantive aspects of news coverage I analyze are the following: political issues associated with each leader, journalist commentary about leaders, people featured with leaders, symbols associated with leaders, leaders’ activities, and attack-style behaviours of both leaders and candidates. In addition to quantitative measurements of these components of news, I also analyze some examples of news text from CBC’s coverage of the 2000 Canadian federal election campaign and provide interpretations of how these fit with quantitative evidence presented throughout the chapter. Combined, coding of the two categories of news content – structural and substantive – permit a thorough investigation of the complexion of news coverage of election campaigns.

In the spirit of using multiple tests of media content, I also examine coverage of different political actors – in this case, candidates as well as the leaders – which provides a broader basis for generalization compared to a singular focus on one or the other group of actors. Certainly, the chapter is weighted more heavily toward coverage of party leaders, which reflects the nature of national televised election news in Canada. Leaders are much more visible than candidates in national news for a variety of reasons.5 However, as later sections of the chapter demonstrate, candidates’ coverage is similar to that of leaders with regard to key aspects of news content, suggesting that certain patterns of gendered

5 As Carty and his colleagues point out, media present Canadian elections in highly nationalized terms, focussing narrowly on party leaders and their activities (e.g., Carty, Eagles, and Sayers 2003; Carty and Eagles 2005). The reality, they suggest, is much different, for local campaigns do vary in terms of message and policy emphasis, and local candidates and their campaigns do have an impact on individual vote choices.

Chapter Four 119 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage coverage are common, not unique to leaders generally or to the individuals who led the parties in the 2000 federal election.

To the extent that the chapter focuses disproportionately on reportage of party leaders, a cautionary note is necessary. The New Democratic Party (NDP) leader, Alexa McDonough, was the sole woman among the party leaders in 2000.

An ideal research set-up would be one that includes at least two women leaders, because this would permit greater confidence in weighing in on whether observed patterns of coverage were general for women leaders as opposed to idiosyncratic to McDonough. On the other hand, as mentioned above, if analyses show that gendered patterns of coverage of candidates (i.e., candidates other than the leaders) tend to be similar to that of the leaders, this will be interpreted to mean that the way McDonough was covered compared to her male rivals in the 2000 race was not simply an isolated case. Rather, the patterns of coverage would hold for women and men politicians generally.

As a final point before turning to the 2000 campaign, it bears noting that the CBC’s coverage of the 2000 campaign is an interesting test of whether media treatment of men and women politicians tends to be balanced. As noted in

Chapters One and Two, the CBC has taken steps to promote fairness and equity in broadcasting and follows strict guidelines for sex-role portrayal in programming.

The CBC also promotes progressive employment equity policies that have resulted in rough gender parity, at least in terms of numbers of men and women, in the organization. Finally, despite heightened reliance on advertising revenues, the CBC is a public broadcaster that reports annually to Parliament and receives

Chapter Four 120 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage funding through an annual Parliamentary appropriation. Consequently, of all mainstream, broadcast media outlets in Canada, the CBC should be least likely to deliver television coverage of election campaigns that is systematically gendered.

The upshot is that if there is gender-imbalanced coverage in CBC televised news, political coverage from all mainstream news outlets in the country likely exhibits similar patterns. Indeed, comparisons between the CBC and other networks or types of media have uncovered few differences in coverage (e.g., Frizzell and

Westell 1989; Nevitte et al. 2000; Wagenberg et al. 1988).

4.2 The 2000 Canadian Federal Election Campaign

Before turning to results of content analyses of CBC’s coverage of the 2000 federal election campaign, it is useful to begin by revisiting the broad features of this campaign in order to situate the subject matter at hand. Making sense of news media coverage of men and women during the 2000 campaign is contingent to some extent upon understanding the relative strengths, ideological positions, and electoral prospects of the parties in the race.

Five main parties contested the 2000 federal election: the incumbent

Liberal Party under leader and Prime Minister Jean Chrétien; the Canadian

Alliance (CA) under leader Stockwell Day; the Progressive Conservative (PC)

Party under leader Joe Clark; the New Democratic Party (NDP) under leader

Alexa McDonough; and the Bloc Québécois (BQ) under leader Gilles Duceppe.6

6 I do not discuss Gilles Duceppe to any great extent through this background section, because I do not analyze his coverage. This is a study of English-language coverage of federal election campaigns, and as such, I confine my analyses to the four nationally-competitive parties

Chapter Four 121 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage

In terms of location on the conventional materialist left-right political spectrum, the parties’ placements from left to right were the following: the Bloc and NDP on the left;7 the Liberals in the centre; the PCs on the centre-right; and the

Alliance on the right of the spectrum. The parties’ platforms in the 2000 campaign attest to this characterization of their relative positions (e.g., Blais et al. 2002a;

Dornan and Pammett 2001), as do party supporters’ issue positions (Blais et al.

2002b). For example, the NDP and the Bloc (left) both campaigned in favour of a nationally-funded prescription drug plan, social programs, and environmental protection. As Blais and his colleagues note (2002a.), the PCs and the Alliance – both on the right – paid attention to crime, and the Alliance put special emphasis on fiscal issues. The issues claimed by each party in 2000 coupled with their particular stances on the issues are in line with the relative left-right positioning I have assigned to the parties. Obviously, mine is a crude simplification of the parties’ ideological locations,8 but it does illustrate where the parties stood in relation to one another, leaving aside completely the question of precisely how much ideological distance separated each party in 2000.

The parties’ standings in the 36th Canadian Parliament (1997-2000) upon its dissolution were as follows (Table 4.1): the Liberals had a majority with 161

in the campaign: the NDP, the Liberals, the PC Party, and the Alliance. The Bloc Québécois only runs candidates in Quebec’s federal ridings. 7 It is not clear which of the two would be on the outermost left, the Bloc or the NDP. It is difficult to determine because the Bloc platform is concerned primarily with another important cleavage in Canadian politics: the sovereignty-federalist cleavage. Both the Bloc and the NDP are left of the other parties, however, and the NDP is certainly the most left wing of the four parties that are the focal point of the dissertation. 8 For example, these ideological characterizations focus only on the materialist left-right spectrum, ignoring other political spectrums such as the materialist-postmaterialist, libertarian- authoritarian, and federalist-sovereignist spectrums.

Chapter Four 122 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage seats; the Alliance was the official opposition with 58 seats; the Bloc had 44 seats; the NDP had 19 seats; and the Conservatives had 15 seats. There were four MPs sitting as Independents in the House upon its dissolution in 2000.

(Table 4.1 about here)

None of the party leaders in the 2000 federal campaign were newcomers to political life. This is an important point given that there is a ‘learning curve’ for the acquisition of media savvy, and, moreover, it takes time to cultivate relationships with political commentators, the press gallery, and other media circles. Jean Chrétien was first elected to Parliament in 1963. Under prime ministers Pearson, Trudeau, and Turner, Chrétien served in a number of prominent cabinet positions, including Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern

Development; Industry, Trade, and Commerce; Minister of Justice and Attorney

General; and Deputy Prime Minister. Chrétien was elected Liberal leader in 1990.

In 1993, he became prime minister, and was re-elected following the 1997 campaign. In 2000, Chrétien was running for his third consecutive term as prime minister. He had led the Liberals for a decade and had over 30 years experience in government.

Stockwell Day was a relative newcomer to federal politics in 2000, for he had only recently been elected Alliance leader in the summer of 2000. However,

Day had been a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) in the province of

Alberta for 14 years from 1986 to 2000. Day spent a number of years in prominent cabinet portfolios in PC governments of Alberta Premier Ralph Klein,

Chapter Four 123 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage including Labour, Social Services, and Finance. Day was also the Government

House Leader in the Alberta legislature.

PC leader Joe Clark was a former leader of the opposition and a former prime minister (June 1979 to March 1980). After losing the PC leadership to

Brian Mulroney in 1983, Clark stayed in federal politics as a cabinet minister in

Mulroney’s governments until 1993. Clark retired from federal politics in 1993, but made a comeback as PC leader in 1998. Clark won a parliamentary seat in a

Nova Scotia bi-election in 2000.

Alexa McDonough’s first runs at political office were for the federal NDP in Halifax ridings in the 1979 and 1980 Canadian federal elections. She was defeated in both campaigns. McDonough’s main political training ground was

Nova Scotia provincial politics. McDonough was elected leader of the Nova

Scotia NDP in 1980. In the Nova Scotia provincial election of 1981, McDonough won the provincial NDP’s first seat from mainland Nova Scotia. Until 1984, she was the sole New Democrat and the only woman in the provincial legislature. She was re-elected in 1984, 1988, and 1993. She retired from provincial politics in

1994 to pursue the leadership of the federal NDP, which she won in October

1995, replacing Audrey McLaughlin. In 1997, Alexa McDonough achieved a number of federal-level ‘firsts’ for the NDP. She became the first New Democrat elected to Parliament from the mainland of Nova Scotia; she was the first NDP leader to win federal seats in New Brunswick, and she was the first NDP leader to win a majority of Nova Scotia federal seats. In 1997, McDonough also returned

Chapter Four 124 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage the NDP to official party status – which the party had lost in the 1993 election – electing 21 MPs from across Canada.9

While all leaders in the 2000 campaign had built impressive political careers, it was clear from the start that the 2000 campaign was a contest between the incumbent Liberal Party under Jean Chrétien and the Canadian Alliance under

Stockwell Day. Neither Clark and the Conservatives nor McDonough and the

New Democrats were in a competitive position at any point through the 2000 campaign, at least not in terms of winning enough seats to form the government or the official opposition. The NDP and the Conservatives went into the 2000 campaign on roughly equal footing in the polls, as polling data collected by

Environics (Figure 4.1) illustrate (see also Compas 2000a). The near tie between the NDP and the Conservatives persisted through at least half of the campaign period (see also Compas 2000b). Clark enjoyed a spike in his ratings in the third week of the campaign, owing primarily to popular perceptions that he had won the English televised leaders’ debate (Blais et al. 2002a: chap. 4, 169).

(Figure 4.1 about here)

The 2000 Canadian federal election was held on November 27, 2000, and the distribution of Parliament’s 301 seats following the vote count was as follows

(Table 4.1): the Liberals won a third consecutive majority with 172 seats; the

9 The NDP later lost two of the 21 MPs due to defections. Angela Vautour, former MP for Beauséjour-Petitcodiac (New Brunswick), left the NDP to join the PCs in 1999, and Rick Laliberte, former MP for Churchill River (Saskatchewan), crossed the floor to join the Liberals in 2000. Thus, when Parliament was dissolved for the 2000 federal election, the NDP caucus had 19 members.

Chapter Four 125 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage

Alliance retained their official opposition status with 66 seats; the Bloc won 38 seats; the NDP won 13 seats; and the Conservatives won 12 seats.

4.3 Campaign Coverage 2000: The Leaders

The following sections present analyses of structural and substantive content of

CBC televised news of the 2000 federal campaign. This section focuses on coverage of leaders, followed by analyses of the rather limited coverage of candidates later in the chapter.

4.3a Visibility

News coverage of Canadian politics centres squarely on the leaders, especially during election campaigns when horserace reporting reaches a pitch. In coverage of the 2000 campaign, stories about the Liberals were, in effect, stories about

Liberal leader and incumbent prime minister, Jean Chrétien, and the same was true of the other parties and leaders. Looking at a simple distribution of news coverage among the four parties that fielded a full slate of candidates in the 2000 campaign provides a first-glance idea of the visibility of the parties and their leaders to the Canadian public. As Table 4.2 shows, Chrétien and Alliance leader,

Stockwell Day, received the most coverage in 2000, and together accounted for almost 65 percent of stories. The prominence of Chrétien and Day certainly makes sense considering that the 2000 campaign was a contest between the Liberals and the Alliance. Conservative leader, Joe Clark, followed with 30 stories, and NDP leader, Alexa McDonough, had 27.

Chapter Four 126 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage

(Table 4.2 about here)

The fact that McDonough received the fewest stories among the leaders of the national parties does not mean a whole lot in itself, especially considering that she received only three fewer stories than Joe Clark, her closest competitor throughout the campaign. However, McDonough received only one lead story – that is, the first story in the nightly newscast, as opposed to the second, third, fourth, and so on (results not shown). Clark received two lead stories, and

Chrétien and Day had the bulk of lead stories. In addition, McDonough also received the lowest portion of headline stories (Table 4.3). Immediately before and during the opening credits of a televised newscast, a voice-over narration of the stories coming up in the program is advertised to viewers, and the stories that correspond to these headlines are called ‘headline stories’, as noted earlier in the chapter. Typically, the chief anchor narrates the headlines.10 The headlines during the opening credits of the news program flag or introduce a selection of stories to come in the newscast, and typically the most important, interesting, or dramatic news items of the day. Therefore, headline stories can be considered an indicator of the importance attached to news stories, because they are advertisements of the best stories of the day and are designed to pique interest and prevent viewers from switching channels to a competing news program (or other type of program). As

Table 4.3 shows, only 26 percent of McDonough’s stories were headlined. In

10 This is an example of a news program’s headlines from the 2000 campaign from the opening credits of the November 22 broadcast of The National: “Tonight. Exonerated.... The ethics counsellor says Jean Chrétien did nothing wrong by helping a constituent get a controversial loan. Punishing pace.... Stockwell Day pulls out all the stops in his drive to break through in Ontario. And mercy mission. Police and social workers round up some of those gasoline-sniffing children in Sheshatshui, Labrador.”

Chapter Four 127 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage contrast, 56 percent of Chrétien’s, 57 percent of Day’s, and 43 percent of Clark’s stories were headline items. As the chi-square value for the table shows, these are significant differences.

(Table 4.3 about here)

Thus far, it is becoming clear that McDonough and the New Democrats were the least visible in CBC news of the 2000 campaign according to several measures of structural prominence in news. McDonough and the NDP received the fewest stories, the fewest lead stories, and by far the lowest percentage of headline stories. What should be made of this finding of small but consistent differences in visibility? On the one hand, McDonough and the NDP’s lesser visibility reflect the relative status of her and her party. McDonough and the NDP were never in a competitive position at any point during the 2000 campaign, at least not in terms of winning enough seats to form the government or the official opposition. Yet, the same was true of Clark and the PCs in the 2000 campaign.

Clark was a former prime minister, which may account for his greater visibility in the media compared to McDonough, but McDonough was certainly no political newcomer, as the brief political biographies presented of each leader earlier in the chapter demonstrate. Certainly, for most of Canada’s political history, the PC party was the other contender for power, although far less successful than the

Liberals in terms of total years in office. The historical importance of the PCs may be another factor in the greater media attention paid to Clark and the PCs in the

2000 campaign compared to McDonough and the NDP.

Chapter Four 128 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage

While the gulfs between McDonough’s visibility and that of Chrétien and

Day, the two main challengers in the election, are to be expected, there are reasons to question whether Clark and the PCs deserved greater media visibility than McDonough and the NDP in the 2000 campaign. With the unprecedented defeat of the PCs in the 1993 federal election,11 the PC party became one of the minor players on the federal scene. Aside from the fact that the PCs had once been powerful, there were no immediately-relevant reasons why McDonough should have received fewer stories, fewer lead stories, and far fewer headline stories compared to her nearest competitor, Conservative leader, Joe Clark.

McDonough and Clark went into the 2000 campaign with similar ratings in the polls, as mentioned previously. As Figure 4.1 illustrates, this near tie between the

NDP and the Conservatives persisted through the first half of the campaign period. Clark received an upward spike in public support in the second half of the campaign following a victorious performance in the televised English leaders’ debate (Blais et al. 2002a and 2003). In terms of House standings, the NDP went into the 2000 campaign with four more seats (19 seats) than the Conservatives (15 seats), and finished the 2000 election with one more seat (13 seats) than the

Conservatives (12 seats), as Table 4.1 illustrates.

11 In the 1993 Canadian federal election, the PC party won only two seats, which came on the heels of two consecutive PC governments (1984-1988 and 1988-1993) under prime ministers Brian Mulroney and Kim Campbell. In 1993, the PC party lost many of its votes to the newly- created Bloc Québécois, which was headed by Lucien Bouchard, a former minister in Mulroney’s cabinet, and the Reform Party. Renamed the Canadian Alliance (CA) in 2000, the Reform/Canadian Alliance replaced the PCs as Canada’s party of the right after the 1993 federal election, and become a contender for federal power. In December 2003, the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives came together to form a new party, the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC), an event that reunited the right wing of Canada’s political spectrum.

Chapter Four 129 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage

Looking more closely at the sub-story level, analysis of sound bites – relatively unmediated footage of a person shown and heard speaking in his or her own words – provides further evidence of McDonough’s lower visibility compared to the three male leaders. Table 4.4 presents several types of information about the sound bites each of the party leaders received in 2000: the mean sound bite length, the number and percentage of individual sound bites in

2000 coverage, and the total amount of sound bite speaking time each leader enjoyed in the main segment of CBC news over the 35-day campaign period. The first point to make about sound bites is that they are incredibly short, and have been getting much shorter over recent decades (e.g., Adatto 1990; Bennett 2003;

Stephens 1996). The average length of a leader sound bite in 2000 on the CBC news was 7.08 seconds. The typical story has a number of sound bites, which is why the total number of sound bites is so large.

(Table 4.4 about here)

On average, as Table 4.4 shows, McDonough’s sound bites were longer than Chrétien’s, Day’s, and Clark’s. The mean sound bite length for McDonough was 8.57 seconds compared to 8.16 seconds, 6.26 seconds, and 8.31 seconds for

Chrétien, Day, and Clark, respectively. However, pairwise comparisons of means testing shows that the only significant differences in the table were between Day’s mean sound bite length and those of each of the other three leaders. There were no significant differences between McDonough’s mean sound bite length and the mean length of either Clark’s or Chrétien’s sound bites. Nonetheless, McDonough had far fewer sound bites than Chrétien and Day and somewhat fewer than Clark,

Chapter Four 130 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage resulting in less overall sound bite speaking time for McDonough in the CBC news compared to the three male leaders. She received 71 seconds – over one minute – less total sound bite time than Clark (final column of Table 4.4). Of course, this was certainly related to the fact that McDonough and the NDP received the fewest stories among the national leaders and their parties.

The distribution of clips was very similar to that of sound bites (Table

4.5). The first column of Table 4.5 shows the total number of clips of each leader contained in the 163 stories. In ascending order, McDonough received the fewest number of clips (77) followed by Clark (91), Chrétien (186), and then Day (191).

Again, the fact that McDonough received the fewest clips reflected the fact that she received the lowest number of stories of the leaders.

(Table 4.5 about here)

Another way to examine the prominence of leaders in news stories is to examine the ratio of sound bites to clips – in other words, the extent to which each leader was seen and heard talking in his/her own words versus the extent to which the leader was simply shown in a video clip while a reporter narrated. Past research has shown that news tends to paraphrase women as opposed to letting women speak in their own words (in sound bites) or quoting women directly (in print stories) (e.g., Aday and Devitt 2001). The consequence may be that women candidates have less control over their campaign messages and their public personas (Ibid.: 68). In addition, perennial paraphrasing of women candidates may imply that women are less substantive, less ‘quotable’, or less credible as speakers. In the context of televised news coverage, the difference between a

Chapter Four 131 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage candidate speaking for herself and a reporter paraphrasing a candidate is captured nicely in the distinction between a sound bite and a clip. A sound bite is akin to a direct quote; it lets a politician give her message directly to viewers. A clip is akin to being paraphrased, because the reporter may tell the viewers what the politician said or what her actions mean or signify.

As Tables 4.4 and 4.5 demonstrate, all of the leaders received more clips than sound bites in CBC’s coverage. The second column of Table 4.5 shows the ratio of sound bites to clips for each leader. A score of 1 would indicate that a leader received the same number of clips and sound bites. The lower the ratio, the heavier a leader’s coverage was on clips compared to sound bites. The key point here is that all four leaders received essentially the same ratio of sound bites to clips. Alexa McDonough’s coverage in news of the 2000 federal election campaign had roughly the same balance of relatively-unmediated sound bites to clips compared to the coverage received by her male counterparts.

4.3b Issue Coverage

In terms of the different measures of news visibility, the overall evidence suggests that McDonough was less prominent in news of the 2000 campaign, even compared to her closest competitor, Joe Clark. This section turns to analysis of the substantive content of news, and it begins by looking at the political issues that were the focal point of each news story.

Political issues are frequently divided into two broad categories: ‘hard’ issues and ‘soft’ issues (e.g., Carlson 2001; Kahn 1996). Past research suggests

Chapter Four 132 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage that news coverage of women politicians tends to associate them with ‘soft issues’ such as health, education, child care, and lifestyle issues, while men are more likely to be associated with ‘hard issues’ such as defence, finance, foreign affairs, and trade (Ibid). Voters appear to make the same automatic assumptions about the sexual division of political issue competencies (e.g., Alexander and Anderson

1993; Huddy and Terkildsen 1993a and 1993b; Kahn 1994b; Lawless 2004;

Matland 1994; McDermott 1997 and 1998; Rosenwasser et al. 1987;

Sanbonmatsu 2002 and 2004; Sapiro 1982). To some extent, conventional distinctions between political issues may be outdated or problematic. For example, since the attacks on New York City and Washington D.C. on September

11, 2001 and, more recently, the public transit bombings in London, England on

July 7, 2005, immigration has increasingly become a hard-and-fast security issue connected with protecting citizens from attacks perpetrated by individuals residing inside domestic boundaries. Issues involved with government finance and taxation, to take another example, can be thought of in strictly fiscal terms, or they may be thought of as issues integrally related to the maintenance of spending on social programs. In other words, issue categorization is inherently and increasingly difficult.

Keeping thorny issues of classification in mind, it is still useful to analyze the extent to which the leaders were associated with particular groups of issues.

Analyses reveal, unsurprisingly, that compared to the male leaders, stories about

McDonough and the NDP in CBC’s coverage of the 2000 campaign were more

Chapter Four 133 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage likely to emphasize soft issues (Table 4.6).12 Seventy percent of McDonough’s stories had a soft issue as its main focus. Fifty-five percent of Day’s, 42 percent of

Chrétien’s, and 30 percent of Clark’s stories focused on soft issues. These differences are significant, as the chi-square value reported at the bottom of the table indicates; however, with a Cramer’s V of 0.19, it is not a particularly strong relationship.

(Table 4.6 about here)

Moving to hard issues, all of the leaders’ stories were less focused on hard issues – the economy, security, and trade, for example – than on soft issues. This reflects the issue agenda on which the 2000 campaign was fought. Health care was the dominant issue in news, in party platforms, and in party press releases. As

Blais and his colleagues explain in detail, health care was the most prominent issue in English-language news, followed by public finances, ethics, and social programmes (2002: 40). In addition, health was also prominent in the parties’ own platforms. References to health topped all issue mentions in the Liberal platform, and mentions of health were second only to public finances in the Alliance platform (Ibid.: 20). In press releases, the most dominant issue mentioned by the

Liberals was health, and the same was true of NDP releases (Ibid.: 27). Public finances was the dominant issue in Alliance and Conservative press releases, and

12 See Appendix Two for the full list of issue categories coded for CBC election stories. It should be noted that not all stories were coded as having a ‘main’ or ‘primary’ issue. In fact, 46 of the 163 stories (28 percent of the 163 stories) had no single dominant issue. This is a sizeable portion of the stories. Stories coded as having no primary or main issue tended to mention issues, but did not have a single, main issue focus. Appendix Two also provides detailed information on the coding of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ issues. Note that not all issues are classifiable as either ‘hard’ issues or ‘soft’ issues. Issues such as ‘aboriginals’ are examples of issues not classified into either category. These have been categorized as ‘no main issue/uncodeable’.

Chapter Four 134 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage the second most dominant issue in Liberal and NDP releases (Ibid.). In short, social issues, health care, and other soft politics issues were very important in the

2000 campaign, and the two leading parties in the campaign, Chrétien/Liberals and Day/Alliance, discussed these issues frequently.

Despite the predominant focus on soft issues in the 2000 campaign generally, hard issues were discussed. As Table 4.6 illustrates, only 2 (7%) of

McDonough’s 27 stories focused on a hard issue. While the differences were not huge, the men received more hard issue coverage than McDonough. It would be difficult to attribute the differences in this case to McDonough’s gender. She was the leader furthest to the ideological left – relatively speaking, of course – among the four leaders I analyze, and parties of the left are commonly perceived as weaker on or uninterested in hard issues, particularly economic issues, than leaders of centre or right parties (Ansolabehere and Iyengar 1994; Bélanger 2003;

Holian 2004; Kaufmann 2004; Nadeau and Blais 1990; Petrocik 1996; Petrocik,

Benoit, and Hansen 2003; Scarrow 1965). In other words, her relative lack of hard issue coverage may have been attributable to her partisanship or ideology.

Realistically, the focus on soft issues in stories about McDonough and the NDP was predictable given the party’s campaign platform in 2000. Blais and his colleagues’ (2002) analyses of party press releases in the 2000 campaign provide evidence that news simply picked up on the NDP’s focus on health and social issues. Over 35 percent of the NDP’s press releases focused on heath, compared to just slightly over 20 percent of the Liberal and Conservative releases and less than 10 percent of Alliance releases (Ibid.: 27, Figure 1.2). In addition, the NDP

Chapter Four 135 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage was second only to the Bloc Québécois in terms of the proportion of press releases about social issues (Ibid.) All things considered, it was unlikely that differences in the issue focus of each leader’s news stories were related to the gender of the leaders.

One final point to make about the issue focus of news stories is that more of McDonough’s stories had dominant issues. This contradicts past research on women politicians’ media coverage (e.g., Aday and Devitt 2001; Braden 1996;

Devitt 2002; Kahn 1996; Kahn and Goldenberg 1991 and 1997), as explored in

Chapter Two. Only 6 (22%) of McDonough’s 27 stories had no dominant issues

(Table 4.5). In contrast, all three of the male leaders had much higher proportions of stories with no primary issue focus. This may suggest, however implicitly, that

McDonough received less horserace or strategy coverage than the male leaders.

Indeed, for the male leaders, if a story had no dominant issue, in many cases this likely meant that the story emphasized strategy or the horserace instead. At the very least, it probably meant that the campaign, rather than the leaders’ platforms, was the dominant focal point of the stories. Other aspects of the content analysis coding grid support this interpretation. For example, none of McDonough’s stories mentioned polls, but 13 percent of Chrétien’s, six percent of Day’s, and three percent of Clark’s stories did mention opinion polls (results not shown).

Certainly, there are competing interpretations about the potential lack of horserace coverage for McDonough and the NDP compared to the three male leaders and their respective parties. While it may be positive in the sense that

McDonough’s stories focused on substantive issues, another interpretation is

Chapter Four 136 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage possible. A lack of horserace coverage may simply indicate the extent to which news media saw McDonough as competitively irrelevant.

4.3c Commentary from Journalists

Up to this point, sex differences in coverage have not been large. Instead, the pattern has been one of small but systematic differences whereby the female leader, Alexa McDonough, has consistently received the least coverage and the least prominent forms of coverage compared to the three male leaders. The next section analyzes the nature of commentary made during news stories by reporters and anchors. The section examines, in particular, the lead-in and wrap-up sections of the story, which introduce and conclude a news story with commentary from an anchor or reporter. Voice-overs are also examined, which are the narrated commentary reporters make about leaders and their campaigns during video clips of leaders’ activities.

Starting with the lead-in segment of news stories, there were some differences in how the parties’ stories were introduced by CBC anchors. Lead-ins were coded as descriptive, analytical, or evaluative (e.g., Robinson and Shehan

1983; Gidengil and Everitt 2000). A descriptive lead-in contained statements that merely reported events and facts without judgment, explanation, in-depth discussion, commentary, interpretation, or inference.

An analytical lead-in contained explanation, interpretation, synthesis, or inference of some intangible entity, such as a leader or candidate’s emotions, thoughts, or motivations. Analytical statements told viewers not only what

Chapter Four 137 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage happened but also how the event should be interpreted, regarded, or explained.

For example, a reporter who told viewers that Stockwell Day held up a ‘No 2-Tier

Health Care’ sign during the English leaders’ debate was coded as descriptive, for the statement did not elaborate or speculate on Day’s motivations for using the sign or how the sign affected perceptions of his debate performance. Conversely, a report that added Day held up the sign because of his association with the Klein government, which had arguably made moves toward a two-tier system in recent years would be classified as analytical. In this instance, the reporter would be attempting to attribute motives to Day’s use of the sign.

An evaluative lead-in contained some normative component including but not limited to judgment, ranking of the parties or leaders, criticism, praise, and so on.13 The following lead-in statement – taken from a story introduced by Mark

Kelley on the November 4, 2000 edition of CBC-TV Saturday Report – is an example of evaluative coverage: “Beginning on the campaign trail where

Stockwell Day came out swinging today, launching his most pointed and personal attack yet against Jean Chrétien. The CBC's Eric Sorensen reports.” With this statement, Kelley judges that Day’s attack was “his most pointed … yet”, which is

13 During training sessions, coders were given the following written instructions about coding journalists’ statements: “For all variables asking whether some element of a sound- bite/clip/story is descriptive, analytical, or evaluative, code to highest content. I.e. if there is any analytical content whatsoever, code as analytical; likewise, if there is any evaluative content whatsoever, code as evaluative. However, in the rare instances where you are in serious doubt how to code a statement, code to lowest content. I.e., if the dilemma is between coding as descriptive or analytical, code as descriptive; likewise, if the dilemma is between coding the statement as analytical or evaluative, code as analytical” (emphasis in original). Therefore, when faced with uncertainty about categorization, coders were trained to code journalists’ statements conservatively. The thinking behind this approach to coding was that uncertainty about some small portion of journalists’ statements was inevitable, and it was preferable to underestimate the level of filtered (analytical and evaluative) coverage than to overestimate it.

Chapter Four 138 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage an evaluation of the quality of Day’s alleged attack against Chrétien compared to the other attacks Day made up to that point in the campaign.

(Table 4.7 about here)

A news story tends to start with a lead-in where the anchor says a few words to set up the story. In CBC’s coverage of the 2000 Canadian federal election, not all stories had lead-ins. The lack of a lead-in was particularly common for stories toward the middle and the end of each nightly newscast. This is one reason why stories about Clark/PC and McDonough/NDP were more likely to lack lead-ins, reflecting their relatively poorer placement in the typical story ordering. Six of the 27 stories about McDonough and the NDP had no lead-ins

(data not shown), which represent 22 percent of McDonough/NDP stories in the dataset. Similarly, six of the 30 stories about Clark/PC – or 20 percent – had no lead-ins. In contrast, for Chrétien and the Liberals and for Day and the Alliance, only 2 of their respective stories had no lead-ins (representing 4% of stories for each). Clearly, the two smaller parties and their leaders had the lowest proportion of lead-in commentary compared to stories about the contenders, and the female leader, McDonough, had the lowest proportion of lead-ins of all the four major party leaders.

In terms of categorizing the nature of journalists’ lead-in comments, most comments are descriptive in nature, as Table 4.7 shows. In CBC’s coverage of the

2000 campaign, Chrétien and Day received the most analytical coverage; again, this is likely due to the fact that 2000 was a contest between the Liberals and

Chapter Four 139 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage

Alliance. McDonough received less descriptive and more analytical coverage than her closest competitor, Clark.

The November 1, 2000 broadcast of The National provides a concrete illustration of the McDonough-Clark difference in lead-ins. CBC Chief Anchor

Peter Mansbridge gave the following lead-in to the story about Clark:

“Conservative leader Joe Clark zeroed in on both the Alliance and the Liberals while campaigning in Borden, Prince Edward Island, today.”14 This descriptive lead-in told viewers simply that Clark criticized Chrétien and Day in the story, which was an accurate description of what Clark did.15 Mansbridge did not tell audiences how to think about Clark’s actions or speculate on the motive behind the actions.

Immediately following Clark’s story was a story about McDonough, which Mansbridge introduced with the following statement:

“Alexa McDonough spent the day trying to colour parts of Ontario NDP orange. The New Democrats don't have any seats in the province right now. So today, McDonough went to a place the party used to be able to count on. But, as Raj Ahluwalia reports, she ran into problems of image and identity.”16

In this lead-in, Mansbridge applied an interpretive lens to McDonough’s actions.

The story was about a rally she attended in Windsor, Ontario. McDonough’s speech at the event focused on health care, although Mansbridge’s lead-in suggested that she was campaigning in heavily-unionized Windsor in order to

14 The National. 1 November 2000. 15 Clark’s first sound bite in the story was this: “The Reform Alliance has no understanding of what life is like in Atlantic Canada, and no understanding of the history and society of Quebec. And now their plan to betray the health care system has become clear. But even before Reform, the Liberal party of Jean Chrétien broke its trust with Atlantic Canada.” Joe Clark. The National. 1 November 2000. 16 The National. 1 November 2000.

Chapter Four 140 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage mobilize what used to be a strong base of working-class support for the NDP.

Mansbridge’s statement that McDonough “ran into problems of image and identity” refers to the fact that the NDP’s economic policies have little appeal among some workers who, because they are unionized, make higher wages and fit into a higher tax bracket. The implication here is that the NDP’s message resonates less and less with people who belong to unions, but who also advocate tax cuts and fiscal restraint.

The content analysis also coded whether analytical lead-in commentary by anchors was accompanied by evidence intended to substantiate their interpretations. The omission of supporting evidence to back-up discussion of women’s claims, issue positions, or past records may send the message that women are less credible or knowledgeable about the political realm. According to past research, print news is less likely to make reference to supporting “evidence or reasoning” in relation to quotations of women candidates compared to those of men (Aday and Devitt 2001: 56). Indeed, this was precisely Devitt’s (2002) finding in his analysis of gubernatorial candidates in the US, a result with considerable weight considering that a governorship is a common stepping stone to the White House (Ibid.: 446).

Omission of supporting evidence in journalistic analyses of women candidates is likely practiced by television newsmakers as well. Table 4.8 contains information for analytical lead-ins only, specifically whether the anchor offered evidence or not to support his or her analytical statements. In this context, evidence for analysis would include reference to polls, the party policy booklet,

Chapter Four 141 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage past election performance, comments from experts, statements from the party campaign headquarters, and so forth. Essentially, ‘evidence’ refers to an outside source of information (i.e., external to the news organization) that corroborates what the anchor or reporter said about a candidate or event in the campaign.

Evidence offered for analytical commentary did not have to be convincing or even accurate; coders were simply told to indicate whether any evidence was offered or mentioned.

As Table 4.8 illustrates, at least half of analytical lead-ins about Chrétien

(11 of 22) and Day (11 of 18), as well as three of the four lead-ins about Clark included some evidence or factual information to support the anchor’s interpretation of the leader’s speech or actions. Contrast this with the analytical statements about McDonough. Of McDonough’s five stories that received analytical lead-in statements from an anchor, in none of these lead-ins did the anchor attempt to offer evidence or factual information to bolster the interpretation.

(Table 4.8 about here)

Analyses of the wrap-up segments of the news stories reveal similar patterns. First, not all stories have wrap-up segments where reporters offer summary comments about a story’s events or implications, and similar to lead-ins, it is also true that stories about front-running leaders/parties are more likely to receive wrap-up commentary. For example, in CBC’s coverage of the 2000 campaign, 38 percent of Chrétien’s stories and 47 percent of Day’s did not have wrap-ups (data not shown). For stories about the less competitive leaders/parties,

Chapter Four 142 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage the tendency not to include wrap-ups was even greater. Fifty-seven percent of

Clark’s stories and 85 percent of McDonough’s had no wrap-ups (data not shown). Of the 27 stories about McDonough and the NDP in CBC’s 2000 campaign coverage, only four stories included wrap-up commentary. Again, it is true that McDonough and the New Democrats were never competitive in terms of winning the 2000 election. However, the other uncompetitive party, Clark and the

Progressive Conservatives – who finished one seat behind the NDP in 2000 – received 13 wrap-ups, nine more than McDonough and the NDP.

Of those stories that did receive wrap-up segments, the question becomes what was the nature of wrap-up commentary? Table 4.9 shows whether wrap-up statements for each party’s stories were descriptive, analytical, or evaluative, the same coding scheme used for the lead-in segments. First, comparing Table 4.9 with Table 4.7, it is obvious that wrap-up segments were generally less descriptive and more analytical/evaluative than lead-in segments. The relatively higher amount of analytical/evaluative coverage makes sense in light of the fact that this is the part of a story where ‘spin’ tends to be added, telling viewers not only what happened on the campaign trail that day but also how to interpret or evaluate the days events.

(Table 4.9 about here)

Turning to comparisons for the wrap-up commentary offered about each leader/party, the first noticeable difference is the fact that none of the wrap-ups about McDonough and the NDP were simply descriptive. All of McDonough’s wrap-ups were analytical or evaluative. In other words, there were no

Chapter Four 143 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage

McDonough wrap-ups that simply summarized the highlights of the story for viewers. Rather, reporters only gave concluding statements about McDonough’s stories when they had some analysis or evaluation to offer about her actions or speech. In short, all the leaders received more analytic than descriptive coverage; yet, the male leaders’ coverage was more balanced than McDonough’s in terms of the distribution between descriptive and non-descriptive commentary.

(Table 4.10 about here)

Analytical wrap-ups can be analyzed more closely to determine whether the reporter offered any type of evidence for his or her concluding analysis (Table

4.10). The same table for lead-ins (Table 4.8) shows that for the male leaders, evidence was offered for analytical lead-ins at least half the time. Clearly, Table

4.10 demonstrates that reporters were less likely to offer evidence for wrap-up analysis generally. This may be consistent with the idea of ‘spinning’ a story as part of concluding commentary, for evidence is not as important as interpretation in wrap-up segments. All the male leaders received more unsupported analysis from reporters. Again, we see that reporters did not even attempt to offer corroborating evidence for analysis and interpretation about McDonough. In the few stories where McDonough even had a wrap-up segment, the wrap-up consisted of unsubstantiated analysis.

(Table 4.11 about here)

The other main component of news that features commentary from reporters is clips. Remember, in contrast to sound bites, where a person is shown and heard talking in his/her own words, a clip is a piece of video footage of a person (in this

Chapter Four 144 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage case, a leader) with a voice-over from an anchor or reporter. Voice-overs were coded in the same manner as lead-ins and wrap-ups. As Table 4.11 shows, most of the clip voice-overs for all four leaders were descriptive, simply telling viewers where the leader was on that particular day of the campaign or what types of activities the leader was doing. The key point is that McDonough’s voice-overs were as descriptive as Clark’s. The chi-square value for Table 4.11 indicates that differences in the nature of reporters’ commentary about each of the leaders in their video clips are not statistically significant.

(Table 4.12 about here)

The picture changes when voice-over narration is examined according to whether journalists offered evidence to support analytical statements. Similar to commentary made by journalists during lead-ins and wrap-ups (Tables 4.8 and

4.10, respectively), analytical commentary that accompanied McDonough’s video clips was much less likely to offer evidence or reasoning for the analysis (Table

4.12). Indeed, unsubstantiated analysis of McDonough accounted for 67 percent of all her analytical voice-overs. This rate of unsupported commentary is much higher than that of the three male leaders. More than half of Chrétien and Day’s analysis had evidence or back-up, and at 45 percent, almost half of reporters’ analytical commentary about Clark included supporting evidence. The chi-square value reported for Table 4.12 indicates that these differences are statistically significant.

Concrete examples illustrate nicely the differences between substantiated versus unsubstantiated analysis in clip voice-overs. A story about Day and the

Chapter Four 145 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage

Alliance discussed Day’s efforts to emphasize the Grand Mère affair, a scandal highlighted regularly through the 2000 campaign whereby Chrétien had allegedly called the Business Development Bank of Canada to help a financially-troubled hotel (Auberge Grand Mère) in his riding. Reporter Eric Sorensen had this to say about Day’s activities that day:

Day hopes [Grand Mère] has an effect on the campaign. Almost four weeks into the race, the Alliance has stalled in the polls. On Edmonton television this morning, Day bemoaned what he called unfair attacks by the Liberals on him, though he admitted those attacks are working.17

Sorensen provided a piece of analysis, for he gave the impression to voters that

Day hoped Grand Mère would improve his own chances in the campaign by diminishing Chrétien’s popularity. The reasoning Sorensen offered for this interpretation of Day’s thinking was the Alliance’s stalling in the polls, which was a well-documented fact at that point.

A few days previous, Laurie Graham reported a story about McDonough and the NDP. McDonough had spent the day campaigning in Nova Scotia.

Speaking during a clip of McDonough shaking hands with people in the crowd,

Graham had this to say about McDonough’s ‘strategy’: “So Alexa McDonough continues campaigning, not so much to win new seats as to protect the ones the

NDP has.”18 Graham did not mention in the voice-over – or in the story at all, for that matter – whether McDonough was visiting a riding currently held by the

NDP, which would have provided supporting evidence (however tenuous) for the

17 The National. 17 November 2000. 18 The National. 12 November 2000.

Chapter Four 146 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage claim that McDonough’s strategy was to focus on NDP strong-holds. Graham simply tells viewers this was McDonough’s strategy.

To provide a synopsis of findings to this point, McDonough received little wrap-up coverage, wrap-ups were wholly confined to analytical and evaluative commentary, and evidence was not offered for analytical commentary at all in either her lead-ins or her wrap-ups. In addition, when reporters provided analytical commentary of McDonough in her clip voice-overs, the overwhelming majority of their commentary offered no evidence to support their analyses. This is a significant finding, for the manner in which stories about McDonough commenced, proceeded, and concluded was systematically different from the three male leaders. The lead-in and wrap-up can set the tone for a story or provide the perspective in which the viewer interprets the content of the story. The fact that there are differences between the female leader and the male leaders – even

McDonough’s closest rival, Joe Clark – suggests a gender imbalance in reportage.

As discussed in Chapter Two, the gendered mediation approach predicts that women receive more filtered or mediated coverage – more unsupported interpretive and analytical as opposed to simple descriptive coverage – and this is borne out in analyses of the important lead-in, clip voice-over, and wrap-up segments of CBC televised news coverage of the 2000 Canadian federal election campaign.

Chapter Four 147 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage

4.3d People Shown with Leaders

Among the more common findings in past research on women and political communication is the tendency toward personal coverage emphasizing women politicians’ family roles or romantic lives (e.g., Devitt 2002; Everitt 2003;

Jamieson 1995; Muir 2005b; Piper-Aiken 1999; Robinson and Saint-Jean 1991 and 1995; Ross 2002). In contrast, reportage of male politicians is more likely to place emphasis on the candidate’s occupation, political service, and accomplishments (Davis 1982; Jamieson 1995). These differences in coverage are particularly striking considering women in Canadian federal politics tend to be better qualified for office than their male counterparts, as explained in Chapter

Two (Black and Erickson 2000 and 2003). Most scholars see this type of reportage as damaging to women politicians’ credibility. Yet, some have suggested that this type of coverage simply reflects the fact that women are more likely to be newcomers to political life who need ‘introductions’ as both candidates and as individuals. The electorate does not yet know the women candidates – as opposed to their more entrenched male colleagues – so personal coverage is a necessary learning tool for voters. There are reasons to be sceptical about this argument. For example, Devitt’s (2002) analysis of US gubernatorial races finds that incumbent women are just as prone to personal coverage as newcomer women, so the focus on women’s personal lives does not cease after they become known to the electorate. Moreover, newcomer male candidates, who presumably also need personal ‘introductions’ to voters, do not receive any more

Chapter Four 148 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage personal coverage than incumbent males. Newcomer status has no bearing on the extent to which journalists report on personal aspects of a male candidate’s life.

Interestingly, CBC’s coverage of the 2000 campaign does not follow the patterns just described. As Table 4.13 shows, each of the three male leaders was far more likely to be shown in clips and sound bites with family members. For the male leaders, about ten percent of their sound bites and clips show them with a family member – typically their wives and/or children – while only one of

McDonough’s clips and none of her sound bites show her with a family member.

In other words, while previous findings suggest that media tend to stress women’s familial and romantic attachments more than those of male politicians, this is not the case in CBC’s coverage of leaders in the 2000 campaign. The men in the race are the ones shown with children and romantic partners.

(Table 4.13 about here)

What factors account for these differences? Part of the explanation for the differences shown in Table 4.13, of course, rests in the fact that McDonough is divorced, while Chrétien, Day, and Clark are not. At this point, it is important to revisit the fundamental distinction between provision and presentation. The patterns we see in Table 4.13 are a function of the leaders’ own behaviour, not the selective process of news production. Likely, it was McDonough’s own choice to avoid mixing her personal and professional lives in her campaign appearances.

Indeed, in a personal interview with the author, McDonough mentioned that she had made efforts to minimize her family’s exposure to the public eye throughout

Chapter Four 149 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage her entire political career.19 These issues will be revisited in Chapter Seven – a full-length discussion of interviews with men and women politicians – but she made two important points on the issue of family. First, McDonough’s status as a divorced woman is one reason she has kept her personal life out of the public eye.

Put simply, she suspected her divorce would discredit her (or be used to discredit her). Second, McDonough has deliberately shielded her children from media scrutiny. There is every reason to believe, therefore, that the absence of family members or romantic partners in McDonough’s clips and sound bites is a function of her own self-censure, which, in turn, is based on her expectations of how media would present her as a divorced woman. McDonough’s strategy demonstrates the cyclical and dynamic nature of the relationship between politicians and media.

McDonough has deliberately kept her personal life separate from her professional life, resulting in virtually no media coverage of her family or romantic attachments; however, her strategy is based on expectations about how media would cover personal aspects of her life, as well as how the coverage would influence both her political image and her family members.

Why would McDonough be hesitant to present herself to media as a divorced woman, either with or without romantic attachments? This is a common dilemma confronted by many women politicians, a large number of whom are divorced or separated. In Canada, women politicians routinely face unfavourable media coverage of their personal lives. Trimble’s (2005) analysis of Belinda

Stronach’s bid for the CPC leadership in 2004 is demonstrative, for Stronach’s

19 Personal interview with Alexa McDonough. 25 February 2005.

Chapter Four 150 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage marital status was mentioned four times as often as Stephen Harper’s in newspaper articles, and, more importantly, she was described by media as “a

‘single mom millionaire’ … and, less flatteringly, a woman with two failed marriages” (Trimble 2005: 13). Former Prime Minister Kim Campbell was dogged by references to her personal past, including a divorce, and even after she retired from politics, media reported at length about her relationship with a younger man (Campbell 1996).

Seemingly, media scrutiny tends to intensify when divorced women politicians have active dating lives. Media focus on Belinda Stronach’s relationship with Conservative MP Peter MacKay was intense, particularly after their split following her decision to cross the House floor to join the Liberals in

May 2005. News coverage depicted MacKay as a brave-faced jilted lover, and

Stronach as an opportunist who exploited and then discarded him.

However, divorced women who avoid romantic attachments do not escape scrutiny. When divorced women politicians are single, suspicions are raised about their sexuality, which is related to the ‘spinster’ stereotype that permeated coverage of early women politicians (Robinson and Saint-Jean 1991), such as

Agnes McPhail, Nellie McClung, and, later, Flora MacDonald and Pauline Jewett.

As former NDP leader Audrey McLaughlin wryly put it, “Thank God I’ve got grandchildren or I’d be called a lesbian”.20 This is a potential problem for single women politicians generally, for singlehood is implicitly viewed as unnatural for women and, therefore, as evidence of homosexuality, in certain cases. Media

20 “These women not two of a kind,” The Globe and Mail, April 6, 1993, p. A6.

Chapter Four 151 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage speculation about possible lesbianism in coverage of both former US Attorney

General Janet Reno (Jamieson 1995) and New Zealand Prime Minister Helen

Clark (Fountaine and McGregor 2002) are telling examples.

Dilemmas about how to present their relationships to media and citizens is another manifestation of the ‘double bind’ (Mandel 1981) faced by women politicians: “if she is a widow, she is suspected of having killed her husband. If she is divorced, she is unstable. If married, she neglects her husband, and if single, she is abnormal” (Allard 1987: 106, quoted in Robinson and Saint-Jean 1991:

137; see also van Zoonen 1998b, 2000a, and 2005). Indeed, women politicians who parade spouses and children to media risk reminding citizens, colleagues, and journalists of the socially-constructed tension between women’s public and private roles (van Zoonen 1998b, 2000a, 2005, 2006; Muir 2005b), which is a well-developed theme of feminist theory (e.g. Benhabib and Cornell 1987;

Pateman 1989). When spouses and children are in the spotlight, women office seekers may be seen as ‘selfish’ or undutiful for pursuing their own professional satisfaction. Perhaps equally damaging, they may be identified as ‘wives’ and

‘mothers’ first and as ‘politicians’ second. The former are caring, nurturing, and selfless (in other words, ‘feminine’), while the latter are independent, powerful, and assertive (in other words, ‘masculine’), so there is an inherent tension between women and men’s different roles as they have been historically defined.

The traits associated with ‘wife’ and ‘mother’ are at odds with the masculine construction of the social role ‘politician’. Ultimately, “the language used in the coverage of female politicians emphasizes their ‘otherness’ and implicitly

Chapter Four 152 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage critiques them for deviating not only from the orthodox boundaries of their true gender, but also from the traditional expectations of masculine politicians”

(Everett 2005: 389). This was the nature of Hilary Clinton’s coverage when Bill

Clinton became president, for one journalist questioned in a Washington Post article: “how can the policy wonk change so quickly into the caring mother?”

(Wills 1996, quoted in Brown and Gardetto 2000: 28; see also Anderson 2002).

Not simply a Canadian or American phenomenon, media scrutiny of women politicians’ ‘conflicting’ roles occurs across the globe from the Netherlands (e.g., van Zoonen 1998b, 2000a, and 2005) to Germany (e.g., van Zoonen 2006) to

Finland (e.g., van Zoonen 2006) to the UK (e.g., Ross 2002; Ross and Sreberny

2000) to New Zealand (e.g., Fountaine and McGregor 2002) to Australia (e.g.,

Muir 2005b) to India (e.g., Bathla 1998 and 2000).

Interestingly, married fathers do not appear to face the same challenges as their female counterparts (e.g., van Zoonen 1998b, 2000a, and 2005). In fact, wives and children are seen as supporting characters that enable men to pursue political careers. Thus, as Everett (Ibid.) points out, the widespread assumption among citizens and media is that “...men’s public and private worlds can be integrated while women’s public and private worlds are in conflict...” In fact, male politicians regularly appear at campaign events with wives and children in tow. In 2000, Joe Clark’s daughter, Catherine Clark, accompanied him through much of his campaign. The fact that she is young, attractive, articulate, and photogenic was likely seen as a benefit by his campaign organizers. Men are able to use the ‘family man’ image as political capital suggestive of their loyalty,

Chapter Four 153 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage dependability, and integrity, while women find it difficult to successfully portray themselves as “great family women” (van Zoonen 2000a: 117; see also van

Zoonen 2005; Muir 2005b). Not only can men generally use their family lives to their advantage, even when male politicians are (or are alleged to be) unfaithful – or promiscuous, in the case of single men – their political careers are not necessarily damaged. Former president Bill Clinton’s very public affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky is a fitting example, for his popularity ratings increased after the affair. Similarly, the purportedly-unstable marriage and infidelity of former Dutch politician Ruud Lubbers “was treated as exotic rather than deviant” (van Zoonen 1998b: 52). In the Canadian context,

Pierre Trudeau’s singlehood did not hamper him prior to his marriage to Margaret

Trudeau, and their very public marital difficulties and his alleged involvements with other women similarly did not influence his career negatively.

4.3e Symbols of Power

The content analysis scheme that was used to analyze the CBC’s coverage of the

2000 campaign included coding of symbols and ‘props’ that appeared in sound bites and clips (see Appendix One for a complete list). Several of these symbols can be categorized as unambiguous symbols of institutionalized governmental power:21 the Canadian flag; the exterior of the Parliament buildings in Ottawa; the interior of the House of Commons, Senate, or Supreme Court; and Parliament Hill

21 The author is indebted to Emmanuelle Hébert for suggesting this categorized analysis of symbols.

Chapter Four 154 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage more generally (i.e., regardless of whether there is a complete shot of the

Parliament buildings).

According to the gendered mediation thesis and work on women and leadership more generally, women politicians may be less likely than their male colleagues to be linked with overt visual symbols of power. First and most obviously, women were historically excluded from institutions such as the House of Commons and the Senate, either officially or because of structural, institutional, or cultural barriers. Second, these institutions represent the pinnacle of political power in Canada, and that power has been exercised in a masculinist fashion. For example, Parliament is an adversarial institution composed of parties competing for control of government. Chapter Two contains a detailed discussion of how men and masculinity have defined politics and the social role ‘politician’.

Women have not been automatically attributed the traits necessary to compete for political power or policy influence, for these traits are stereotypically masculine, such as strength, independence, aggressivity, and competence (e.g., Alexander and Anderson 1993; Duerst-Lahti and Kelly 1995; Huddy and Terkildsen 1993a and 1993b; Lawless 2004; Rosenwasser et al. 1987; Rosenwasser and Seale

1988).

(Table 4.14 about here)

Table 4.14 shows the percentage of each leader’s clips and sound bites

(combined) that showed him or her with one of the identified symbols of political power. Clearly, there is a partisan effect here. The two competitive leaders in the election, Chrétien and Day, were linked with symbols of power much more than

Chapter Four 155 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage the other two leaders. This is unsurprising for two reasons. First, Chrétien and

Day knew they were the only competitors for the prime ministership, and, therefore, likely exploited every opportunity to stand in front of the Parliament buildings or display a Canadian flag at their press conferences. The stakes were high for both the contending leaders, and each probably consciously used symbols of power as a backdrop in their photo opportunities in order to enhance the perception among voters that he was the ‘right man for the job’. Second, because media also knew the Chrétien/Day rivalry was the big story of the 2000 campaign, they may have been more likely to show clips of these leaders that linked them with symbols of power.

Beyond the obvious partisan difference in linkages with symbols of power,

Table 4.14 also shows that McDonough was the least likely to be linked with a symbol of power in CBC’s coverage of the 2000 campaign. Of her 144 clips and sound bites, only 1 showed her with one of these important symbols. Clark did not receive a lot of power-symbol coverage, but he did receive more than

McDonough, perhaps because Clark is a former prime minister. Overall, it would be difficult to draw firm conclusions from Table 4.14, although it is yet another case where McDonough is at the bottom in terms of an indicator of positive news coverage.

4.3g Attack-Style Behaviour

This final section of the chapter assesses how the leaders’ own behaviour was presented in news. While McDonough was the least visible among all the four

Chapter Four 156 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage national party leaders in 2000, perhaps even more important is the issue of how she was portrayed. One of the key themes in research on election coverage is the extent to which candidates engage in attacks on their opponents as well as the tendency of news coverage to emphasize this aspect of campaigning. Indeed, news focus on conflictive behaviour is expected given that conflict and drama are among the conventional criteria of newsworthiness (Bennet 2003; Ericson,

Baranek, and Chan 1987 and 1992).

In relation to politicians and office hopefuls, a rich literature has developed debating the relative advantages and drawbacks for leaders’ public personas and electoral results when they go on the offensive. Chapter Six grapples with these debates at length. For the following analyses, it is sufficient to simply point out that there is evidence that attack-style politics, in general, can rankle audiences (e.g., Mutz and Reeves 2005), demobilize voters (e.g., Ansolabehere et al. 1994; Ansolabehere and Iyengar 1995; Germond and Witcover 1996; Kahn and Kenney 1999), heighten political cynicism (Ansolabehere et al. 1994),22 and encourage negative feelings about the candidates themselves (Basil, Schooler, and

Reeves 1991). For women politicians, there can be particular dangers, resulting in a “backlash effect” against women who contravene stereotypes prescribing peaceful and cooperative feminine behaviour (Rudman 1998; Rudman and Glick

1999 and 2001; Rudman and Fairchild 2004; Rudman and Goodwin 2004).

This section focuses on portrayals of leaders ‘on the attack’ acting and speaking in an aggressive or conflictive manner. Before proceeding to the results,

22 There is also conflicting evidence that attack-style advertisements have the opposite effect. See Chapter Two for more on the ongoing debate about the impact of attack ads.

Chapter Four 157 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage explanation is necessary about how stories were coded in terms of aggressivity.

There were various measures of aggressive behaviour. First, the coding scheme indicated whether a politician was shown in a story attacking another party or leader verbally. Coders were given detailed instructions about this aspect of the stories. In this case ‘attack’ was not equated simply with criticism or negative evaluation. A story that showed Alliance leader Stockwell Day criticizing the

Liberal government for its failure to increase Defence spending is not necessarily an attack. This may in fact be a valid critique of government spending priorities, and valid critique is part of the opposition’s mandate. As Mutz and Reeves (2005) emphasize, conflict is what politics is about, a fact that citizens know and accept.

In the content analysis data, ‘on the attack’ refers, for example, to instances where untrue or unsubstantiated allegations were made; where the tone of voice is harsh, rude, or confrontational; and particularly where name calling and mud-slinging that go beyond mere criticism were depicted.

In addition to verbal attacks, politicians’ body language was also coded according to its level of aggressivity. Body language is a powerful form of communication. In fact, much of interpersonal communication is nonverbal, and some researchers estimate that nonverbal cues have up to four times the impact of verbal cues when they are used together (Argyle et al. 1970; Jones and LeBaron

2002). Part of the reason has to do with the trust people place in nonverbal cues.

People assume that nonverbal cues do not lie, because body language is unconscious or involuntary, for the most part. Thus, social perceivers place more stock in nonverbal messages when verbal and nonverbal messages are

Chapter Four 158 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage contradictory (Burgoon, Buller, and Woodall 1996). Numerous studies have demonstrated that nonverbal communication is influential in determining an observer’s perceptions of others (for e.g. Argyle, Alkema, and Gilmour 1971;

Mehrabian 1981; McGinley, LeFevre, and McGinley 1975; Smith-Hansen 1977).

Political marketing and campaign experts are acquainted thoroughly with the power of appearance and nonverbal communication, both of which convey all sorts of politically relevant information. From the content analysis of the CBC news, three types of body language were coded as aggressive: finger pointing, fist clenching, and hand chopping.23 Waving hands, moving hands, and arm crossing were coded as not aggressive. In fact, arm crossing is usually interpreted as a defensive gesture.

(Figure 4.2 about here)

It is clear that according to the two measures of aggressivity, verbal attack and aggressive body language, stories about Alexa McDonough were much more confrontational or conflictive than the three male leaders of national parties.

Indeed, as Figure 4.2 indicates, stories about McDonough and the NDP were far likelier to include combative depictions than stories about the other parties and leaders.

Seventy percent of McDonough’s 27 stories showed her attacking another party or leader. In terms of raw numbers, McDonough was on the attack in 19 of

23 This classification is in line with psychology, communications, and linguistics research on how these three types of gestures are typically interpreted (Argyle, Alkema, and Gilmour 1971). For example, Henley and Freeman (1995) describe finger pointing as “a subtle, nonverbal threat”. For an application of this body language typology to gender, media, and politics research see Gidengil and Everitt (2000 and 2003a).

Chapter Four 159 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage her 27 stories in the 2000 CBC coverage. This placed her in a tie with Day for the highest raw number of stories that show a leader on the offensive. However, the difference is that Day received almost twice as many stories as McDonough (51 versus 27). After McDonough, Clark was the next most confrontational leader with 53 percent of his stories depicting him on the offensive. The two front- running candidates, Chrétien and Day, had the lowest portion of stories showing them on the attack. Chrétien’s relatively smaller number of attack-style stories may be explained by the fact that as incumbent prime minister, he spent more time on the defensive than on the offensive. Regarding Day, he and his campaign team devised a strategy early on of avoiding ‘mud-slinging’ in the campaign. The relatively lower portion of attacks on Chrétien and the other two leaders may be the result of Day’s efforts to run a ‘clean’ campaign.

For body language, McDonough’s stories were more than twice as likely to show her finger pointing, fist clenching, or hand chopping than were any of the male leaders’ stories. Finally, 33 percent of McDonough’s stories showed her both speaking and gesturing in a confrontational way. The stories that depicted verbal and non-verbal attacks simultaneously are of particular interest. Each form of aggressive behaviour likely reinforces the other, giving citizens a stronger perception of candidate ‘incivility’, to use Mutz and Reeves (2005) terminology.

Compared to 33 percent of McDonough’s stories, only 6 percent of Chrétien’s, 12 percent of Day’s, and 10 percent of Clark’s stories show them attacking another party or leader while also using aggressive body language.

Chapter Four 160 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage

Part of the explanation for differences between McDonough and the male leaders in terms of whether they were shown combining verbal and non-verbal aggressivity is the fact that the male leaders tended to be videotaped using different camera shot lengths. The male leaders were more likely to be shown close-up (i.e., head and shoulders). Thus, their arms and hands, both key communicators of body language, often are not visible. McDonough was more likely to be shown from the waist up or from about the mid-calf up. Due to different shot lengths, McDonough’s hands and arms are visible more frequently in her sound bites, and, consequently, she is seen gesturing more often than the male leaders.

To emphasize, combative behaviour accounted for a much larger portion of the relatively smaller amount of coverage McDonough received compared to her male colleagues. McDonough’s stories were three times as likely as those of any of the male leaders’ stories to show her on the attack and using aggressive gestures. She had the least number of stories among all the leaders in 2000, yet, at the same time, the highest relative and absolute number of stories that combined attacking with aggressive gestures.

Regarding McDonough and the male leaders’ combative coverage, an important point must be made explicit. How leaders are covered is a product of their own behaviour plus news production. There is no available objective measure of the portion of the leaders’ combative coverage attributable to the way they present themselves on the campaign trail and the portion attributable to the process of selecting and editing news. Hence, there is no way of gauging the

Chapter Four 161 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage extent to which the results of content analyses presented in Figure 4.2 are an accurate or inaccurate depiction of the leaders’ actual behaviour.

At the same time, available evidence suggests that McDonough was not more aggressive in reality than her male colleagues (e.g., Blais et al. 2002a;

Gidengil and Everit 2003a). In fact, Gidengil and Everitt’s (2003a) analysis of the

1997 and 2000 English leaders’ debates reveal that McDonough was less aggressive in the debates but that news portrayed her as more aggressive in televised, post-debate coverage. For the 1997 debate, “there was not a single indicator of confrontational behaviour on which McDonough ranked first or even second”, and the authors judge that McDonough switched to an even more “low- key style of debating” in 2000 (Ibid.: 566). In other words, McDonough’s level of aggressive debate behaviour, which was relatively low to begin with, was even lower in the 2000 leaders’ debate. There are no obvious reasons why McDonough would be more confrontational on the campaign trail than in the debates.

Arguably, televised leaders’ debates are the most adversarial events of the campaign, the evenings where all leaders – particularly opposition leaders – go on the offensive with well-rehearsed talking points and statements. Therefore, one might predict that leaders, including McDonough, would be less aggressive outside the debate arena. By extension, therefore, the data presented here are consistent with evidence for the gendered mediation approach, for women politicians do appear to be presented as unduly aggressive in television election coverage.

Chapter Four 162 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage

Additional reasons to be skeptical that McDonough’s coverage simply reflects a more aggressive political leader are provided by research on women’s self-presentations to media, a topic examined fully in Chapter Seven. The way that women politicians talk about their self-presentations to media both in their autobiographies as well as in personal interviews with the author does not fit with the notion that women’s political style is more combative than that of men. In fact, the author’s discussions with Canadian women MPs suggest that they endeavour to minimize the appearance of conflictive behaviour due to fears of being depicted as ‘shrill’ or overly aggressive. Others have shared similar conclusions. Shames (2003) demonstrates that women politicians’ self- presentations in political advertisements tend to emphasize ‘femininity’ and social issues as opposed to ‘masculinity’ and ‘hard politics’. Her study of American political commercials covering the last three decades suggests that women successfully play down masculine traits associated with aggressiveness and

‘politics as usual’. A focus on ‘femininity’ symbolizes an outsider status that can work to women’s benefit. Black and Erickson (2002) ponder a similar question, for they raise the possibility that Canadian women candidates benefit from their outsider status, from their different political styles, and from public perceptions that women politicians are more honest and ethical than their male counterparts

(e.g., Alexander and Anderson 1993; McDermott 1997 and 1998).

Weight is added to the claim that women politicians’ aggressive behaviour is unduly emphasized in media coverage when we analyze verbal attacks in a more dissected form. Indeed, a leader can only verbally attack another party or

Chapter Four 163 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage leader in a sound bite, which is the only portion of news that shows the leaders speaking in their own words. Figure 4.3 graphs the mean length of each leader’s sound bites, but separates the sound bites according to whether or not the sound bite was a verbal attack on another leader or party. All leaders had longer average sound bite lengths when they attacked another party or leader – not surprising given that conflict and drama are key criteria of newsworthiness (Bennet 2003;

Ericson, Baranek, and Chan 1987 and 1992). In addition, it is plain that

McDonough was given much more unmediated speaking time when she was behaving confrontationally toward another leader or party. Her average sound bite length nearly doubled when she was on the offensive, from a mean length of 5.94 seconds to a mean length of 11.51 seconds when she attacked another leader or party. The rather long sound bites McDonough received when she was on the offensive certainly help to account for the finding in Table 4.4 (above) that

McDonough had the longest average sound bite length generally. For the male leaders, the average difference in the mean sound bite length of attack versus non- attack-style sound bites was 1.4 seconds.

(Figure 4.3 about here)

Tabulating all of the sound bites provides a total for the amount of time each leader was seen in CBC’s 2000 campaign coverage speaking to audiences in their own word. Figure 4.3 establishes that McDonough’s sound bites were much longer when she went on the attack. As Table 4.15 shows, if we look at the leaders’ total sound bite speaking time, the majority of McDonough’s sound bite time in 2000 showed her on the attack. McDonough received six minutes of

Chapter Four 164 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage attacking sound bite coverage versus 3.5 minutes of non-confrontational sound bite time. The reverse is true for Chrétien, Day, and Clark. Each of these three male leaders received more non-confrontational sound bite time than attack-style time.

(Table 4.15 about here)

The significance of Figure 4.3 and Table 4.15 is highlighted when we remember that politicians have no control over which sound bites are chosen for inclusion in news stories or how long individual sound bites will be. This is the task of newsmakers – of the producers, videographers, and editors who make news programs. As the gendered mediation thesis predicts, news accords more prominence to a confrontational McDonough than a subdued McDonough. The fact that the average length of McDonough’s sound bites increased so dramatically when she was on the offensive in the absence of similarly large increases for the male leaders suggests that her confrontational coverage cannot be explained entirely by her own behaviour. Rather, newsmakers chose to include confrontational McDonough sound bites in news stories, and they chose to make them far lengthier than non-confrontational McDonough sound bites. Indeed, whether it is the camera people shooting the sound bites on location, the reporters covering the stories, or the producers and editors who select and format sound bite segments, the evidence suggests that a sound bite of a female leader on the attack is regarded as particularly deserving of valuable extra seconds in the nightly newscast.

Chapter Four 165 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage

The gendered mediation thesis predicts that news exaggerates female aggressivity. News is a predominantly masculine discourse created and maintained by: 1) culturally-constructed gender-role norms that link certain qualities (competence, assertion, and independence, for example) with maleness and other qualities (warmth, compassion, and dependence, for example) with femaleness; and 2) the masculine nature of the journalistic profession itself. In determining newsworthiness, events and people that are unexpected, ‘deviant’, dramatic, and counter-intuitive have high news value, particularly as

“infotainment”24 news formats have become increasingly popular (e.g., Bennett

2003; Blumler and Kavanagh 1999; Brants 1998; Esser 1999; Langer 1998).

Because conventional gender-role stereotypes do not associate aggressivity and conflict with femaleness, a female politician acting even moderately aggressive can create a “basic schema incompatibility” in which actual behaviour contradicts deeply-held cultural norms of typical/appropriate female action and demeanour

(Butler and Geis 1990; Hitchon and Chang 1995). When women aggress, therefore, it is all the more newsworthy, because it is surprising and seemingly anomalous.

24 Also called ‘soft’ news (versus hard news) and the ‘tabloidization’ of news, ‘infotainment’-style news refers to the use of entertainment-genre production formulas geared toward making information presented in news more entertaining and dramatic. For example, news programs increasingly tend to add dramatic music to their big stories (Bennett 2003: 100), focus less on “government and politics” and more on “social chaos and personal drama” (Ibid.: 14), provide less international news coverage (Ibid.), and increasingly emphasize crime and mayhem stories (e.g., Gerbner and Gross 1976; Gerbner et al. 1980; Langer 1998; Singer 1993).

Chapter Four 166 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage

4.4 Campaign Coverage 2000: The Candidates

Analysis of candidate coverage in 2000 complements the forgoing examination of coverage of party leaders. As already noted, candidates are not particularly visible in national election news in Canada. While local news channels may focus more on constituency-level electoral contests, national coverage tends to focus predominantly on leaders and to a much lesser extent parties. This was clearly the case with CBC’s national coverage of the 2000 federal election campaign. As

Table 4.16 indicates, the combined total sound bite speaking time provided to candidates was about 13 minutes, compared to virtually an hour for the party leaders combined (Table 4.4).

(Table 4.16 about here)

Table 4.16 reports the same categories of information that were provided on leader sound bites earlier (Table 4.4), including mean sound bite length, number of sound bites, and the total sound bite speaking time (in seconds and minutes) in CBC coverage of the 2000 campaign. The first point to make is that male candidates received 10.6 minutes of sound bite speaking time in news coverage in 2000 compared to 2.5 minutes for women candidates.25 At first glance, this may appear suspect, but women candidates’ proportion of sound bite time was practically equal to their proportion of candidacies. Of the 1,808 candidates who stood for election in the 2000 federal campaign, 373 or 21 percent were women. The 2.5 minutes of sound bite speaking time allotted to women candidates represented 19.2% of the total sound bite time allotted to all

25 Although leaders are candidates in their respective ridings, results presented for candidates exclude data on party leaders.

Chapter Four 167 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage candidates. Thus, there was only a small discrepancy in the ratio of women’s candidacies to sound bite speaking time in the CBC news. While this is nevertheless a difference, with male candidates gaining a slightly larger share of the sound bite time, this slight gender difference in the ratio of candidacies to sound bite speaking time is explained undoubtedly by the fact that male candidates were more likely to be incumbent and/or high profile, such as Liberal cabinet ministers. High-profile (male) candidates would naturally be more prominent in news. Correspondence between women’s candidacies and their news visibility was also found in Everitt’s analysis of print coverage of three provincial elections in Atlantic Canada in 1999 and 2000 (2003). Thus, balance in the amount of time and space apportioned to candidates of both sexes may have increasingly become the norm in the Canadian setting.

While gains in visibility provide a sign of an improving media environment for women politicians, near parity in the quantity of coverage means little if women are portrayed unfavourably. In fact, if coverage is negative, more of it could be a distinct liability for women office seekers. Similar to the analyses of leader sound bites presented in Figure 4.3 and Table 4.15, it is worthwhile to take a closer look at whether the tone of candidates’ sound bites presents different images of men and women speaking in the news. Table 4.17 reports the mean sound bite lengths and total sound bite speaking times for male and female candidates, this time according to whether a candidate’s tone towards or words about a party or leader were markedly negative as opposed to neutral or positive.

The measure used to code candidate negativity is different from the measure that

Chapter Four 168 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage asked whether a leader was on the attack, and thus the information presented in

Table 4.17 should not be interpreted in precisely the same way as the information presented on leaders’ attacks, strictly speaking. The negativity measure for candidates is probably not as powerful as the leader attack variable as an indicator of confrontational behaviour. However, it still offers some insight into how men and women candidates are presented in their sound bites as well as whether women are shown speaking negatively. Arguably, while the candidate negativity question and the leader attack question are not the same, some common link may be drawn between them.

(Table 4.17 about here)

Keeping in mind that Table 4.17 does not provide information on all the candidate sound bites in the dataset,26 in sound bites where candidates did discuss a party or leader, women are presented as much more negative speakers than their male counterparts. On average, the length of women candidates’ sound bites practically doubled if either their tone or words toward a party or leader were negative. Male candidates’ sound bites were only slightly longer, on average, if the men were negative. In total, while women’s sound bite time when talking about a party or leader was overwhelmingly negative (1.5 minutes negative compared to 0.15 minutes not negative), the opposite was true for men. The totality of men’s sound bite statements about a party or leader was not negative

26 This is because not all candidate sound bites contain talk of a party or party leader. Thus, for some of the candidate sound bites, the candidate negativity variable was entered as ‘missing’. This is why the sound bite totals do not match for Tables 4.16 and 4.17, for there is a sizeable portion of candidate sound bites that did not mention a party or leader. In fact, as the tables illustrate, male candidates were portrayed more often talking about a party or leader compared to the female candidates.

Chapter Four 169 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage

(4.5 minutes not negative compared to 3 minutes negative). While caution must be exercised in comparing the candidate results to the leaders’ sound bite results, it is certainly compelling that the same pattern emerges. Women candidates, like the sole woman leader in 2000, were depicted in sound bites as remarkably negative.

4.5 Summary and Discussion

The preceding analyses of CBC’s coverage of the 2000 Canadian federal election have provided evidence in support of the gendered mediation thesis. Table 4.18 provides a synopsis of the results analyzed in this chapter, indicating which measures of structural and substantive news content had significant sex differences. Compared to Chrétien, Day, and Clark, the female leader in the 2000 federal election campaign – Alexa McDonough – had the smallest number of stories; only one lead story throughout the entire 35-day campaign; more unsubstantiated analytical coverage; the least unmediated speaking time; and by far the most substantial proportion of confrontational coverage, as measured by the proportion of stories that show her on the offensive and using aggressive body language as well as the mean and sum of sound bite speaking time for attacking and non-attacking sound bites. The nature of McDonough’s coverage is even more striking in comparison to Joe Clark’s coverage, for the two went into the campaign in a dead heat, and this near-tie persisted through the early campaign period. Clark did enjoy a post-debate boost in the polls (Blais et al. 2002a and

Chapter Four 170 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage

2003); however, this jump in the polls certainly did not nudge him into

‘contender’ status for the latter portion of the campaign.

(Table 4.18 about here)

Additionally, it bears reiterating that McDonough was arguably the least aggressive of all the leaders in 2000. In addition, while women candidates’ total sound bite speaking time was roughly proportional to their share of candidacies, the overly negative tone and content of their sound bite speech is parallel to the confrontational-style coverage of McDonough’s sound bites. The similar finding in this regard suggests that unduly-negative portrayals of women politicians constitute a systematic pattern.

The implications of the preceding analysis are myriad. It is clear that

Canadians receive an unbalanced portrait of federal election campaigns in which women politicians are portrayed as overly aggressive and negative. On the whole, this analysis of gendered coverage in the CBC’s 2000 federal election stories prompts pessimistic conclusions about the type and tone of coverage reaching

Canadian voters and viewers. By extension, because of the CBC’s attention to issues of gender, linguistic, and ethnic difference in its programming and staffing decisions, results obtained confirming the existence of sex-differentiated treatment in CBC’s 2000 election coverage can be interpreted as an indication of widespread imbalance in political news generally. There are no solid reasons to predict that for-profit television news outlets would offer more balanced coverage of male and female politicians.

Chapter Four 171 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage

The most critical question raised by the existence of gendered political news is its impact on viewers/voters and, by extension, the careers of female politicians and office seekers. It is fairly well established that news coverage can affect political attitudes and behaviour. While Lippmans’s (1922) propaganda theory of strong persuasive media effects has been largely discredited, one of

Lippmann’s key insights is still relevant today: public opinion and political behaviour are based on a political world constructed with mediated information, as few citizens have any direct experience with politics (Lippmann 1922). Even a brief survey of the literature highlights the potential drawbacks of sex- differentiated coverage for women politicians.

Chapter Six tackles head-on the question of how sex-differentiated news coverage of the 2000 Canadian federal election campaign affected viewers’ perceptions of women candidates and their news stories. Whether attack-style news coverage truly is a liability for women politicians has rarely been addressed with actual media reception studies, and no such study has analyzed the issue using such a powerful combination of data, as Chapter Six illustrates. There are good reasons to suspect that audiences do react differently when an aggressor is female, but conclusive evidence has been elusive thus far. Indeed, based on the results of experimental studies, some scholars have argued that given the right conditions, aggressiveness may work for political women by heightening public perceptions that women have appropriate traits for a political world defined by stereotypically-male characteristics, such as assertiveness, resolve, and independence (e.g., Gordon, Shafie, and Crigler 2003). In addition, a focus on

Chapter Four 172 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage

‘femininity’ and ‘soft politics’ (e.g., Shames 2003) may simply reinforce traditional stereotypes of women as alien to or anomalous within the sphere of formal electoral politics. These are difficult issues to settle, for media effects on people’s political perceptions and stereotypes are notoriously difficult to disentangle. However, a comprehensive understanding of Canadian political news and its gendered elements demand attention to these (and other) analytical blind spots.

An aspect of news discussed intermittently through this chapter is the how the culture and operation of journalism affect coverage of men and women politicians – indeed, of politics generally. This chapter has presented evidence that a sizeable portion of news coverage of the 2000 Canadian federal election campaign emphasized conflict, particularly coverage of the female party leader and candidates. The gendered mediation thesis holds that news exaggerates women politicians’ aggressivity, as well as other counterstereotypical behaviours.

Remedial action may seem simple. For example, hiring more women journalists is often seen as an antidote for sex-imbalanced coverage. The next chapter presents an in-depth examination of Canadian newsrooms, arguing that news biases occur at the systemic rather than the individual level. If news has a hand in producing sex-differentiated coverage of politicians, the culprits are sociostructural factors such as the sociology of newswork, the political economy of the media system, and the occupational and informal cultures of the journalistic profession.

Individual journalists have little discretion over the tone and content of their stories, and are socialized early into the dominant norms of their occupation. As

Chapter Four 173 Sex-Differentiated News Coverage such, while I argue that a women’s way of doing newswork is certainly possible, there are few openings within this profession for such a style to emerge.

Chapter Five 174 Women Journalists

CHAPTER FIVE

Women Journalists:

Running with the Pack or Reporting in a Different Voice?

Do women journalists make a difference? Does their coverage of politics, policy issues, and politicians – particularly women politicians – differ markedly from that of their male colleagues? These questions are unsettled among academics and among journalists themselves. Existing scholarship on women, media, and politics has exposed the masculine flavour of news discourse and has even drawn links, at least in principle, between the masculine news product and the sociology of newswork. There is little debate among communications scholars that how news is made, including the work routines of journalists and the professional norms that guide journalism, affects the content of news.

While scholars have done a good job of theorizing how culturally- constructed gender-role norms and stereotypes produce gendered news coverage, particularly those working within the gendered mediation approach, efforts to understand the sociology of newswork from a gender perspective have been weak.

With a handful of exceptions (e.g., Chambers, Steiner, and Fleming 2004), most work on women, media, and politics does not address the role of the sociology of newswork in the creation of a masculine news product, including how the inner workings of news organizations and the occupational culture influence individual reporters. In the Canadian setting, it is fair to say that this angle on women, media,

Chapter Five 175 Women Journalists and politics is virtually absent among those who do work on the topic. It is to the core of these questions that this chapter delves.

The chapter proceeds in a series of steps. First, it assesses the current state of research on how, why, and to what extent a journalist’s sex influences – or could potentially influence – the practice and the product of newswork. Strong arguments can be made that gender influences core values, issue priorities, and communication styles. Following this logic, it may be natural for women journalists sometimes to choose different stories than men or to cover the same stories in a different way than men.

However, it is imperative to take into account the constraints on the journalistic endeavour. The gendered mediation thesis provides a compelling argument that news is a predominantly masculine narrative because news is a profession that is controlled by men and that defines newsworthiness according to masculine values. Therefore, while I make the case that a woman’s way of doing newswork does, in fact, exist, I also suggest that the organization and practice of newswork likely reduces – or perhaps eradicates altogether – the influence of journalists’ personal traits on news coverage (e.g., Craft and Wanta 2004; Reese and Ballinger 2001). Similar to other work environments,

organizations with male-dominated power structures and political climates may promote social interactions in which female employees are expected to act and perform much like their male counterparts, perhaps to avoid exclusion or gain promotion” (Rodgers and Thorson 2003: 662).

The key factors at work with this sociology of newswork hypothesis seem to be top-down (male) control of the news product, coupled with homogeneity of

Chapter Five 176 Women Journalists occupational values and practices resulting from socialization into the profession.

The outcome is a standardization of newswork that tends to trump gender-specific news styles.

A second constraint on gender-specific news reporting is women’s subordinate status in news organizations. Historically, women tended to be shut out of journalism altogether, and while gains have been made, women still comprise a smaller proportion of the newswork labour force compared to men.

This is the Canadian pattern in all forms of news media, and it is a global trend as well. In addition, not only do men have a numerical advantage, men also dominate positions of influence in news outlets (Jeffrey 1995; Robinson and

Saint-Jean 1998; Ross 2001). Therefore, fewer women than men have genuine discretion over the content and tone of news, because fewer women have real clout in news organizations.

The two factors – women’s inferior status in news organizations and the masculine nature of the sociology of newswork – are undoubtedly related.

Women have had few opportunities to influence how journalism is defined – this would include the norms and processes used to guide the selection, collection, and presentation of news – because women were historically excluded from the profession, particularly from positions of power.

The chapter evaluates whether there is a distinctly women’s way, however subtle, of reporting news, and whether this influences how women politicians are reported and/or how audiences receive news. Ultimately, the chapter provides an assessment of one of the key underpinnings of the gendered mediation thesis, and

Chapter Five 177 Women Journalists concludes that until women journalists comprise a critical mass in professional journalism – not only in terms of numerical presence, but also presence in decision-making positions – they likely cannot counter-balance the powerful homogenizing forces rooted in the mechanics of news production. The chapter contributes to debates about sex differences in reporting by analyzing the CBC’s national English-language televised news coverage of the 2000 Canadian federal election campaign.

5.1 In a Different Voice: How Sex Influences Reportage

News outlets and programs provide short on-line biographies of their reporters and anchors. The following examples provide a compelling introduction to the question of whether women approach newswork differently than do men. On

Global Winnipeg’s website1 the biography of 5:30 pm news anchor Derrick

Oliver tells site visitors that he “likes to stir things up.” On why he loves live television, Oliver says, “it’s interesting, entertaining, tensions are high and it forces the people you’re interviewing to be real.” Oliver moderated Global’s coverage of the mayoral debates for Winnipeg’s municipal elections, and he claims, “I was the quarterback during those debates.... I pushed buttons...” Oliver sees himself as a news ‘maverick’ of sorts.

In comparison, Global Winnipeg’s 10:30 pm anchor Nelly Gonzalez starts her on-line bio in this manner:

1 See: http://www.canada.com/winnipeg/globaltv/personalities.

Chapter Five 178 Women Journalists

Nelly Gonzalez ... had to face the personal apprehension all journalists deal with when she interviewed someone who had just suffered incredible loss. ‘A young woman had miscarried her baby after waiting six hours unattended in a hospital waiting room,’ says Gonzalez. ‘It was nerve wracking having to ask her those incredibly personal questions. I was worried she’d slam the door in my face. She had every right to do so.’

Oliver uses an overtly masculine term, ‘quarterback’, to describe his role in the mayoral debate, which would not only seem slightly odd if used by a woman anchor, but also implies that he was the main actor in the mayoral debate. Indeed, on a football team, the quarterback is often the star player, directing the offensive plays, reading the defences, and often is seen as being responsible for the outcome of the game. Gonzalez, on the other hand, sees herself as an intermediary, commending her interviewee’s “bravery in telling the community her story through the media....” (emphasis added). The way that the two anchors relate to their news subjects is also quite telling. Oliver “likes to stir things up” and push buttons, suggesting he sees his role as something of an adversary or a gadfly.

Gonzalez obviously identifies with or at least empathizes with the woman who had the miscarriage. Gonzalez was worried about re-traumatizing the woman by asking such personal questions, and recognized that she was intruding in the woman’s life. Clearly, Gonzalez had a sympathetic attachment to this particular interviewee. The differences between Oliver and Gonzalez’s biographies are due in part to the different types of news stories they emphasize – one about a televised political debate and the other about a woman who experienced emotional trauma and loss. However, this is itself another difference between the

Chapter Five 179 Women Journalists two anchors. In her web-based introduction to the public, the female journalist,

Gonzalez, chose to highlight an issue related to loss, trauma, and the health care system to define her journalist persona to viewers and web-site visitors. In contrast, the male journalist, Oliver, chose to present his role in reporting a competitive political debate.

Myriad other examples are available on other news websites. For example,

CTV’s Canada AM Business Editor, Linda Sims, has this to say in her on-line biography: “business stories always held some allure. ‘Business is about people.

It’s about ambition and arrogance and dreams’....”2 While Sims has an interesting point, it may be unusual for a business journalist to highlight the human aspect of business. Through her career as a business journalist with CTV as well as with

ROBTv (Report on Business Television), Sims says, “the story that stays with her is free trade.” The aspect of free trade she emphasizes in her on-line bio is the human side, not only at the national level, but the global implications of free trade as well:

Sims visited several shanty towns on the U.S./Mexico border and saw firsthand the squalor in which the workers lived. ‘Labour was cheap and jobs were being siphoned away from Canadians. And Mexican families lived in deplorable conditions,’ Sims says. ‘Here was a clear-cut example of the impact of all the forces of technology and globalization. It was really frightening to see.’

Rather than highlight other aspects of free trade – trade disputes, the regionalization of global trade, issues around non-tariff barriers, for example –

Sims has chosen to present herself as a socially-concerned business journalist.

2 See: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/print/CTVShows.

Chapter Five 180 Women Journalists

Foreign correspondents’ on-line biographies are similarly interesting.

Murray Oliver, CTV’s correspondent in Kampala, Uganda, opens his bio by telling visitors to the site he “has dodged shrapnel, the wrath of warring soldiers, and the occasional browbeating of an editor, but never an opportunity to tell some of the world’s most gut-wrenching stories.” Oliver’s biography emphasizes the reporting of war, conflict, and insurgency in the context of African politics, but makes no mention of other issues, many of which are complementary, such as famine, poverty, HIV/AIDS, and corruption, factors often identified as root causes of war and conflict in Africa. Discussing his adaptation to the journalistic routines of foreign correspondents, Oliver notes that “there was also the stuff of foreign- reporting legends: making fast friends with a rebel chief over cocktails, and being smuggled to the frontlines by the commander of the opposing army.” Oliver’s portrayal of his work in Africa, while admittedly meant to be an attention- grabbing blurb on the website, suggests cosiness with rebels and warlords, and lays claim to the notorious ‘boozy’ culture of journalism by making reference to

“cocktails”.

CBC London-based foreign correspondent Nancy Durham, on the other hand, explicitly says that she wants to do the “people stories”, stating, “I’m interested in how people get by in extraordinary circumstances, when people are shooting all around you and you still function.”3 Durham seems to be focussed on the wider context of war – how ordinary people cope in situations of crisis.

3 “The Women Who Bring the War to TV”. See: http://www.peacewoman.org/news/new%20archive/pre2000/reporters.html.

Chapter Five 181 Women Journalists

This colourful introduction to the self-presentations of men and women

Canadian journalists falls short of proof that women have different styles of journalism than their male colleagues. However, the anecdotal evidence is suggestive. In fact, a survey of systematic scholarly inquiry on men and women’s journalistic styles and practice shows that the anecdotal examples presented above are not simply anomalous outliers. The tendency of some women journalists to see news differently than their male counterparts is relatively widespread.

Whether and how journalists’ personal traits influence news reportage are unsettled questions. Attention to who journalists are and how this influences news can be traced back to the early-1950s (e.g., White 1950). Available evidence – although often quite mixed – suggests that women may choose different stories than men, women may report differently on the same stories, and women may consult different sources for interview.

On the issue of what stories to cover, unique evidence for a specifically female approach to news comes from an annual International Woman’s Day event first held in 2000. That year the United Nations Educational Scientific and

Cultural Organization (UNESCO) called on news media to mark International

Women’s Day (March 8) by giving editorial responsibility to women for one day during the month.4 More than one thousand newspapers, broadcasters, and

Internet media from 56 countries participated. The initiative, dubbed “Women

4 The “Women Make the News” initiative was intended to underscore the United Nations Platform for Action adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 as well as the Toronto Platform for Action, both of which criticized media in all countries for its lack of gender-sensitive programming and gender equity in hiring and promotion. According to UNESCO, the “Women Make the News” initiative is “part and parcel of the Organization’s continuing endeavours to strengthen its women and media programme with the underlying goal of giving women their rightful places in the mainstream media institutions” (Ziamou 2001: 7).

Chapter Five 182 Women Journalists

Make the News”, has been repeated every year since 2000.5 Observers discovered a distinct approach to news by the temporarily woman-controlled newsrooms. In its report on the event UNESCO is clear that “women attach greater importance to certain subjects which are ‘omitted’ or dealt with only briefly by their male colleagues” (Ziamou 2001: 25). For example, when women took over in one

Texas news outlet, “a heated news argument erupted over the choice of the day’s top story: The men wanted a police story about a peeping tom; women wanted a story about women fighting for their rights” (Pantin 2001: 1).

A sceptic may legitimately point out that the “Women Make News” initiative was bound to encourage women-focused stories, for it was a women- focused initiative intended to promote gender equality on International Women’s

Day. Yet, several scholarly studies are consistent with the experience of the Texas newsroom, adding evidence that when women have newsroom influence, news can reflect women’s particular interests. For example, a study of German news reports that women journalists attach more importance to humanitarian and social issues compared to male journalists (Peiser 2000). Weaver and Wilhoit’s (1996) study of American journalists shows that women are more likely to write about social problems and protests, and men are more likely to write about traditional government and crime stories. Sex differences in the self-presentations of

Canadian journalists on their website biographies mirrors these findings, as discussed above.

5 See UNESCO website for more details: http://www.unesco.org/webworld/march8/.

Chapter Five 183 Women Journalists

Not only can choice of story topics differ between men and women journalists, they may also use dissimilar angles to report the same topic. Women are more likely than men to focus on women’s issues, and they are also more likely to “use a broader definition of news in developing a human-interest angle”

(Chambers, Steiner, and Fleming 2004: 6; see also Christmas 1997; Covert 1981;

Mills 1997; Meyers 1997; Skidmore 1998; Sutcliffe, Lee, and Soderlund 2005; van Zoonen 1988 and 1994). For example, women assigned to cover war and conflict often report on a wider range of issues compared to their male colleagues

(e.g., Edwards 1988; Rouvalis and Schackner 2000; Sutcliffe, Lee, and Soderlund

2005). Within this broader focus, it is often the case that women journalists devote considerable attention to reporting how conflict affects civilians, as Sutcliffe, Lee, and Soderlund’s (2005) analysis of crisis reporting in the Caribbean Basin illustrates. While Sutcliffe and his colleagues found remarkable similarity in men and women’s reporting styles about a series of Caribbean crises, there were subtle sex differences (Ibid.). Looking specifically at coverage of the unsuccessful attempt to restore Jean-Bertrand Aristide to the Haitian Presidency in 1993, the authors describe differences between one male and two female reporters:

On October 12 … ABC reporter Linda Pattillo talked about the closure of shops, the threat of social disorder, and the desire of ordinary Haitians for social stability. The CBS reporter Vicki Mabrey also mentioned the closure of schools and shops in her report. A visual in this report showed schoolgirls who could not take exams because of the closure of schools as a result of the crisis. On the same day, David Bloom, reporting for NBC, referred to Haiti as a ‘pitifully poor nation,’ but did not emphasize the social implications of the events on Haitian citizens to the same extent as the two female reporters (Ibid.: 111).

Chapter Five 184 Women Journalists

In other words, while the male reporter certainly acknowledged the desperate poverty in the island country, it was the female reporters who provided specific and concrete information to the audience about how and why the poverty affects real people. Sex-of-reporter differences were similar in stories about the US-led invasion intended to restore Aristide to the Presidency in 1994, one year later

(Ibid.: 113-114).

Orla Guerin, a BBC foreign correspondent assigned to the Israeli-

Palestinian conflict in 2001, is careful to note that while women and men do work quite differently, “it is not just a case of ‘women writing about refugees and men about tanks’”; rather “women have a different set of emphases in their interpretation of events” (Chambers, Steiner, and Fleming 2004: 215). Indeed, women’s approach to news is not just about personalization and humanization, but also about putting news in historical, societal, and political context. George

Asper, a renowned war correspondent for the Associated Press, said this of women correspondents in Vietnam: “at times, the women were more attuned to the human side of war and the Vietnamese side of the war while many of us [the men] were zeroing in on the American side” (quoted in Rouvalis and Schackner

2000). This is an appropriate example, for not only did women correspondents take a human approach to the Vietnam war, they were also concerned to represent the viewpoint of the opposing side, an important part of placing the conflict in context.

The idea of a distinctly female approach to news reporting has not gone unchallenged. Numerous studies have produced non-findings on gender

Chapter Five 185 Women Journalists differences in both topic and angle selection. In fact, several large-scale surveys of journalists show that “gender is an unreliable predictor of differences in professional values and journalistic practices” (Chambers, Steiner, and Fleming

2004: 103; see also Henningham and Delano 1998; Weaver and Wilhoit 1996;

Whitlow 1977). Causality is perhaps the thorniest issue. If women appear to prioritize certain news topics or angles, this may be due more to stereotypical expectations about women’s capabilities and the gendered division of newswork than women journalists’ real preferences. Ross articulates the problem quite concisely:

If more women than men are assigned the fashion, lifestyle, cookery, education or health beats, then it is hardly surprising that women journalists come to be seen (including by themselves) to be good at and interested in lifestyle, background and soft politics – the classic chicken-and-egg dilemma (2001: 539).

In other words, even if women do seem to choose different story angles or topics, there are several possible explanations for why they do so. They may choose these themselves, when they have the freedom to do so, that is, or women may be disproportionately assigned to story topics dealing with social, human interest, or

‘soft’ politics issues by their assignment editors. Indeed, there may be a form of stereotyping in the newsroom where assignment editors and producers feel that social and human interest stories are specifically female areas of competence, or they may feel that viewers will respond better to social and human interest stories reported by women journalists. Finally, women may gravitate toward certain story angles or topics because they are socialized in the profession to do so, either

Chapter Five 186 Women Journalists through subtle messages in journalism school or in the informal socialization into news culture that occurs once they are on the job.

Various women journalists themselves reject the notion of a women’s style of reporting. Candy Crowley, a political reporter for CNN, says, “the bottom line is that journalists think alike; having journalism in common is a stronger bond than the differences that result from gender” (Woodruff 1997: 157 quoted in

Chambers, Steiner, and Fleming 2004: 106). The ostensible contradiction between

Crowley’s sentiments and the idea of a woman’s style of journalism may be less serious than it appears at first glance. In fact, as later sections of this chapter illustrate, journalistic norms, practice, education, and socialization all work to suppress gender differences between journalists, as Crowley notes. However, the fact that scholars do sometimes find evidence of gender differences in reportage raises the issue of when and under what conditions a woman’s way of doing newswork is able to materialize.

While defining ‘women’s’ stories or a ‘women’s’ perspective on news can be tricky, one of the less contested findings on women reporters is that they tend to use more female news sources than their males colleagues (at least when they are free to do so) (Mills 1997; Meyers 1997; van Zoonen 1994 and 1998; Weaver and Wilhoit 1996; Zoch and Turk 1998). Female reporters also tend to give more prominence to their female sources than do male reporters (Liebler and Smith

1997). Part of the explanation for male-female differences in sourcing is the idea that women’s socialization from early childhood encourages them to relate differently to people than do men and to value cooperation and equality (e.g.,

Chapter Five 187 Women Journalists

Rodgers and Thorson 2003). Therefore, women may be more attuned to sources perceived as marginalized in typical news coverage, such as women and minorities (Ibid.). In addition, from early childhood, males and females are encouraged to converse and interact in same-sex dyads and groups, which may result, in adult years, in a preference for communication with members of the same sex (e.g., Tannen 1994). This is another factor that may encourage women journalists to use female sources more than male journalists. The inclusion of more women as news sources – whether as citizen commentators, experts, or pundits – may work to normalize the presence of women in politics, the economy, and other realms historically dominated by men, an argument that is explored in more depth in the concluding section of the chapter.

5.1a Gender Gaps and Difference Theory

In terms of explaining differences in how men and women do newswork, two lines of inquiry provide useful evidence: first, work on gender differences in socialization, values, and communication styles and, second, the idea of a feminist consciousness among female reporters.

Journalism is a human endeavour, so idiosyncratic traits have the potential to shape how news is defined, selected, interpreted, and reported. Gender has the potential to influence the tone and content of reportage. Abundant evidence grounded in political science, psychology, and sociology literature illustrates the power of gender to structure values and behaviours. Women and men tend to have different positions on a range of issues. Women veer to the left of men on social

Chapter Five 188 Women Journalists and economic issues (DeVaus and McAllister 1989; Everitt 1998, 2002; Gidengil

1995; Gidengil et al. 2003; Gilens 1988; Mueller 1988; Norris 1988; Norris and

Inglehart 2003; O’Neill 2002; Shapiro and Mahajan 1986). Women tend to be more supportive of social spending and an activist welfare state and conversely, less optimistic about market economics, deregulation, and free trade (e.g.,

Gidengil 1995). Gidengil’s (1995) analysis of the 1988 Canadian federal election

– the ‘free trade’ election fought on this one issue – supports the idea of “social woman” and “economic man”.6

Gender gaps in public opinion exist in other domains as well. Women tend to be less ‘hawkish’ than men on war and defence. Women are less supportive of the use of military force in general, and this has been true from World War II to the Vietnam War to the Gulf War (Clark and Clark 1993; Eichenberg 2003 and

2005; Goldstein 2001; Wilcox, Fite, and Genest 1990; Sapiro and Conover 1993;

Shapiro and Mahajan 1986; Smith 1984; Wilcox, Hewitt, and Allsop 1996). In terms of the principal policy objectives of military action, when survey questions present military force as a means of alleviating humanitarian crises, gender gaps tend to decrease, because women’s support for military action increases more than that of men (Eichenberg 2003). When survey questions mention casualties, gender gaps tend to widen, because women’s support for military action declines more than that of men (Ibid.). Beyond specific conflicts, women are less supportive of

6 One of the explanations for women’s higher support for the welfare state is women’s greater reliance on the state for services and employment (e.g., Gidengil 1995). This raises questions about ‘social woman’s’ underlying psychological motivation: liberal compassion or self- interested utility maximization? While most scholars recognize that both factors play a role, it is important to note that the gaps persist even controlling for income (e.g., Gidengil et al. 2003), and, moreover, gender gaps exist on issues not directly related to social spending and the economy.

Chapter Five 189 Women Journalists both increased defence spending and nuclear weapons development (Sapiro and

Conover 1993; Eichenberg 2003 and 2005). As Sapiro and Conover state, gender differences in attitudes toward military force “are some of the largest and most consistent in the study of political psychology….” (1993: 1095).

Little of the gender gaps literature claims that gender differences in values and attitudes are innate. Nor are gender gaps static over time. Male/female differences in public opinion vary depending on the context. For example, there have been no substantial gender gaps in Americans’ support for the most recent

Iraq War (Eichenberg 2003 and 2005),7 while there was a substantial gender gap in support for the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf crisis and war, with women’s support lagging far behind that of men (Ibid.; Sapiro and Conover 1993). The overarching point is that there appears to be a specifically female worldview that tends to be relatively more liberal, compassionate, and peaceful compared to a specifically male worldview that tends to be relatively more individualistic, aggressive, and conservative. Indeed, as Eichenberg demonstrates, “Women are relatively less likely to endorse violent (or escalatory) actions; they are relatively more sensitive to the loss of human life; [and] they are relatively more sensitive to humanitarian objectives” (2003: 136).

7 For example, a USA Today/CNN/Gallop Poll taken in November 2005 shows that there was no gender gap on the following question: “In view of the developments since we first sent our troops to Iraq, do you think the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq, or not?” Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,006 National Adults, aged 18+, conducted November 11-13, 2005. For results based on the total sample of National Adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points. See: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-11-15-poll-vietnam_x.htm. Indeed, Richard Eichenberg’s analysis of women and men’s attitudes toward military action shows that women have become less dove-like than they had been in the past, and he links shifts in women’s foreign policy and defence preferences to 9/11, the War on Terror, and the dominance of national security debates in US media and governmental circles.

Chapter Five 190 Women Journalists

Beyond the measurement of gender gaps in public opinion, much less is known about the sources or underlying causes of the differences in beliefs. One of the strongest and most widely used explanations is ‘difference’ theory. Difference theory originates in psychology, and is exemplified in the work of Gilligan

(1982), Noddings (1984), Keller (1984), Belenky et al. (1986), and Ruddick

(1989). While there are variations in how the theory is articulated, the central idea is the same. Difference theorists hold that there is a specifically feminine or

‘womanly’ way of relating to others and of thinking about social and moral issues.

The critical factor is the female role in child rearing and its effects on the identities of girls/women versus boys/men. A boy forms his identity through separation from the mother and assertion of his autonomy. A girl, whose primary caregiver is generally of the same sex, understands herself through identification with the mother. Hence, “girls come to experience themselves as less differentiated than boys, as more continuous with and related to the external world....” (Gilligan 1982: 8; see also Cook 1993). The female identity develops through emulation of the mother. Consequently, as girls mature into women, they remain centred on care and place great emphasis on attachment and responsiveness. The male approach, on the other hand, favours justice and rights and emphasizes equality and fairness as among the highest human qualities.8

8 Gilligan is careful to note that “justice and care as moral perspectives are not opposites or mirror-images of one another, with justice uncaring and care unjust” (1987: 22). Neither should her work be understood to mean that women are unconcerned with justice or that men are uncaring. The theory is about tendencies. The feminine ethic of care and the masculine ethic of justice are archetypes that are not watertight or unyielding. Difference theory has important deficits. Chief among these are the potential dangers involved with over-zealous acceptance or application of its tenets. Difference theory carries a risk of essentializing women. Indeed, there are numerous differences between different categories of women, for traits such as ethnicity, socio-

Chapter Five 191 Women Journalists

Difference theory and gender gaps in public opinion have various implications for women in journalism. Work on gender gaps suggests how women journalists may report differently on politics and politicians than their male colleagues. Women tend to prioritize different issues and have a particular penchant – at least compared to men – for social issues as well as the social aspects of political, economic, and military issues. Moreover, difference theory has direct implications for how women journalists tend to relate to the people involved in their stories, either as subjects of news or as interviewees. According to van Zoonen (1994 and 1998), women journalists care more about context and background and are less detached from their news subjects and sources. In other words, men and women’s different approaches to the same events are explained partly by gender differences in journalistic practice. Gender differences in journalistic practice, in turn, can be related to difference theory, specifically the tendencies for men and women to have different perspectives on themselves and their relation to the world around them. For example, women journalists are often more attuned to their news subjects and the complex background of war, because women are more apt to think in interrelational terms.

economic status, and sexual orientation contextualize gender identity and behaviour. In addition, as noted above, difference theory is not an ironclad rule of what constitutes ‘maleness’ and ‘femaleness’. The theory does a poor job of accounting for the variation in behaviour among women and among men. Some men are predominantly care-oriented, and some women are predominantly agentic. This serves to remind us of two important points. First, sex and gender are not synonymous categories. Biological femaleness does not always lead to female gender-role behaviour. Second, behaviours culturally defined as ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ are often little more than stereotypes. The final risk of difference theory is that it may inadvertently reinforce gender stereotypes of women as warm, caring, and other-oriented – in other words, self-sacrificial. This does not mean that the work of Gilligan and others is suspect. Rather, the risk is that the ‘ethic of care’ becomes a prescription for femininity.

Chapter Five 192 Women Journalists

5.1b Gender Consciousness among Women Journalists

Gender gaps in issue priorities and positions – which are said to be a function, in part, of differences in moral reasoning and interrelation rooted in pre-adult socialization – are not the only possible explanation for a women’s style of newswork. Gender consciousness is a second factor that may promote a distinctly female style of newswork.9 Patricia Gurin’s (1985) work on gender consciousness suggests that there are three components to the development of individual feelings of group consciousness: 1) discontent about the power of their social category

(i.e., relative deprivation); 2) belief that the group’s power disparity is illegitimate or unfair; and 3) acknowledgement that group members have shared attitudes and interests. Irrespective of personal circumstances, individual women may be conscious that women collectively have less influence, power, and resources; they may recognize that women tend to be treated categorically; and they may also see no legitimate basis for collective power differentials. Group consciousness, in other words, is not about individual-level circumstances, but about recognizing that one’s social category tends to be worse off, on the whole, even if one is personally rather well-off. What may result is that individual women – who may be personally well-off – engage in action directed toward changing women’s relative status, and “in this sense gender consciousness is feminist” (Ibid.: 146).

9 To be clear, I am not proposing that there are conceptual tensions between gender gaps/difference theory and gender consciousness as explanations for a distinctly female style of newswork. The two explanations are not necessarily competing, and they are not presented here as such. Indeed, it is wholly possible that women approach newswork differently because of both factors combined.

Chapter Five 193 Women Journalists

Going back to discussion earlier in the chapter, it is relatively easy to make the connection between gender consciousness and a women’s style of newswork. For example, women might report on social and humanitarian issues because they believe that such issues are both important to women as a group and under-reported in typical news stories. Gender consciousness might also lead women journalists to discuss specific angles of stories, as the previous discussion of men and women’s war reporting illustrates. Finally, gender consciousness might lead women reporters to seek out female sources, especially if they believe that women are under-represented as voices of authority on politics, economics, and current events.

UNESCO’s report on the 2000 “Women Make the News” initiative picks up on these arguments, for the report argues that “because women are more sensitive to gender issues, it is easier for them to detect and therefore correct, if they have the power, the innuendoes and sexist images ... which appear in articles and television programmes” (Ziamou 2001: 25). Not all women journalists will be both sensitive to the inappropriate use of gender stereotypes and willing to draw attention to these issues. However, there are reasons to suggest that some women journalists – and some men too, for that matter – make gendered news coverage an issue. For example, Vancouver Sun columnist, Lisa Fitterman, directed these comments toward male-authored books about former Canadian Prime Minister

Kim Campbell:

Sure, Campbell is ambitious, but which politician isn’t? Imagine, please, a potential leader who, faced with the reins of power, gently declines: ‘No, no, really, I only came so far and spent

Chapter Five 194 Women Journalists

practically my entire life in politics because I’m completely altruistic and have absolutely no interest in the job. Another cookie?’” (1993, quoted in Sharpe 1994: 21-22).

Fitterman rails against perceptions that Campbell was too ambitious or opportunistic. For male politicians, by contrast, ambition is seen as normal and is taken for granted.

Further examples of women journalists highlighting gender-biased reportage appeared during Canadian MP Belinda Stronach’s recent decision to migrate from the Conservative to the Liberal side of the House.10 Upon switching parties, not only was Stronach labelled a ‘turn coat’ and a ‘defector’ – usual monikers for party-switchers – some politicians and journalists peppered their comments with sexist language. Stronach was called a ‘prostitute’ and a ‘whore’ by several MPs, the idea being that she had ‘prostituted’ herself for a Liberal cabinet post. Several female journalists criticized not only the politicians who had been so disrespectful toward Stronach, but also the tone of media coverage of the event. “Traitor? Yes. Whore? No.” reads the headline of Leanna Jantzi’s column, which contends,

the media can’t be excused from touting the sexist line, either. ‘Blond Bombshell,’ the headlines screamed. A bombshell, yes. But when does the colour of one’s hair make it into a headline? Political cartoons ... depicted an oversexed version of Stronach in bed with Prime Minister Paul Martin. In another, she’s standing on a street corner ‘propositioning’ the PM (2005: 12).

Guardian columnist Sandra Devlin picks up on a different angle of the media fracas following Stronach’s defection – the end of the relationship between

10 Stronach was a former Conservative leadership candidate and defected just before a critical vote in the House of Commons.

Chapter Five 195 Women Journalists

Stronach and Peter MacKay, deputy Conservative leader at the time. Devlin rightly questions media attention to this aspect of the issue, noting, “...it’s impossible as a human being of the female persuasion not to grit one’s teeth at the flawed logic that when a woman dumps a boyfriend: a) to further her personal political ambition or b) to stand up for a strongly held principle, it deserves national headlines” (2005: C1). In this case, Devlin clearly thinks that media focus on women’s love lives – a theme explored in detail in Chapter Four – is misguided and trivializing.

5.2 Running with the Pack: The Constraints of Newswork

Evidence of gender differences in reportage is widespread; however, counter- evidence is fairly abundant as well. Numerous studies report no sex-of-journalist difference in news coverage (e.g., Bleske 1997; Chambers, Steiner, and Fleming

2004; Henningham and Delano 1998; Liebler and Smith 1997; Rakow and

Kranich 1991; Ross 2001; Weaver and Wilhoit 1996; Whitlow 1977). In fact, in some contexts, reportage from women journalists can be more aggressive or negatively charged than that of men. For example, women journalists used more stereotypically masculine imagery than male journalists in coverage of the televised leaders’ debate for the 2000 Canadian federal election (Gidengil and

Everitt 2003a) and more negatively-charged verbs, such as ‘blasted’ and

‘mocked’, to report the entirety of the campaign during the 1993 Canadian federal election (Gidengil and Everitt 2003b). A ‘hard-hitting’ reporting style may be attractive for women journalists, many of whom must feel as though they have to

Chapter Five 196 Women Journalists

“prove their professional mettle” in this historically male-dominated realm (Ross

2002: 108). As will be explored at length in Chapter Six, women in traditionally- masculine workplaces, such as politics, business, and journalism, often confront pressure (either real or perceived) to conform to masculine styles of speech, behaviour, and interaction. This can result in a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ dilemma. In the news realm, women who eschew ‘hard-nosed’ reporting styles may leave the impression that they are not serious, ‘hard-hitting’ journalists. On the other hand, aggressive women journalists may be viewed as unconventional, hard to get along with, or anomalous.

One of the major problems with the claim that gender influences news content is the focus on the individual. The problem is the same for other individual-level traits such as ethnicity or class, for that matter. In many ways, the idea that news biases occur at the individual level, as opposed to the aggregate or systemic level, is incongruent with common wisdom about the news industry

(e.g., Reese and Ballinger 2001). As Craft and Wanta astutely observe,

much of the newsroom sociology literature suggests that the individual journalist is unlikely to be able to inject much personal perspective into the news – news culture and routines dampen most of the differences in viewpoint or experience workers bring to the newsroom (2004: 127).

Strictly speaking, the sociology of newswork argument does not deny that a journalist’s gender could influence how and what she reports; rather, the sociology of newswork argument holds that there are relatively few openings for gender to exert its potential impact. The structure and operation of news outlets; the financial imperatives of the media environment; and the culture and practice

Chapter Five 197 Women Journalists of journalism tend to subdue individual-level influences on news such as a journalist’s gender, ethnicity, or ideology. In other words, the idea is that there can be tensions between the individual- and the system-level influences on news, and in many cases, the system-level influences, such as the sociology of newswork, will prevail.

5.2a Organizational Structure and Division of Labour

Starting with the structure and operation of news outlets, it is clear that television journalism is a decidedly regimented profession,11 arguably even more so than print or radio journalism. Most news organizations – and certainly all large mainstream outlets – operate according to strict hierarchies where production of the news product is controlled tightly at the top and middle levels of the organization. This leaves relatively little scope for rank-and-file reporters to tailor reportage according to their own values or political predispositions, whether consciously or unconsciously.

A typical television newsroom is structured with a news director or editor- in-chief at the top, and the person in this role has ultimate authority over the news product of a station (Schultz 2005).12 Each news program a media outlet offers usually has its own producer, and these producers work closely with the news director in planning news programming. For example, CBC’s The National has its

11 Although much of the ensuing discussion of the structure and operation of newsrooms undoubtedly applies to all news media, discussion in this case will be limited to television news since this is the focus of the dissertation. 12 The following discussion of the structure and operation of a news organization is based on Schultz’s text, unless otherwise noted.

Chapter Five 198 Women Journalists own producer, as does Canada Now and other news shows on the CBC. In turn, each producer is responsible to CBC news editor-in-chief, Tony Burman. In most cases, each program will have some hierarchy of producers including a senior or executive producer followed by one or more assistant producers, and so on. After the producers come the assignment editors. An assignment editor is in charge of coordinating news coverage, which primarily means deciding on story assignments for reporters and videographers. According to the CBC website, “on any given day, the assignment editors must select from a blizzard of possibilities: news releases, stories from the news wires, suggestions from reporters and their own knowledge of what's happening on their ‘beats’.”13 The assignment editor decides “who needs to be dispatched to cover a story. Or whether it's worth covering at all.”14 As the upcoming section on the status of women in Canadian television news illustrates quite aptly, men tend to dominate these influential positions. The role of the assignment editor in choosing and assigning stories dramatically reduces the discretion rank-and-file reporters have over the selection of their news stories.

In addition to the hierarchical nature of newsrooms, there is also a strict division of labour that takes many of the steps involved in news story production out of the reporters’ hands. Each newsroom has a production team that designs and edits the news program, which includes tasks such as choosing and editing video clips, deciding the sequence of clips, and choosing graphics to accompany each news story. Each newsroom also has a team of writers who draft copy for

13 http://www.cbc.ca/news/live/newscentre.html. 14 Ibid.

Chapter Five 199 Women Journalists reading on air, meaning that reporters typically do not write their own copy or

‘script’. Clearly, the visual aspect of television news places an even higher premium on packaging and scripting than could ever exist in print or radio.

While there is a distinct division of labour, this does not necessarily mean that on-air news personalities have no input over story selection and presentation.

Reporters work with writing and production teams, and they commonly have meetings with news show producers. Indeed, producers and assignment editors regard reporters and anchors as critical resources for the generation of story ideas and angles.15

Anchors can be particularly influential, especially a network’s ‘star’ anchor. A celebrity anchor – such as Peter Mansbridge, Lloyd Robertson, or

Kevin Newman – personifies the network’s news. These are positions of considerable power. The president of Toronto’s Media Buying Services, a leading purchaser of commercial airtime, points out that “ratings and millions in ad revenues ride on the inflection of authority in their voices and how viewers feel about their countenances or tailoring” (McDonald 1997). Anchors have star power that is very important to networks, and newsrooms pay handsomely to recruit and retain popular anchors. In fact, as Schultz (2005) points out, personality conflicts in a newsroom almost never result in a chief anchor’s dismissal.16 Producers,

15 E-mail correspondence with CBC public relations contact. 23 May 2005. 16 The power of a star anchor is illustrated by Pamela Wallin’s dismissal as co-anchor – with Peter Mansbridge – of CBC’s Prime Time News in 1994. Prior to 1992 CBC’s The National had been followed nightly by a 40-minute newsmagazine, The Journal. In the fall of 1992, the CBC switched to a single, hour-long newscast, Prime Time News, which presented the news and the newsmagazine as a single package. Mansbridge and Wallin were equal co-anchors of the new show. By 1994 the programming had been returned to its original format, with Wallin as host of the newsmagazine. In 1995 Wallin was dismissed from the CBC entirely. Wallin’s departure from

Chapter Five 200 Women Journalists writers, co-anchors, and regular reporters inevitably are more expendable than the voice and face that personifies the news. Thus, journalists can be more influential over the news when they enjoy high status positions in the newsroom.

While each newsroom has unique variations in structure and operation, the level of control typical reporters possess over story selection and presentation is not commensurate with their prominence on the television screen. Chief anchors tend to be the exception, for they have much more influence than rank-and-file reporters. The fundamental point is that the hierarchical structure of and division of labour in newsrooms place considerable constraints on how the average reporter chooses, interprets, and presents her news stories. Realistically, this diminishes the potential impact of gender on women journalists’ reportage, because reporters do not select their own stories; they seldom write their own copy, particularly in television news; and they do not tend to edit their own video footage. For women to have a genuine impact on news coverage they must attain positions of influence both on-air as well as behind-the-scenes. However, considerable evidence suggests that women do not have substantial influence in television newsrooms in Canada, as will be discussed in due course.

5.2b The Business of News

In addition to the above constraints imposed by the hierarchical structure of news organizations and the strict division of labour, particularly in large media outlets,

the CBC was due in part to tension between her and Mansbridge (Wallin 1998). Even when Hana Gartner replaced Wallin as host of the newsmagazine show, it was clear that “she never would have been appointed without a nod from Mansbridge” (McDonald 1995).

Chapter Five 201 Women Journalists it is also important to remember that news is a business. The economic imperatives of news further limit the freedom individual journalists have over the selection, interpretation, and presentation of news.

Before turning to how the business of news affects journalists, it is useful to start by reviewing how Canadian television news is financed. Purely private,

Canadian broadcasters, such as CTV and Global, are financed almost solely through advertising sales.17 The CBC receives its revenues through a combination of sources, although the bulk of its funding comes from an annual Parliamentary appropriation. Unlike many European public broadcasters, the CBC sells advertising time and does not collect a licence fee.18 In fact, the portion of the

CBC’s budget obtained through advertising sales has increased dramatically compared to decades ago. In the 2003-2004 financial year, the CBC received

$933 million from Parliamentary appropriation and $282 million in advertising revenues and program sales (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 2005).19

Advertising revenues make up about a fifth of CBC’s overall budget and about 40 percent of its English-language TV network budget, as noted in Chapter One.

These figures have remained fairly steady over the past five years with relatively minor ebbs and flows in the relative weight of each budget component (e.g.,

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 2004; see also Hoskins, McFadyen, and Finn

2001; Taras 2001).

17 Aside from public subsidies for the private production of Canadian content. 18 A television licence is an official licence required in many countries for all owners of a television receiver. Licensing is common in Africa, Asia, and Europe, but not in countries of North and South America. Essentially, licensing fees are used as a form of tax to finance public broadcasters. 19 Program sales accounted for a very small portion of the $330 million.

Chapter Five 202 Women Journalists

The relative importance of public versus private funding fluctuates throughout CBC’s programming. For example, prior to 1997, The National and other news/current affairs programming were ad-free. The decision to start airing commercials during The National in spring 1997, though controversial, was motivated in part by the deep cuts in public funding to the CBC in the early- and mid-1990s (e.g., Chidley and Turbide 1996).20 There are two extremes as well, for

CBC Radio is completely ad-free while CBC Newsworld depends solely on advertising revenues to finance its operation. Thus, in assessing the importance of advertising revenues for the CBC as a whole, it is important to keep in mind that some news programming relies more on advertising than others. The overarching point is that CBC runs ads during its television news programming, and these advertising revenues are an indispensable component of both its overall budget and its English-language TV network budget, in particular. In this sense, therefore, CBC confronts similar commercial pressures as private broadcasters, as argued in the introductory chapter of this dissertation.

One of the unique economic aspects of television programming compared to other media is its indirect financing. As noted in Chapter Two, unlike other media industries, “the product being sold is not programming to viewers but viewer exposures to advertising messages” (Hoskins, McFadyen, and Finn 2001:

19). This forces news outlets to pay close attention to the size and characteristics

20 Successive rounds of CBC budget cuts first imposed by the Chrétien Liberal government in 1994 resulted in a $414 million reduction in the public portion of CBC’s funding by 1998 (Chidley and Turbide 1996). As the fiscal restraint of the Chrétien administrations lessened and the country recovered from the recession of the early-1990s, the annual government outlay to the CBC has crept upwards each year since 1999 (e.g., CBC annual reports 2000-2005). However, public funding has not returned to previous levels.

Chapter Five 203 Women Journalists of their audiences. Maximizing audience share among the “cream” (James 2000:

36) is particularly important, for advertisers want their messages to reach high- income consumers, who are disproportionately male, white, and older. Keeping ratings high among this segment of the news audience undoubtedly requires a certain approach to news topics and angles – presumably, an approach that avoids challenging dominant societal assumptions about gender-role norms.

What are the implications for programming and for individual journalists?

Among the obvious consequences is a restriction of journalistic autonomy, for “no newspaper, magazine, or broadcasting outlet exceeds the boundaries of autonomy acceptable to those who meet the costs that enable them to survive” (Altschull

1997: 260). This is a subtle form of pressure, for companies and advertising executives do not tell newsmakers what stories to select or how to present their stories. Neither do newsmakers tell reporters to cover a specific story simply to please advertisers. Rather, this form of journalistic control is exercised largely through the self-restraint and self-censure of newsmakers, and it prefers (rather than explicitly requires) a specific form of news reporting that is quick, uncomplicated, dramatic, and adversarial. Indeed, the horserace sells (Iyengar,

Norpoth, and Hahn 2004). The emphasis on ratings and advertising revenues, while necessary from the perspective of news outlets, discourages the large-scale emergence of unconventional news styles, including genuinely female perspectives on news.

5.2c Professional Norms and Culture

Chapter Five 204 Women Journalists

The practice of newswork, and by extension, the news product, is also affected by professional norms and culture. Sociological approaches to news tend to rely on organizational or bureaucratic theory (Schudson 1989), discussed in some detail in Chapter Two. In line with its emphasis on organizational culture and practices, the sociology of newswork argument holds that “it does not matter who

[reporters] are or where they come from; they will be socialized quickly into the values and routines in the daily rituals of journalism” (Ibid.: 273; see also Etterna,

Whitney, and Wackman 1997: 40; Bennett 2003). Accordingly, work on “the collective codes by which journalism constitutes itself” (Zelizer 1997: 25) demonstrates that there is substantial homogeneity in the professional work values and cultures of journalistic circles (e.g., Bennett 2003; Carey 1974; O’Brien 1983;

Schudson 1988 and 1992). The fact that news is largely a product of organizational routines is another curb on the effect of personal traits on reportage.

Starting with professional values, an ironclad creed guides newswork.

Journalism follows strict standards of objectivity, impartiality, and independence.

Arguably, these standards themselves are based on a male conception of the profession and a decidedly masculine way of approaching news and the people who become news subjects. For example, detachment and impartiality are important components of journalistic objectivity. The journalist “assumes the role of a politically neutral adversary....” because “journalists see adversarialism as an important counterpoint to becoming to close to their sources” (Bennett 2003: 194; see also Mindich 1998; Tuchman 1978; Schudson 1978). This style of doing

Chapter Five 205 Women Journalists newswork may run counter to many women’s sensibilities, unless the work of

Gilligan (1982) and other difference theorists misses the mark completely about women’s ways of seeing themselves and the world. Van Zoonen puts great stock in the idea that professional norms inhibit a distinctly women’s style of newswork, noting that “the specific contribution in the area of sensitivity and humanity that women could make to journalism – following from their socialization as women – is not appreciated by colleagues and editors and is not considered professional” (1994: 56). Even women who lean toward a more connected, sensitive form of journalism – and there is no contention here that this is all or even the bulk of women journalists – are trained away from this instinct through journalism school and socialization into the workplace.

Adversarialism is another core journalistic value. Adversarialism and conflict are part of how news is defined, meaning these values inform how newsworthiness is bestowed upon events and people. Adversarialism also defines how journalists view their relationship with political news subjects, particularly vis-à-vis political figures and institutions. The post-Watergate mode of ‘gotcha’ journalism is instructive in this regard. Certainly, there is debate about how adversarial journalists really are, for “if the media were truly adversarial in their dealings with politicians, they would face a serious dilemma: The news could end up discrediting the institutions and values on which it depends for credibility”

(Bennett 2003: 199; see also Tuchman 1978). However, even if adversarialism is merely a ritual – “more a posture of antagonism than a no-holds-barred approach”

(Bennett 2003: 200) – it has gendered repercussions for the practice of journalism.

Chapter Five 206 Women Journalists

Research in psychology, political science, and sociology shows that women are less inclined than men to think and act in adversarial terms (e.g., Fellman 1998;

Campbell 2002; Eagly 1987; Gilligan 1982; O’Neill 2002; Schwartz and Rubel

2005), so this must inevitably be true of some women journalists as well.

Informal socialization into the news world also plays a role in dampening gender differences in newswork. Journalists work together and ‘play’ together, and their influence on newcomers to the profession is powerful. Women who feel the informal culture of journalism is infused with a masculine ethos describe their professional circle in terms like “pub and club culture” (Smith 1976), “old boy network” (Chambers, Steiner, and Fleming 2004: 98), and “male ordered culture”

(Ross 2001), as noted in Chapter Two. Journalists are also said to have an “after- hours culture” (Chambers, Steiner, and Fleming 2004: 98), a reference to the heavy drinking and late nights characteristic (or at least historically-characteristic) of members of the profession. Confronted with this particular occupational culture, women may experience feelings of isolation, exclusion, and stigmatization, leading them to adopt more conventional (masculine) journalistic styles in order to fit in. One of Canada’s pioneering women journalists and former president of CTV, Trina McQueen, has expressed the challenges of operating in this male culture. She says,

Part of working is the camaraderie and companionship. You want to go into an office and put your feet up and let your hair down and you’d like to do that with a woman – someone who has the same children issues, aged parent issues, or relationship issue ... that you have (quoted in Chiose 2001).

Chapter Five 207 Women Journalists

McQueen’s comments suggest that women may not feel comfortable expressing themselves freely in a workplace dominated by men or masculine concerns, again creating subtle pressures for conformity to the masculine work culture. This dynamic is by no means unique to the news industry. The way Rodgers and

Thorson (2003: 662) explain the point is revealing of its generalized application:

“organizations with male-dominated power structures and political climates may promote social interactions in which female employees are expected to act and perform much like their male counterparts, perhaps to avoid exclusion or gain promotion”. Male-dominated professions, in general, encourage women to conform rather than confront prevailing workplace norms and routines.

In summary, the preceding sections have outlined three constraints on gender-specific news styles: the structure and organization of newsrooms; the business of news; and the occupational norms and culture of journalism. Surely, women journalists do not feel these constraints evenly across all forms of media or in all news outlets. Nonetheless, in the aggregate, these constraints exert pressure on all journalists toward a homogenized form of news reportage, dampening possibilities for a specifically female way of selecting, interpreting, and presenting news. The next section presents evidence of a final barrier to a women’s way of doing newswork: women’s unequal status, and by extension, lack of clout, in Canadian journalism.

5.3 Women in Canadian Journalism

Chapter Five 208 Women Journalists

This section analyzes the status of women in Canadian news media, which is an important determinant of whether women are able to report the news from a genuinely women’s perspective. The status of women in Canadian journalism can be measured by two factors: their numerical presence and their positions in news organizations. As is true of women in all spheres, there are critical differences between presence and influence. Given the constraints around the production of television news, influence over the content and tone of reportage is probably only possible for those who occupy powerful positions in the newsroom. The evidence is clear that men dominate Canadian television news-making.

5.3a Numerical Presence

Assessing the numbers is the easy task. Women have increased their portion of the news media workforce in recent decades. Women’s presence in newsrooms increased from 21 percent in 1974 to 28 percent in 1994 (Robinson and Saint-Jean

1998). Over the last decade, some sources claim that the female segment of the

Canadian news workforce increased another 5 percent, on average, to 33 percent

(e.g., International Federation of Journalists 2001), while others report no change from the mid-1990s (e.g., Rush, Oukrop, and Sarikakis 2005: 243). Similar to other traditionally-masculine occupational preserves, women have confronted barriers to entry and promotion in journalism. However, while the pace of change could hardly be described as break-neck, women have made inroads.

Looking specifically at the CBC – which has special status as Canada’s public broadcaster and is responsible to Parliament and, ultimately, Canadian

Chapter Five 209 Women Journalists taxpayers – women’s proportion of the overall CBC workforce is large. The CBC has boasted regularly of its gender equitable staffing in its employment equity reports to HRDC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 2002b, 2003a), its own

Equity Newsletter (e.g., Ibid. 2003b), and on its corporate website (e.g., Ibid.

2003c). At the end of 2003, CBC reported that 50 percent of its journalists; 50 percent of its production, staging, and design workers; 50 percent of its management personnel; and 48 percent of its producers were women (Ibid.: 3).

The CBC’s gender equity situation is better than that of the other two major

English-language television news outlets, CTV and Global, at least in terms of numbers.

A consideration of women’s increasing numbers in journalism inevitably raises the issue of ‘critical mass’ (Kanter 1977b).21 In the social sciences and related disciplines, the term ‘critical mass’ refers to the numerical threshold a minority group must attain in order to exert real influence over the majority in an organization or institution. The term can be applied to any group, although women and ethnocultural minority groups are the typical objects of study. In broad terms, the central idea is that when the proportion of women in an organization is small, in effect, they represent tokens or novelties, and their power is merely symbolic. A larger concentration of women is needed for women to exert real pull in an institution. Possessing ‘influence’ or ‘making a difference’

21 According to Grey (2001), social science use of the critical mass concept originated in sociology, was adopted by political scientists, and has since entered popular discourse. The term’s original meaning traces from nuclear physics, and describes “the quantity needed to start a chain reaction, an irreversible take-off into a new situation or process” (Ibid.: 3; see also Dahlerup 1988). Rosabeth Kanter is usually credited with transplanting the concept to the social sciences.

Chapter Five 210 Women Journalists can be defined in a variety of ways. Political scientists, for example, have analyzed how a critical mass of women legislators can alter legislative agendas, policy outputs, the tone of legislative debate, and even the institutional cultures of legislatures, cabinets, and caucuses (e.g., Burt and Lorenzin 1997; Byrne 1997;

Bystydzienski 1992; Dahlerup 1988; Davis 1997; Dolan and Ford 1995; Norris

1996; Skjeie 1991; Thomas and Welch 1991; Tremblay 1998; Trimble 1997;

Trimble and Arscott 2003; Vega and Firestone 1995; Vickers 1997). The reason why a critical mass makes a difference is simple. Numerical strength provides an atmosphere of support, comfort, and solidarity. Women’s presence becomes normalized, and women tend to feel freer voicing women-specific policy concerns. In this sense, critical mass is similar to the idea of ‘strength in numbers’, although there is no widespread agreement about the numerical threshold needed to constitute a critical mass.22

In the news business, the effects of a critical mass of women may be far ranging. Numerical strength may provide an atmosphere of support and comfort for women journalists, thereby facilitating their substantive participation in newsmaking. Women may feel more comfortable initiating story ideas and expressing dissent over the tone and content of news. Women journalists have expressed similar sentiments. Kay Mills has interviewed a series of women editorial writers, and one interviewee had this to say about editorial meetings: “If

22 Kanter (1977b: 966) suggests that a minority group must comprise somewhere between 15 and 35 percent of an organization to constitute a critical mass, although she suggests that 20 percent may be the lower limit (987). Other authors claim 15 to 20 percent is enough (e.g., Bystydzienski 1992), although the 30 percent mark is more commonly accepted as constituting a critical mass (e.g., Skjeie 1991). Depending on institutional configuration and opportunities for influence, even one woman can make a difference; conversely, sometimes a critical mass of 30 percent women legislators will not make a difference. As always, context is an important factor.

Chapter Five 211 Women Journalists there is just one woman in a story conference or editorial page meeting, you have to blend in. If there are two, you compete for attention. When there are three women, you reach a critical mass” (1997: 45). Beyond story content, a critical mass may translate into women journalists having more input into hiring decisions, newsroom procedures, contract negotiations, and other important workplace matters. In fact, some authors suggest that a critical mass of women may gradually alter newsroom culture and the very definition of what counts as

‘news’ (e.g., Mills 1997). As discussed previously, researchers have demonstrated that women tend to differ from men in their issue priorities and positions on a range of social, economic, and political topics. Therefore, a critical mass of women in newsrooms could alter the very meaning of ‘newsworthiness’ as women’s issue priorities gain increased attention from female newsmakers.

Even at the more demanding 30 percent threshold, women journalists now constitute a critical mass of the news media workforce in Canada, on the whole,23 as they do in the US and the UK (e.g., Chambers, Steiner, and Fleming 2004).

Achieving a critical mass means that women are no longer token members of most news organizations. However, as the following section illustrates plainly, women still have relatively little power in Canadian news outlets.

5.3b The Status of Women Journalists

Women’s numerical presence in the Canadian news media workforce has reached the one-third mark. More important, however, is women’s status in news

23 Of course, there are still newsrooms that are heavily male dominated, for women have not reached a critical mass in all newsrooms across all forms of media.

Chapter Five 212 Women Journalists organizations, which can be measured according to criteria such as clout, prestige, and visibility.24 Analyses of the division of news labour within the CBC, CTV, and Global – Canada’s mainstream, English-language television broadcasters – demonstrate quite plainly that women do not tend to have the same type of prestigious positions or visibility as male journalists. Table 5.1 outlines the gender breakdown of some of the key positions within the three networks.25 Clearly, men occupy the top spots in Canadian television news. All three networks have male presidents and CEOs; news editors-in-chief; and chief national assignment editors. Earlier sections of the chapter explored the powerful roles that editors-in- chief and assignment editors play in deciding what stories to cover, which reporters will be assigned to each story, and the overall news priorities of the network. CBC and Global have male executive producers for their flagship news programs. The lone woman in this ‘who’s who’ of the top news power brokers is

Wendy Freeman, executive producer of CTV’s flagship news show CTV News with Lloyd Robertson.

24 The following discussion of women in Canadian news focuses on mainstream, televised news, since this is the main focus of the dissertation. The three criteria – clout, prestige, and visibility – are closely related, though there are distinctions. Clout refers to decision-making positions, such as chief anchors, news editors, assignment editors, and bureau chiefs. In this sense, clout refers to having some control over the news product. In many ways, the prestige positions are the clout positions, but prestige can also relate to issues such as time slot. Anchoring the evening news program is more prestigious than anchoring the morning or mid-day news program. Similarly, foreign assignments have differing levels of prestige. Heading the Ottawa, Washington, or London bureau is more prestigious than heading the Beijing bureau, for example. Visibility is also tied to clout and prestige, although the emphasis with respect to visibility is on how much the public sees a journalist. Typically, women journalists are more likely to appear on mid-day shows, local newscasts, weekend spots, or as replacements for absent male colleagues (Monière 2000). In other words, visibility is tied in part to time slot of a news program, with the morning and mid-day news personnel being less visible than those on evening news. In addition, positions on nationally broadcast news programs are more visible than on local news broadcasts. 25 For a detailed list of the names of the television news personnel and their positions within their respective networks, see Appendix Four.

Chapter Five 213 Women Journalists

(Table 5.1 about here)

The pattern is the same for on-air personalities. Each of the three flagship news programs is anchored solely by a man: Peter Mansbridge for CBC’s The

National, Lloyd Robertson for CTV News with Lloyd Robertson, and Kevin

Newman for Global National with Kevin Newman. Very few women have held

‘celebrity’ anchor positions on the three major English news networks. Barbara

Frum co-hosted CBC Television’s The Journal (with Mary-Lou Finlay), and

Pamela Wallin briefly co-hosted The National (with Peter Mansbridge), but these women are rarities. In many cases, the closest women journalists come to these top jobs is when they act as replacements for absent male chief anchors. On The

National, Allison Smith is a regular replacement for Mansbridge. In fact, Smith anchored The National a number of times during the 2000 Canadian federal election campaign as a ‘fill-in’ for the absent Mansbridge. CTV’s Sandie Rinaldo

– current weekend anchor and former anchor of Canada AM – is listed as the official Alternate Anchor for Robertson. While women only get a rare taste of the top anchor jobs in Canadian television news, they are regular anchors on the less prestigious news programs. As Table 5.1 indicates, all three networks have woman anchors (in a few cases, co-anchors) for the national morning and mid-day news during the week as well as for the weekend evening news. A possible explanation for the higher proportion of women as daytime or weekend news anchors may be the larger number of women in the audience, at least compared to the weekday nightly news. News decision makers may put women in anchor spots

Chapter Five 214 Women Journalists in these time slots because they may think that women viewers will respond to women anchors.

Anchor spots on the various weekday and weekend news programs are not the only indicators of status differentials between male and female journalists.

Bureau assignments, both domestic and foreign, are unbalanced as well. CBC,

CTV, and Global have male bureau chiefs for their Ottawa, Toronto, and

Washington bureaus. Beyond this important triumvirate, the networks differ in terms of where they operate bureaus and who heads them, as Table 5.1 indicates.

At CBC, women head the London, Beijing, and Middle East bureaus. At CTV, women head the Moscow and Middle East bureaus. Global has no further foreign bureaus, given its emphasis on local news.

It is a positive sign that women head foreign bureaus, such as London,

Beijing, Moscow, and the Middle East. These are important locales. It is particularly interesting that women oversee the Middle East bureaus for both the

CTV and the CBC. The Middle East is among the most conflictive regions of the globe in the post-WWII era. In addition, women in Middle Eastern countries are generally absent from the public sphere and lack many civil and political rights.

Both of the women – Adrienne Arsenault for CBC and Janis Mackey Frayer for

CTV – are recently appointed to their positions. The appointment of women to this region may have been influenced by the fame of CNN’s chief international correspondent, Christianne Amanpour, who is best known for her coverage of the

Gulf War and the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (Murphy 2004).

Amanpour’s fame and popularity among viewers no doubt shows newsmakers

Chapter Five 215 Women Journalists that women correspondents not only pose no risk in terms of loss of audience or credibility, but that women can in fact boost ratings and offer a refreshing perspective on politics and war.

At the same time, we must remember that in terms of relevance to viewers in Canada, domestic news and American news are arguably more important than news from China, Russia, or the Middle East. Thus, men tend to have the more visible prestigious roles in network bureaus, and women, while making inroads, particularly in recent years, tend to occupy the less prestigious positions.

Another facet of the gendered division of newswork is topic assignments.

Some analysts contend that topic assignments are not fairly distributed between male and female journalists. Women are disproportionately assigned to health, entertainment, and ‘human interest’ stories and are given fewer opportunities to cover politics, business, the economy, and war and conflict – in other words, the serious news, the hard news, the most highly-respected news (e.g., Chambers,

Steiner, and Fleming 2004; Peters, 2001). Perhaps the most extreme example of systematic exclusion of women reporters – in Canada and elsewhere – is in sports journalism. Women sports journalists are very few in number, and while their presence has grown in recent years, women are not always welcome on this male- dominated beat (Claringbould, Knoppers, and Elling 2004; Miller and Miller

1995). One survey found that a majority of women working in sports media in the

US report regular experiences of office sexism, less access to opportunities, and condescension from male colleagues (Miller and Miller 1995: 886). For one of the

Chapter Five 216 Women Journalists women in the survey, sports journalism has a “male locker room atmosphere”

(Ibid.: 888).

As Table 5.1 indicates, Canadian television news bears evidence of this gendered division of labour. All three major English-language news networks have men as their top political, business, and sports reporters and women as their top health reporters. From the perspective of political news and coverage of women politicians, the situation is particularly problematic, for none of the three major networks has a woman as Ottawa Bureau chief or as chief political correspondent. There are women reporting politics, and in some cases these women have attained prominent positions. For example, Global’s Ottawa bureau does have a woman reporter, Hannah Boudreau, and CTV’s Deputy Ottawa

Bureau Chief, Rosemary Thompson, is also a woman. However, as with the anchoring positions, these are more examples of women in ‘second runner-up’ positions.

The ‘second runner-up’ theme can be extended to women journalists in

CBC’s coverage of the 2000 Canadian federal election. CBC’s stories about the

2000 federal election were not equitably divided among the male and female reporters. Of the 163 stories analyzed in total, men reported 60 percent (98 of

163), and women reported 40 percent (65 of 163) (data not shown). Not only were male reporters more visible in news due to their greater proportion of stories, men received more prestigious political reporting assignments than their female counterparts. In the daily newscast, stories selected for coverage do not receive equal treatment, and television newsmakers clearly indicate the “journalistic

Chapter Five 217 Women Journalists salience” of a story through factors such as placement, headline, and length

(McCombs 1994). Of the 98 stories reported by men, 23 percent were lead stories,

20 percent were second place stories, and 13 percent came in the third story slot

(Figure 5.1). For the 65 election stories reported by women, 18 percent were lead stories, 20 percent were second order stories, and 26 percent were third order stories.26 Note that all of the male/female differences in reportage presented in

Figure 5.1 are statistically significant.27

(Figure 5.1 about here)

The same general pattern holds true in terms of the parties men and women were assigned to cover. In fact, part of the explanation why women’s stories are less prominent in the line-up of the newscast rests partly in women’s assignment to less competitive parties. As Figure 5.1 shows, of the 98 stories reported solely by men, 39 percent were about the Liberals, 34 percent were about the Alliance, 13 percent were about the Conservatives, and 14 percent were about the NDP. Combined, 73 percent of the men’s 98 election stories were about the two main contenders in the campaign, the Liberals and the Alliance. Party assignments looked different for the 65 stories reported by women. Twenty-six percent of women’s stories were about the Liberals, 28 percent about the Alliance,

26 percent about the Conservatives, and 20 percent about the NDP.28 Combined,

54 percent of women’s stories were about the two front-running parties, and 46

26 I used the Kendall Tau-c (measure of association for ordinal variables) to assess the strength of association between sex-of-journalist and story ordering, and the coefficient was 0.19. This is not a strong association. 27 Three tests were performed comparing male/female differences in 1) story ordering, 2) party that was the main focus of the story, and 3) portion of headline stories. 28 Cramer’s V = 0.17 (measure of association for nominal variables). Therefore, the association between sex-of-journalist and party, while significant, is weak.

Chapter Five 218 Women Journalists percent were about parties with no chance of winning the government. In other words, not only were women less likely to be reporting news at all, when women were reporting, they were reporting disproportionately on the non-competitive parties/leaders.

During national election campaigns, news outlets tend to assign a primary correspondent to each party’s campaign team. These reporters do not get exclusive domain over their respective parties, but they do dominate coverage of their parties. Essentially, this format means that there is one reporter per party, and s/he follows a party’s campaign around the country with the purpose of providing in-depth coverage of campaign events and press conferences. In 2000, men were assigned to the Liberal and Alliance campaigns,29 and women reporters covered the New Democrats and the Progressive Conservatives (PCs).30 This certainly goes a long way toward explaining the imbalances shown in Figure 5.1, with women reporting on fewer stories as well as reporting disproportionately on less-competitive parties and receiving less prominent placement in story ordering.

CBC’s decision to give the top party assignments to male reporters in the 2000 campaign coverage is predictable. Men tend to dominate the Ottawa bureau of the news outlet, as well as the position of chief political correspondent (Table 5.1).

Consequently, male reporters tend to have more seniority and more experience reporting political affairs than their female coworkers. It is only natural that the

29 Eric Sorensen covered the Alliance campaign, and Jason Moscovitz covered the Liberal campaign. Moscovitz was CBC’s chief political correspondent at the time. Keith Boag has since taken over this position. 30 Laurie Graham covered the NDP campaign, and Susan Harada covered the PC campaign.

Chapter Five 219 Women Journalists

CBC would assign its best and most experienced political reporters to cover the most competitive parties in a campaign. However, this results in a cycle that privileges male reporters. Judging from women journalists’ positions within the

CBC – and the other two main outlets in the country, as well – women have relatively fewer opportunities to develop credibility and expertise as political correspondents, because these positions are dominated by men (Table 5.1).

Another signifier of a story’s prestige is whether or not it is headlined prior to the start of the news broadcast.31 A larger percentage of women’s stories were ‘headline’ items (57% of 65 stories) compared to those of their male colleagues (44% of 98 stories), as shown in Figure 5.1.32 This is the sole piece of evidence presented thus far suggesting that women’s journalistic work is not uniformly less prominent than that of men. The prominence of women journalists’ stories during the introduction of the newscast is somewhat at odds with evidence that women were disproportionately assigned to cover less competitive parties, and women’s stories were less prominent in the order line-up of the nightly newscast.

31 A story has been ‘headlined’ when it was introduced prior to the start of the news broadcast, typically when the news is about to come on, often before or during the opening credits and/or before the chief anchor is introduced. Mentioning a selection of the stories to come is a way that news shows highlight to viewers the main, most important, or most interesting stories that will be presented in the newscast in order to pique interest. Typically, the chief anchor narrates the headline. This is an example from the 2000 campaign from the November 22 broadcast of The National: “Tonight. Exonerated.... The ethics counsellor says Jean Chrétien did nothing wrong by helping a constituent get a controversial loan. Punishing pace.... Stockwell Day pulls out all the stops in his drive to break through in Ontario. And mercy mission. Police and social workers round up some of those gasoline-sniffing children in Sheshatshui, Labrador.” 32 Cramer’s V = 0.13. The association between sex-of-journalist and whether or not a story was headlined is weak.

Chapter Five 220 Women Journalists

Another measure of prominence in news reporting is whether women are assigned to cover important campaign events. Chief among these – perhaps the defining events of Canadian federal elections – are the televised leaders’ debates.

For the 2000 campaign, the French leaders’ debate was held on the evening of

November 8th, and the English debate on the evening of November 9th. A close look at The National’s immediate post-debate coverage, from November 8th to

November 10th, shows that women reporters were largely absent from presenting this important event to the public. On the evening of November 8th, four men covered the French-language leaders’ debate: Mansbridge, Jason Moscovitz, Tom

Kennedy, and Terry Milewski. Mansbridge, Moscovitz, and Kennedy handled the next night’s coverage of the English-language debate. A Reality Check segment on the debates from Leslie MacKinnon came near the end of the main news segment. On the evening of November 10th, after both debates had concluded and a day had passed allowing synthesis and analysis, reports came from Mansbridge,

Kennedy, Milewski, Eric Sorensen, Sasa Petricic, and, finally, a brief report from the lone woman in that night’s newscast, Susan Harada. Assigned to cover the

Conservatives during the 2000 campaign, Harada was probably included because of the widely-held opinion among media and the public that Joe Clark had prevailed in the English-language debate (e.g., Blais et al. 2002a). Laurie Graham

– the reporter assigned to the NDP – did not have a story on November 10th. In fact, there were no stories specifically about McDonough’s performance in either of the debates. In total, women journalists’ post-debate coverage was confined to

Chapter Five 221 Women Journalists the Reality Check segment and Harada’s brief report on Clark the day after both debates were over.

To this point, discussion has focused solely on national news, and women journalists’ inferior role in Canadian television news generally and CBC’s coverage of the 2000 federal election campaign specifically have been amply demonstrated. Perhaps unsurprisingly, similar patterns are found in regional news reporting. In addition to their pan-Canadian news programming throughout the day, the two private networks, CTV and Global, operate regional affiliates that produce their own locally-oriented news programs. One of the patterns characterizing regional newscasts is the tendency to use male-female anchor teams. Chambers and her colleagues call this format the “Ken and Barbie” duo whereby ”a male and female newscaster are placed together as a couple and encouraged to engage in chatty dialogue....” (2004: 222). This represents a sexualization of women journalists, according to the researchers (Chambers,

Steiner, and Fleming 2004: Chapter Eleven). Essentially, the idea is that women on televised news, like women in television generally, act as ‘window-dressing’ to attract viewers to the program. Women’s faces, clothes, hair, and make-up are emphasized above their skills. Male journalists also face pressure for physical attractiveness, but there are subtle differences. It is acceptable for a male anchor to be older, bald, or overweight, but higher standards are demanded for the physical attractiveness of women anchors.

One point is clear: the ‘Ken and Barbie’ pattern of news anchoring is not characteristic of national news in Canada. As outlined above, all three flagship

Chapter Five 222 Women Journalists newscasts are anchored solely by men. At the regional level, however, the ‘Ken and Barbie’ pattern seems to be the rule, and in many cases, the male-female anchor duos combine older distinguished male anchors with younger pretty female anchors. For example, in all 12 regional affiliates of CTV, a man-woman team hosts the main nightly news program.33 The same is true of Global’s regional news affiliates.34 Not only might this indicate a form of sexualization of women anchors in Canadian news, the fact that women are achieving top anchor spots on the main local evening news is also evidence of the ‘second runner-up’ pattern. Women can anchor the less visible and less prestigious regional news, but men anchor the national news broadcasts alone.

In summary, similar to other traditionally male-dominated occupations, the business of television news has its own pink-collar ghetto in Canada. Women do not anchor the national flagship news programs, except as fill-ins for absent male anchors. Women do not run the most critical bureaus, and they do not oversee political, business, economic, or sports coverage. Women do get to oversee health coverage, a stereotypically ‘female’ domain of concern. Women journalists do anchor the less prestigious news programs: the morning, noon, weekend, and regional news. However, even at the regional level, women are not anchoring solo, but as part of male-female anchor teams. Theorizing about the status of women in party and electoral politics in Canada, Sylvia Bashevkin

(1996) has formulated two rules: ‘the higher, the fewer’ and ‘the more

33 For more information on the regional affiliates and their news staffs, see: http://www.ctv.ca/local. 34 There is one Global regional affiliate, Global Lethbridge, for which information on news anchors is not available.

Chapter Five 223 Women Journalists competitive, the fewer’. It appears that these rules are equally applicable to the world of journalism, which tends to concentrate women in relatively less powerful positions. Even within the CBC, women journalists are not as influential, visible, or prestigious as the organization’s equity statistics purport (e.g., CBC 2002a,

2002b, 2003a, 2003b, 2003c, 2004, 2005). In fact, if we look beyond the numbers, the CBC is no different than the two major private networks.

On the more positive side, there are women in senior positions. Acting as substitute anchor can influence news coverage, as Allison Smith may have discovered during the 2000 Canadian election campaign. In addition, both CTV and Global have important women in their Ottawa bureaus, among others.

Women are not without influence in Canadian television news. The point is that their influence is markedly inferior, on the whole, to that of their more prominent and more powerful male colleagues.

5.4 Do Men and Women Cover News Differently?

There are important status differentials between men and women in national television journalism, and not only in Canada, but around the globe. Therefore, even if a distinctly female style of newswork exists, its manifestations may be rare in practice, because relatively few women have genuine influence over the content of reportage. Analysis turns next to assessing this hypothesis, that is, the extent to which women report news in a distinct way compared to their male colleagues or whether the formidable constraints on newswork combined with women’s generally lower status in the newsroom lead to uniform reportage relatively

Chapter Five 224 Women Journalists undistinguished by gender differences. This section uses data derived from the content analyses of CBC’s televised coverage of the 2000 Canadian federal election campaign, which was conducted as part of the 2000 Canadian Election

Study (CES).35 As in other chapters, I analyze both structural and substantive components of news.

5.4a Story Topics

As noted in earlier sections of the chapter, some claim that women journalists tend to choose different story topics than their male colleagues. Women are said to be more attuned to compassion issues, women’s issues, and the social or

‘human’ aspects of politics, economics, and war, for example (e.g., Chambers,

Steiner, and Fleming 2004; Christmas 1997; Covert 1981; Edwards 1988; Mills

1997; Meyers 1997; Rouvalis and Schackner 2000; Skidmore 1998; Sutcliffe,

Lee, and Soderlund 2005; van Zoonen 1988 and 1994).

Findings from CBC’s coverage of the 2000 Canadian federal election suggest that there are very few gender-based differences in story topics. For example, of the 163 stories analyzed, 33 were primarily about some aspect of

35 As outlined in Chapter Three, the stories content analyzed come from three different CBC news programs: The National, the station’s flagship, English-language newscast aired nightly on weekdays, CBC-TV Saturday Report; and CBC-TV Sunday Report. Each news story broadcast during the main news segment of CBC’s programs for the entire 35-day campaign period was content analyzed. This results in a total of 163 stories. The content analysis coding scheme was developed through a collaborative process involving the author, Emmanuelle Hébert (an MA student at McGill), Elisabeth Gidengil, and André Blais (the latter two are co-investigators of the CES). Substantial input also came from Agnieszka Dobrzynska, currently a postdoctoral fellow with the Canadian Research Chair in Electoral Studies at the Université de Montréal. Two graduate student coders independently coded the CBC 2000 televised election news, following a period of training that was supervised by the author and Emmanuelle Hébert. For further details, see Chapter Three.

Chapter Five 225 Women Journalists health care, from health care in general to health care funding to user fees to the issue of a two-tier system.36 Women reported 13 of these 33 health care stories, and men reported 20. There were no systematic differences between men and women reporters in terms of the specific health care issues that formed the focal points of their stories. Of the four stories that focused primarily on health care funding – the ‘hard’ issue of health financing – women reported three.

Similar patterns are repeated for stories whose main focus was public finances. Seventeen stories of the 163 in the dataset focused mainly on public finances – from public finances in general to spending to taxes. Women reported eight of these public finance stories, and men reported nine. In terms of the specific finance issues highlighted primarily in news stories, women reported three of the five stories about taxes, two of the three stories about debt reimbursement,37 and three of the six stories about spending. Women clearly received their ‘fair share’ of finance stories in 2000. In other financial issues beyond public finances, women and men had equal numbers of stories that focused primarily on international trade (one each).

For stories whose main focus fell under the general category of ‘social issues’,38 again there were few sex-of-reporter differences in story topic, at least

36 See Appendix Two for the full list of issue categories coded for CBC election stories. As noted in Chapter Four, not all stories were coded as having a ‘main’ or ‘primary’ issue. In fact, 46 of the 163 stories (28 percent of the 163 stories) had no single dominant issue or were unclassifiable. 37 Debt reimbursement was a PC promise in the 2000 campaign. Thus, the fact that women reported on this issue is likely a function of the parties to which they were assigned. 38 The following story topics were classified under the general category of ‘social issues’: social issues (general), social programmes, daycare, unemployment insurance, poverty issues, education, environment, aboriginals, immigration, lifestyle issues, abortion, youth crime, and

Chapter Five 226 Women Journalists in the expected direction of women choosing or being assigned disproportionately to socially-oriented stories. Twenty-five of the 163 stories focussed primarily on some type of social issue. Men reported 16 of these 25 stories, and women reported nine. Taking a closer look at these social issue stories, a male reporter covered the only story whose main focus was daycare, men covered the two stories whose main focus was education, and men covered three of the four stories on the environment. Women reported one of the two stories on poverty, two of the four stories on the moral and personal beliefs of politicians, and the single story whose main focus was abortion. Overall, these data do not suggest that women bore disproportionate responsibility for social issue stories in CBC’s televised election coverage.

One of the few clear sex-of-reporter differences was on ‘law-and-order’ stories. There were four stories whose main focus was law-and-order issues: one on crime in general, one on tougher sentencing, and two on gun control. Men reported all four of these stories.

(Figure 5.2 about here)

A convenient (if imperfect) way to summarize the division of story topics among men and women reporters is to divide the topics into the classic ‘hard’ issues versus ‘soft’ issues dichotomy.39 As Figure 5.2 shows, there were no significant differences in terms of each sex’s share of stories about ‘hard’ issues

moral/personal beliefs of politicians. See Appendix Two for details of this and other issue classifications. 39 For classification of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ issues, see Appendix Two. Note that not all issues are classifiable as either ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ issues. Issues such as ‘aboriginals’ are examples of issues not classified into either category.

Chapter Five 227 Women Journalists versus ‘soft’ issues. Of the 65 stories reported by women in 2000, 49 percent were soft issue stories that focussed primarily on health care, social issues, or ethics. Of the 98 stories reported by men in 2000, 48 percent were about soft issues. For both men and women reporters, the percentages of their stories that focused primarily on issues classified as ‘hard’ issues were the same, 12 percent. In other words, except for a one percent difference in soft news topics, men and women’s shares of hard and soft politics stories (as a percentage of their respective totals of stories) were the same.

It is possible that the lack of differences in story topics for men and women CBC reporters had something to do with the campaign agenda in 2000. As discussed in detail in Chapter Four, health care was the dominant issue of the

2000 campaign – in news, in party platforms, and in party press releases (Blais et al. 2002a: 40). References to health topped all issue mentions in the Liberal platform, and mentions of health were second only to public finances in the

Alliance platform (Ibid.: 20). In press releases the most dominant issue mentioned by the Liberals was health, and the same was true of NDP releases (Ibid.: 27).

Public finances was the dominant issue in Alliance and Conservative press releases, and the second most dominant issue in Liberal and NDP releases (Ibid.).

Plainly, social issues, health care, and other soft politics issues were very important in the 2000 campaign, and the two leading parties in the campaign,

Chrétien/Liberals and Day/Alliance, emphasized these issues frequently. Because the most prominent leaders and parties focused on soft politics issues, so too did the most prominent (male) reporters assigned to cover the contenders. The less

Chapter Five 228 Women Journalists competitive parties, the NDP and the Conservatives, likewise devoted a lot of attention to public finances and other ‘hard’ issues. By extension, the less prominent (female) reporters trailing these two campaign teams therefore also ended up covering finances and other ‘hard’ issues.

5.4b Styles of Reporting

There are various ways to measure whether women and men have different styles of reporting. One route is to look at how news is framed. Use of the ‘horserace’ frame – a common story ‘peg’ or ‘interpretive frame’ for election coverage – may provide clues about whether men and women’s reporting styles (if not their story topics) differ. Difference theory would suggest that male reporters are more prone toward the horserace frame. This angle on election stories sees the campaign as a contest between competitors and, thus, may be more in line with male modes of reasoning and inter-relation than that of women, who are more likely to emphasize inter-connectedness over competition (e.g., Gilligan 1982). In addition, the idea that women reporters are more likely than men to emphasize the context of events and people in news suggests that women may veer away from the horserace frame, which in many ways oversimplifies campaigns by presenting them primarily as contests between potential winners and losers.

(Figure 5.3 about here)

In large measure, the data do not suggest that men and women journalists are dramatically different in terms of likelihood to adopt the popular horserace frame. I used several indicators of horserace-style coverage: the focus on

Chapter Five 229 Women Journalists campaigns over issues, the focus on leaders over parties, and mentions of polls.

Each news story was coded according to whether it was primarily about the campaign or primarily about issues. There was no significant difference between men and women in terms of the focus of their stories. Sixty-eight percent of men’s

98 stories were about the campaign and 32 percent were about issues; for women reporters, 66 percent of their 65 stories were about the campaign and 34 percent were about issues (Figure 5.3).

Similarly, there were no sex-of-journalist differences in terms of reporting stories that focussed on leaders as opposed to parties (Figure 5.3) Although women-reported stories appeared to focus slightly more on parties (32% of women’s stories compared to 23% of men’s) and slightly less on leaders (68% of women’s stories compared to 77% of men’s), this difference was not significant.

Women reporters followed the typical pattern, by a wide margin in fact, of focusing more on leaders than on parties, just like their male colleagues.

Finally, only 3 percent of women’s stories mentioned polls compared to

10 percent of men’s stories, and this is a significant difference. The difference in this case may indicate that women were less likely to focus on the horserace – in other words, who was ahead, who was losing ground, and what slight movements in the polls could have meant for election night. Interestingly, none of the women reporters’ infrequent references to polls mentioned specifically which leader or party was gaining or losing ground across the country as a whole or in any particular region (data not shown). In contrast, of the 10 stories where a male reporter mentioned an opinion poll, nine of these stories included some analysis

Chapter Five 230 Women Journalists comparing gains and losses between parties or leaders (data not shown). To emphasize, when women mentioned polls, they did not compare standings or indicate how one party was faring compared to the others. The opposite was true of male reporters, who rarely failed to compare gains and losses among the contestants. Certainly, sex differences in use of opinion polls must be related to the fact that men were reporting the two competitive parties, the Liberals and the

Alliance, while women were reporting parties with no chance of forming the government.

While the data reveal only minor sex-of-journalist differences in use of the horserace frame, an in-depth look at the language used by reporters in their stories adds weight to the idea that male reporters are more disposed toward the horserace frame. In a story about the Liberal/Alliance battle for Ontario, Jason

Moscovitz had this to say about Chrétien’s strategy:

As he campaigns through Ontario, Chrétien knows the polls show the Alliance is gaining ground so he is in attack mode. Chrétien says, unlike the Alliance, Liberals believe government must play a big role in building the future. He ridiculed Stockwell Day for having said the provinces should collect all the income taxes and then give Ottawa the federal share.40

Immediately following Moscovitz’s story about Chrétien, Eric Sorensen reported on Day. Sorensen had this to say about Day’s strategy:

The Alliance strategy is simple. The party appears to have a lock on most of the seats in the west, has little chance of winning seats in the east, so it largely comes down to Ontario, spending lots of time in Ontario… As the Canadian Alliance rises in the polls, Stockwell Day is looking for political converts

40 The National. 30 October 2000.

Chapter Five 231 Women Journalists

in every Ontario audience, and they're here. Many are former federal Tories who've given up on the Conservatives.41

Both male reporters emphasized the race to win Ontario, and both mentioned the polls released on October 27, the first major poll of the 2000 campaign. However, women reporters tended not to mention this poll. For example, Leslie

MacKinnon’s Reality Check on the 31 October edition of The National did not mention the poll, not even in passing. In fact, even on the evening of the poll’s release (October 27), the sole female-reported story – Laurie Graham’s piece about a dispute between Chrétien and New Brunswick PC MP, Elsie Wayne – was the only election story in the newscast not to mention the poll.

The horserace frame is not the only way competitiveness is highlighted in news. Coverage of attack-style behaviour also accentuates the competitive and, perhaps more accurately, antagonistic sides of politics. Coverage emphasizing verbal and nonverbal conflict behaviour was examined in detail in Chapter Four, the chapter on sex-differentiated coverage of male and female politicians, and will be revisited in Chapter Six, an in-depth analysis of audience reactions to attack- style news. Not only does attack-style coverage make politics seem competitive or

‘cutthroat’, leaders’ attacks on one another comprise one of the few sensational

(and, therefore, titillating) aspects of electioneering.42

41 Ibid. 42 As noted in Chapter Four, ‘on the attack’ is not equated simply with criticism or negative evaluation. All election campaigns are riddled with leaders and candidates’ critiques of the policies, platforms, and past records of their opponents. In this case, therefore, a leader was coded as ‘on the attack’ against another party or leader when the content and/or tone of the criticism went beyond the merely negative or critical. For example, a story that shows Alliance leader Stockwell Day criticizing the Liberal government for its failure to increase defence spending is not necessarily an attack. Rather, ‘on the attack’ refers, for example, to instances

Chapter Five 232 Women Journalists

Examining the male/female differences in reporting attack-style behaviour, the first point to make is this: considering all stories together in terms of whether any leader was portrayed on the attack, there are no significant differences between male- and female-reported stories (Figure 5.4). As Figure 5.4 demonstrates, the majority of both men and women’s stories showed one of the leaders on the attack (54% of women’s 65 stories and 55% of men’s 98 stories).

There is no significant correlation between the journalists’ sex and their general use of attack-style reportage.

(Figure 5.4 about here)

The picture is somewhat different when attack-style coverage is analyzed in finer detail. There are variations between male and female reporters in the comparative use of attack-style coverage depending on which party or leader was the focus of the story. Figure 5.4 also presents data by party, specifically, the percentage of coverage of each party that portrays an attack by that party’s leader, broken down by the sex of the journalist who reported the story. Liberal stories reported by women journalists were more likely to contain footage showing

Chrétien on the attack (29% of their Liberal stories) than men’s stories about the

Liberals (21%). The same is not true for stories about the other three parties under consideration. Thirty-three percent of women’s stories about the Alliance showed

Day on the attack versus 39 percent of men’s stories about the Alliance. Forty- seven percent of women’s stories about the Conservatives showed Clark on the attack compared to 62 percent of men’s stories. This is a particularly large where allegations were untrue or made without evidence or where name-calling and mudslinging that go beyond mere criticism were depicted.

Chapter Five 233 Women Journalists difference of about 15 percentage points between men and women reporters.

Stories about the NDP showed no significant gender difference. Sixty-nine percent of women reporters’ stories about the NDP showed McDonough on the attack versus 71 percent of men’s stories about the NDP.

What can be gleaned from these analyses of the use of attack-style footage in news stories? First, on the whole, there were no significant sex-of-journalist differences in the general use of antagonistic leader behaviour in news reporting.

Yet, this was not uniformly true across different parties and leaders. Women were more likely than men to present Chrétien on the attack, but were less likely to present Day and Clark on the attack. There were no sex-of-journalist differences for McDonough’s coverage. A vital point is in danger of being overlooked in sex- of-journalist comparisons. Of all four party leaders, McDonough was the leader that women reporters were most likely to show on the attack. The same was true for male reporters as well. What this means is that women reporters were either unable or unwilling to report differently on the lone woman leader in the race.

5.4c Source Selection

One area that has yielded fairly consistent evidence of sex-of-reporter differences is the tendency of women journalists to select female news sources when possible.

The following classification of news sources is used in analyses below: citizens

(e.g., ‘person-on-the-street’ interviews, interviews with residents of a particular

Chapter Five 234 Women Journalists riding); experts (e.g., pollsters, media pundits); and other partisan figures (e.g., past Prime Ministers/MPs, party strategists, provincial premiers).43

Forty-eight percent of the stories in the dataset feature a news source of some type (data not shown). Numerous stories contain a mixture of news sources

– for example, commentary from a citizen followed by commentary from a pollster or political pundit. Of the 163 stories, 23 percent of the stories featured a citizen, ten percent featured an expert, and 32 percent featured a partisan figure other than the party leaders and candidates who stood for election in 2000.

(Figure 5.5 about here)

The question of primary interest for this chapter is whether men and women reporters’ use of news sources differs. In news of the 2000 campaign, the first difference was in the decision to use sources at all. Fifty-eight percent of the

65 stories reported by women featured a news source of some sort versus 42 percent of men’s stories, as Figure 5.5 demonstrates. This is 16-point difference, and it may hint that women are more likely than men to contextualize their stories with commentary from citizens, experts, and other political figures.

Looking at the types of sources used, women were less likely than their male colleagues to feature citizens and experts as news sources, and were more likely to interview or include sound bites from other partisan figures in their stories. All the male/female differences in the use of sources in Figure 5.5 are

43 Leaders and candidates are not classified as news sources in this categorization, for they are better thought of as news subjects. Obviously, this classification is imperfect, for citizens can be news subjects too, and candidates can be news sources. However, in the 2000 CBC election coverage data, there is no election story where an average citizen could be classified as the subject of the story.

Chapter Five 235 Women Journalists statistically significant. In fact, the difference between men and women is quite large in the case of using non-contestant partisan figures such as past politicians, provincial politicians, and campaign staff as news sources. Forty-three percent of stories reported by female reporters included at least one sound bite from a partisan figure not running in the 2000 campaign versus only 24 percent of men’s stories.

(Figure 5.6 about here)

Reporters also differed in their use of female sources in news stories, both in terms of whether they included female news sources in their stories, as well as what type of female sources they consulted. Women reporters were in general more likely than male reporters to use female sources, which corroborates past research on the question. Twenty-three percent of the stories reported by women included a female news sources versus 17 percent of men’s stories (Figure 5.6).

This is a significant difference. Examining what roles women fulfil as news sources in finer detail, there was no significant difference in men and women reporters’ use of women citizens in their reportage (women citizens were featured in 14% of both men and women’s stories). This similarity between male and female reporters may reflect the random nature of finding ‘average’ people on the street to make comments about the campaign, issues, and local candidates. Indeed, an interview with an ‘average-person-on-the-street’, or ‘streeter’, is less likely to be scheduled prior to the taping of a story, unlike interviews with partisan figures or experts. A woman journalist reported the single story that featured a woman expert. Finally, of the 65 stories reported by women, nine percent showed footage

Chapter Five 236 Women Journalists of a female partisan figure – for example, a women campaign manager, provincial politician, or past politician – compared to only four percent of men’s stories.

The evidence clearly shows that women journalists were more likely than male journalists to select female sources for their news reportage, except in the selection of female ‘streeters’. Nonetheless, while this sex-of-reporter difference was real, it would be remiss to overlook the fact that journalists of both sexes were alike in their greater use of male sources than of female sources (data not shown). This is one aspect where men and women reporters are the same, although to differing degrees.

5.5 Discussion

Overall, the evidence that women reporters provided systematically different coverage than their fellow male journalists is mixed. Findings suggest some differences in their reporting styles, angles, and sources. There is minor evidence that women tended to focus less on the horserace aspect of the 2000 election, as indicated by their less frequent mention of polls compared to their male colleagues. However, as noted previously, this is likely a function of the fact that men were assigned to cover the two competitive parties in the campaign, the

Liberals and the Alliance.

There were no significant differences in terms of whether sex influenced journalists’ tendencies to focus on the campaign versus issues or on leaders versus parties. This is an interesting finding, especially considering that it contradicts the idea that women are less competitive than men, an important tenet of difference

Chapter Five 237 Women Journalists theory as formulated by Gilligan (1982) and others. This finding also challenges qualitative research suggesting that women reporters see a ‘bigger picture’ when they do journalism. Several scholars have claimed that women often pay attention to events, people, or issues not immediately related to the specific news event being covered, although such claims are more prevalent in research on war correspondents (e.g., Chambers, Steiner, and Fleming 2004; Sutcliffe, Lee, and

Soderlund 2005). In the context of elections, it appears that women are just as likely as men to focus on personalities and campaigns – the personalized and competitive aspects of elections.

In addition to the weak findings for sex-of-journalist differences in horserace coverage, it seems fairly clear that women journalists did not avoid reporting antagonistic displays by party leaders in coverage of the 2000 federal election. Women journalists were just as likely as men to use attack-style footage in their stories generally, although there were variances depending on the party and/or leader a story was about. However, it is important to remember that reporters typically have little input over the video footage chosen for their stories.

There were no sex-of-journalist differences in the types of issues reported in news stories about the 2000 Canadian federal election. There appeared to be a fairly balanced division of labour between men and women journalists in terms of

‘hard’ issues, such as finance, and ‘soft’ issues, such as health care and education.

The only clear difference was the male reporters’ dominance of law-and-order stories. The lack of story topic differences likely reflects the nature of Canadian political discourse over the past decade. Health care has dominated the political

Chapter Five 238 Women Journalists agenda since 1997 (Blais et al. 2002a), and there is little policy disagreement among the parties on the issue. All federal-level parties support publicly-provided health care, and any disagreement occurs at the margins. In addition, all federal parties speak the language of fiscal restraint, regardless of their positions on the political spectrum.

The one unambiguous conclusion that can be drawn from the preceding analyses is that women were more likely to use news sources – citizens, experts, and partisan figures – in their stories. More importantly for the current analysis, women reporters used female sources more frequently than did their male coworkers. The fact that women reporters were more apt both to include non- contestants in their reportage as well as to use female sources has important implications for how viewers see politics. First, women journalists’ greater inclusion of news sources may send the message that elections are more than

‘contests’ or ‘races’ between official political candidates. Including citizens, experts, and other political figures in reportage may also offer a greater diversity of opinion to viewers. Second, women journalists’ more frequent use of female news sources may challenge the idea that women are novel or alien to the political sphere. If women are seen more frequently commenting on politics, this may help to normalize women’s place in the political realm.

Finding citizens on the street to provide candid comments about parties, leaders, and election issues is one of the few aspects of story construction over which rank-and-file reporters have any control. Certainly, there is a mediation process even with this aspect of news, because editors and producers must give

Chapter Five 239 Women Journalists their final approval over clips and sound bites shown in news stories. Overall, my interpretation of sex-of-reporter differences in sourcing corresponds with previous work discussed earlier in the chapter. It seems that women reporters do choose more female sources, and the likely reasons behind these decisions (whether conscious or not) are 1) women’s general ease conversing with other women – due primarily to early socialization patterns that encourage same-sex interaction and friendship – and 2) a greater tendency among women journalists to consult sources that are typically neglected in news, particularly members of marginalized groups such as women and visible minorities. In short, women journalists’ greater use of female sources likely is explained by their (learned) gravitation toward other women as well as a gender consciousness of sorts that makes women journalists sensitive to promoting inclusiveness in news content.

By and large, the relative lack of sex-of-journalist differences in news content was not surprising. The inferior status of women in Canadian television journalism presents a formidable hurdle for women reporters whose instincts (if not practice) tend toward a woman’s way of doing newswork. Broad analyses of women’s status in the television news industry across three national networks

(Table 5.1) coupled with detailed investigation of CBC’s coverage of the 2000 campaign yielded persuasive evidence of women’s largely ‘back seat’ role in

Canadian political news. Indeed, in CBC’s 2000 campaign coverage women reported less often on the two contending parties, largely because two men were assigned to cover both of the front-running parties while two women were assigned to the less competitive parties. Women’s stories tended to receive poorer

Chapter Five 240 Women Journalists placement in the ordering of stories on the newscast. Finally, women reporters were virtually invisible in post-debate coverage – perhaps the defining event of a campaign. If women do report in a different voice, this voice has little opportunity to surface as long as men dominate the best jobs and best assignments in political journalism.

In the end, there is little evidence that women reporters are currently offering different approaches to news. Likely, part of the explanation lies in the powerful arguments about how men and masculinity dominate the profession in all of its manifestations: the news product, the informal culture of journalists, and the political economic organization of the industry. A critical mass of women journalists – and a barely minimal one, at that – is a recent achievement in

Canadian television journalism, and the bulk of women in the profession are obviously concentrated at the lower levels. According, news might be altered substantially if women became more numerous and more influential in the profession. If an increase in women’s proportion of the profession was simultaneously accompanied by an increase in women’s share of the top level jobs – as producers, assignment editors, news editors-in-chief, parliamentary correspondents, and chief anchors, to name a few – women would be in a much better position to change how newsworthiness is defined, how stories are selected and framed, as well as the nature of the informal culture of the profession. This is already observable in the different ways that women journalists talk about their approach toward news, examples of which were discussed at the beginning of the chapter. More women and more powerful women could result in a gradual shift in

Chapter Five 241 Women Journalists the sociology of newswork, resulting, I argue, in more openings for a women’s way of doing journalism and, by extension, opportunities to challenge the masculine character of news discourse.

Chapter Six 242 Backlash or Boost?

CHAPTER SIX

Backlash or Boost?

The Effects of Attack-Style Television News on Viewers

If you’re assertive and aggressive enough to do the job, you’re unfeminine and therefore unacceptable; if you’re not aggressive enough, you can’t do the job – and, in either case, good-bye.1

If political offices such as the presidency are perceived primarily in terms of traditional masculine characteristics, then perhaps women will be successful in running for these political offices only when they are perceived as having masculine attributes. However, the possibility exists that “masculine” women could be penalized for violating traditional norms for women. Would a “masculine” woman be less likely to win than a “masculine” man?2

Competition and aggression are qualities not only viewed more positively when exhibited by men, but constitutive of masculinity itself.3

Political success, at least in terms of gaining/maintaining elected office, turns more and more on candidates’ personality traits (e.g., Bartels 2002; Bean and

Mughan 1989; Glasgow 2000; Johnston 2002; Miller, Wattenberg, and

Malanchuk 1986). This is an inevitable by-product of the heightened personalization of politics (Wattenberg 1995). While traits have become more important, this is not to say that all traits are equally valued. Traits associated with masculinity, such as leadership, courage, authority, mastery, and agency, hold great political capital (Huddy and Terkildsen 1993b) and are fundamental ingredients of what Kinder and his colleagues call the “presidential prototype”

(1980; see also Duerst-Lahti 2006; Duerst-Lahti and Kelly 1995). Politics has been constructed as an adversarial battleground where competitors battle for

1 Mandel 1981: 43. 2 Rossenwasser and Seale 1988: 597. 3 Aldridge 2001: 620.

Chapter Six 243 Backlash or Boost? power, policy control, and the perks of office. This poses challenges for women candidates, because the “presidential prototype” (Kinder et al. 1980) and other ideal-type political figures fly in the face of what is expected – and in many ways prescribed, if only implicitly – for women/femininity. Boldness, aggression, and toughness are perhaps the most hyper-masculine of political leadership traits. Do women office seekers gain or sacrifice when they act tough? Huddy and

Terkildsen (1993a and 1993b) have argued that women politicians can act tough without losing the benefits of feminine stereotyping – namely, the assumption that female candidates are trustworthy, compassionate, and honest. The question, however, is whether experiment-based findings can be generalized to the real world?

News about politics generally is quite adversarial – and understandably so, given that drama and conflict are important criteria of newsworthiness. Evidence has accumulated that women politicians receive more combative news coverage than their male colleagues, even though women politicians tend to be less conflictive in reality (e.g., Gidengil and Everitt 1999, 2000, 2003a, and 2003b).

This suggests there are imbalances in reportage of men and women. The examination of television news coverage of the 2000 Canadian federal election in

Chapter Four supports this claim. One of the most forceful findings of Chapter

Four is that CBC reportage of the 2000 campaign presented female politicians as more confrontational and aggressive than their male counterparts. Both the female leader in the contest, NDP leader Alexa McDonough, and female candidates were more likely than male leaders and candidates to be shown on the attack in

Chapter Six 244 Backlash or Boost? television news of the 2000 campaign. Establishing conclusively the extent to which combative depictions of women accurately reflect their real-world behaviour is difficult. Nonetheless, the fact that this pattern of reporting is characteristic of the female leader as well as female candidates adds weight to the claim that there is a sex-based distortion in televised political reportage and that this distortion is systematic rather than isolated. Some female politicians are combative in reality, and some may certainly be more combative than certain of their male colleagues. Yet, it is unlikely that women candidates overall were more combative than male candidates in the 2000 Canadian federal election campaign.

Presumably, women politicians do not project uniform political messages, platforms, and communication styles, particularly given the different partisan and regional backgrounds of the female candidates in the 2000 campaign. The fact that the women candidates were presented in similar ways – and similar to

McDonough – strengthens the inference that gendered mediation was at work.

This chapter moves to the next step. The chapter assesses how viewers’ evaluations of news stories are affected by attack-style coverage, and whether the effects vary by the sex of the politician and/or the sex of the viewer. This is accomplished with a series of ordered logit regressions testing the effects of depictions of leader aggressivity on how participants in the media reception study rated news stories from the CBC’s televised coverage of the 2000 Canadian federal election campaign. This analysis is an important contribution to the accumulating literature on women politicians and media. The bulk of existing research focuses on media content, and much of this literature infers from the

Chapter Six 245 Backlash or Boost? measurement of content that sex-differentiated portrayals must have an impact on audiences and their political impressions. While certainly plausible, this assumption lacks systematic empirical corroboration.

Even if we accept the assumption that news coverage affects public perceptions of women politicians, the nature of influence is not self-evident.

Whether combative news portrayals of women candidates help or hinder their prospects at the polls remains an unanswered question. On one hand, it is well established in psychology research that women are punished for engaging in aggressive, counter-stereotypical behaviour (e.g., Rudman 1998), typically resulting in a “backlash effect” against women (Ibid.). However, there is contrasting evidence that combative portrayals can help women office seekers

(e.g., Gordon, Shafie, and Crigler 2003) or at least not harm women’s electoral prospects (e.g., Leeper 1991). Politics is an adversarial sphere historically associated with masculine traits, as noted at the outset of the chapter. Media regularly frame politics using language and metaphors drawn from the domains of war, sports, and games. It is certainly conceivable that women candidates benefit when news stories present them as tough, aggressive, or confrontational, resulting in a ‘viability boost’ in the minds of viewers/voters. Public judgments about a woman’s ability to compete in the traditionally-masculine political realm may improve if the woman is portrayed as aggressive and competitive.

In addition, there is another issue seldom sufficiently explored in studies of gendered aspects of viewer responses to media depictions. Overly-combative depictions of women candidates contribute to the general trend in news reporting

Chapter Six 246 Backlash or Boost? toward attack-style, negatively-slanted stories. Conflict-driven reportage has demonstrable negative effects on audience perceptions of politics and political institutions generally (e.g., Mutz and Reeves 2005)4, an effect Michael Robinson

(1975) calls “videomalaise”.5

Ultimately, this chapter presents evidence that participants in the media reception study do respond differently to combative portrayals of men and women politicians, raising a host of wider implications both for citizens and for women politicians.

6.1 The Psychology of News Viewing: Three Effects

The chapter examines how combative news depictions of politicians affect public perceptions of politicians. Three effects are tested, each of which is elaborated in finer detail below: 1) A general “videomalaise”, 2) a sex-of-politician effect, and

3) a sex-of-viewer effect.

The natural way to start is at the broadest level with an assessment of whether combative news coverage has a general impact on audiences. In other words, regardless of the sex of a viewer or the sex of a news subject portrayed in a news story, are there general public reactions, either positive or negative, to news stories that present varying degrees of conflictive or aggressive behaviour? Past evidence suggests that there will be a videomalaise reaction to conflictive news generally. Second, the chapter gauges whether depictions of women politicians

4 Others disagree with this claim; cf. Norris (2000). 5 Robinson used the term to refer to negative public attitudes or feelings caused by attention to televised news.

Chapter Six 247 Backlash or Boost? acting aggressively have any particular effect. The issue is whether reactions to confrontational behaviour depend on the sex of the politician. Do viewers respond more negatively toward female politicians’ aggressive depictions compared to those of male politicians? Third, the chapter also tests for a sex-of-viewer effect.

This is the hypothesis that men and women viewers react differently to combative news portrayals, and there are reasons to expect that women viewers are particularly adverse to conflictive news.

6.1a A General “Videomalaise”

Unduly-conflictive political communication can damage public attitudes toward politicians and political institutions. This is characteristic of varying modes of political communication – from television news to campaign advertisements – which adds weight to the claim. Before discussing the extent and rationale for negative reactions to unduly conflictive behaviour in politics, or what Mutz and

Reeves (2005) call “incivility”, it is necessary first to outline what types of speech and behaviour are understood generally as uncivil. People do not react negatively to political disagreement per se (Ibid.). In fact, sorting out opposing demands and positions is what politics is all about. How members of the public feel about political disagreement or conflict appears to hinge on the manner in which a conflict unfolds. Respectful disagreement appears to elicit little negative reaction; rather, it is disagreement perceived as disrespectful, impolite, or uncivil that people rail against (Ibid.). Examples of disrespectful behaviour in this context include the following: the use of rude words, the use of highly sarcastic or

Chapter Six 248 Backlash or Boost? belittling tones of voice, yelling, interrupting others, and the use of body language that indicates a lack of regard for political adversaries such as eye rolling or finger pointing. According to work on the sociology of language (Watts 2003), people generally consider the preceding examples to be disrespectful violations of the

“Conversational Contract” (Fraser and Nolan 1981; Fraser 1990), at least in

Anglo-American cultures. An exhaustive list of uncivil behaviours is impossible to provide, especially since politeness is defined and redefined situationally (e.g.,

Watts 2003).6 The point is that when witnessing disrespectful disagreement, observers tend to react negatively to the offending parties.

Considering the varying forms of media, Mutz and Reeves (2005) present compelling evidence that televised presentations of uncivil political conflict are exceptionally potent triggers of negative public attitudes about politics (see also

Kleinnijenhuis, van Hoof, and Oegema 2006). At the simplest level, this is because television is the best imitation of reality among varying media. Televised news permits the viewer to see politicians in the flesh, to hear politicians speak in their own words in sound bites, and to hear and see all the background action occurring in video clips as well. The “sensory realism of television” results in “a sense of intimacy with political actors that citizens are unlikely to encounter in the past....” (Mutz and Reeves 2005: 2). Because television is so realistic, people use standards of daily behaviour to judge the speech and actions of people shown on

6 Watts (2003) does provide a general definition of politeness, or what he calls “politic behaviour”: “that behaviour, linguistic and non-linguistic, which the participants construct as being appropriate to the on-going social interaction” (144). As noted, however, few forms of speech or behaviour are inherently polite or inherently impolite. Rather, judgments of politeness depend on the situation and the relationship between the actors.

Chapter Six 249 Backlash or Boost? news. According to the authors, “when political actors engage in televised interactions that violate the norms for everyday, face-to-face discourse, they reaffirm viewers’ sense that politicians cannot be counted on to obey the same norms for social behaviour by which ordinary citizens abide” (Ibid.). In other words, norms about acceptable ways of talking, moving, and addressing others in daily life are used to evaluate the exceptional, anything-but-normal realm of political activity. Certainly, everyday life is not immune to heated conflict just as televised news does not always depict politics as a raucous verbal brawl.

Nevertheless, it is widely accepted that interpersonal interactions rarely involve yelling or finger pointing. Likewise, we rarely see politicians on television behaving in a subdued or cordial manner, particularly given the fierce competition for ratings and the rise of ‘infotainment’ news formats. In addition, the fact that we commonly view television news from within our homes – an intimate sanctuary where standards of civility in most cases are quite high – likely intensifies negative reactions to the intrusion of incivility (Mutz and Reeves

2005).

The application of everyday standards of socially-appropriate behaviour to televised political conflict means that viewer reactions are similar to those they would experience from a real, face-to-face conflict. In this context, people’s

“emotional reactions are not mediated by the cognitive acknowledgement that this is ‘only television,’ and thus they react quite negatively to incivility” (Ibid.: 3). In other words, the realism of television not only encourages people to apply social norms of acceptable behaviour, it also exacerbates reactions toward violations of

Chapter Six 250 Backlash or Boost? those norms. Far more than any other form of news media, the seeming realism of television can evoke emotions akin to those experienced during an interpersonal confrontation.

Mutz and Reeves’ (2005) experiments corroborate their hypotheses.7

Participants viewed clips from a mock political talk show, the format of which mimicked real political talk shows produced in the US such as Meet the Press and

Crossfire. They taped two mock programs using the same script. The script outlined a debate between ‘candidates’ (played by actors) assigned to opposing sides of various political issues – from free trade to tobacco regulation to NASA funding. While the content of the mock programs was the same, the difference was in the manner and tone of the conflict. One of the programs was civil and the other uncivil. In the civil version, the ‘candidates’ were very polite to one another,

“inserting phrases such as ‘I’m really glad Bob raised the issue of...’ and ‘I don’t disagree with all of your points, Bob, but...’ before calmly making their own points clear” (Ibid.: 5). In the uncivil version, the candidates followed the same script, but used snide tones, interrupted each other, raised their voices, and used nonverbal communication such as eye rolling and shaking their heads from side to side as though disregarding their opponent’s point of view. In other words, one version showed a polite debate while the other version showed a rude debate.

Participants responded differently depending on which version of the program they viewed. Participants who viewed the uncivil program exhibited

7 Mutz and Reeves conducted several versions of their experiment. The following discussion focuses on the first experiment only. Subsequent versions of the experiment produced virtually the same results, thereby adding weight to their findings and conclusions.

Chapter Six 251 Backlash or Boost? lower levels of trust in politicians, Congress, and the system of government more generally, despite the fact that the issues debated and the positions taken by the

‘candidates’ were the same in both programs. Incivility had no effect on participants’ attitudes toward political conflict in general. Responses to questions such as “it’s very important that politicians air their differences of opinion publicly” or “bickering among members of Congress does not help to solve our nation’s problems” were not significantly affected by the version of the program participants viewed. In other words, people are not averse to political conflict itself, but rather to the bad behaviour accompanying conflictive debate. Finally, providing further support for the claim that people apply standards of face-to-face interaction to televised political conflict, Mutz and Reeves also report that participants with a high propensity to avoid conflict in their real lives responded much more negatively to uncivil behaviour than those with low personal conflict avoidance.

As would be expected, the findings reported by Mutz and Reeves are not peculiar to televised political talk shows. Similar dynamics can occur with attack- style political advertisements. There is evidence that attack ads can demobilize citizens. The unintended consequences of mud-slinging in campaign ads can include lower voter turnout (e.g., Ansolabehere et al. 1994; Ansolabehere and

Iyengar 1995; Germond and Witcover 1996; Kahn and Kenney 1999; but see

Finkel and Geer 1998; Freedman and Goldstein 1999; Lau et al. 1999; Wattenberg

Chapter Six 252 Backlash or Boost? and Brians 1999),8 heightened political cynicism (Ansolabehere et al. 1994), and negative feelings about the candidates themselves (Basil, Schooler, and Reeves

1991). Most crucially, attack ads can produce stronger negative feelings toward the candidate who is the source of the ad than toward the target candidate

(Budesheim, Houston, and DePaola 1996; Garramone 1984; Roese and Sande

1993; but see Johnson-Cartee and Copeland 1991). This last point suggests that there is a threshold for socially-acceptable critique of political opponents beyond which judgment turns on the source of the overly-harsh critique. When critique strays into mud-slinging or personal attacks the source of an attack-style ad can be punished for his or her rude behaviour, despite the fact that this type of behaviour has become increasingly acceptable in the political realm.

The body of literature on the impact of attack ads is far from conclusive or even cohesive. A meta-analysis of research findings on the impact of “going negative” in campaign ads reveals various discrepancies (Lau et al. 1999). The evidence on whether attack ads demobilize the electorate, whether they turn people off, or whether they even actually ‘work’ for their sponsors is inconclusive. Indeed, there is evidence that negative campaigns can enhance voter turnout (e.g., Finkel and Geer 1998; Freedman and Goldstein 1999; Wattenberg and Brians 1999), and that negative ads can have the intended impact of enhancing affect for the sponsor and diminishing affect for the target of the ad

(e.g., Kaid 1997). However, as Kahn and Kenney (1999) emphasize, one of the

8 Note, again, that there is considerable debate about the effects of attack advertisements. Some claim they have negative demobilizing consequences, others say they have no effects, and others have found evidence of positive effects. See Chapter Two.

Chapter Six 253 Backlash or Boost? thorniest problems with this body of research is how we define and measure attack ads. Negative information does not itself constitute an attack, a rule followed by this project’s analysis of coverage of the 2000 Canadian federal election, as outlined in Chapter Four. Negative information about a candidate’s character, political beliefs, or past performance in office can be useful. While negative, the knowledge that one’s Congressperson or Member of Parliament was absent from the legislative chamber for half of the preceding session is politically- relevant information, and likely is perceived by viewers as grounds for legitimate critique. Therefore, Kahn and Kenney (1999) make a crucial point that “negative information is helpful and motivates participation as long as it addresses relevant topics and is presented in an appropriate manner” (878; italics in the original). In other words, negative ads may pose no harm to public attitudes about politicians or political institutions if the tone and content of the critique are relevant and civil.

This distinction between types of negative campaign communications is useful, and it parallels Mutz and Reeves’ (2005) work closely. Making the distinction between legitimate political critique and unnecessary, self-serving mud-slinging may also explain the inconsistency in estimations of the effects of negative political ads.

In summary, while the impact of attack-style political communications continues to provoke debate, recent research suggests that news stories showing politicians on the attack could have harmful effects on general sentiments toward politicians, irrespective of the sex of the politician or the sex of the viewer.

Chapter Six 254 Backlash or Boost?

6.1b A Sex-of-Politician Effect

In addition to a general videomalaise, there may also be sex-specific effects produced by politicians’ televised combative behaviour. The first of these is a sex- of-politician effect. Social norms prescribe different standards of civil conduct for men and women. Thus, the question to answer is whether social perceivers judge a behaviour differently depending on whether the social actor is male or female.

Aggressivity is certainly one trait where sex-differentiated standards hold.

However, the growing literature on how gender stereotypes affect people’s reactions to certain traits and behaviours – including voters’ assessments of political candidates – has produced mixed findings. Consequently, there are three possible scenarios in terms of a sex-of-politician effect: the backlash effect, the viability boost, and no effects.

One possibility for audience reactions to depictions of female candidates’ aggressivity is a “backlash effect” (Rudman 1998), whereby women politicians are punished for counter-stereotypical aggressive behaviour. A variety of experiment-based studies support the notion that women who fill roles historically dominated by men are evaluated differently than similarly-situated males and, moreover, that ‘atypical’ women can be punished for ‘unconventional’ behaviour.

This is part of a general phenomenon whereby “violating stereotypes can result in social and economic reprisals” (Rudman and Fairchild 2004: 157; see also Butler and Geis 1990). Compared to identically-presented men, assertive, agentic, and competent women – in other words, counterstereotypical women – are judged to be less hireable in corporate settings (e.g., Rudman 1998; Janoff-Bulman and

Chapter Six 255 Backlash or Boost?

Wade 1996), more lacking in social skills (Rudman and Glick 1999, 2001), less nice or likeable in work and social settings (e.g., Eagly, Makhijani, and Klonsky

1992; Hagen and Kahn 1975), and physically unattractive (Horner 1972).

Moreover, women are judged to be less persuasive when they use forceful speech compared to tentative speech (Carli 1990) or “task-oriented” speech compared to

“people-oriented” speech (Carli, LaFleur, and Loeber 1995). In group settings, women who verbalize intellectual forcefulness – by arguing in favour of an idea, for example – provoke negative facial expressions, while the same behaviour by a man provokes positive facial expressions (Butler and Geis 1990). These are just a handful of examples that show the range of circumstances in which women are penalized for assertive and forceful behaviour (but cf. Linehan and Seifert 1983;

Foddy and Smithson 1999). Surprisingly, this backlash against female aggression even applies to situations where women engage in self-defence, such as using a gun to ward off a burglar (Branscombe, Crosby, and Weir 1993).

At the other end of the spectrum, it is possible that attack-style depictions of women politicians produce a ‘viability boost’ instead of a backlash effect. The viability-boost hypothesis holds that women stand to gain from tough-talking public personas. The traits associated with the ideal politician, particularly at high levels of office (Huddy and Terkildsen 1993a; Leeper 1991; Sapiro 1982), include competence, boldness, assertiveness, aggressivity, and mastery (e.g., Duerst-Lahti

2006; Duerst-Lahti and Kelly 1995; Hellweg 1979; Huddy and Terkildsen 1993a,

1993b; Kinder et al. 1980), and the domains of policy expertise thought necessary for political leadership are those most stereotypically tied to men/masculinity such

Chapter Six 256 Backlash or Boost? as defence and military issues (e.g., Alexander and Andersen 1993; Huddy and

Terkildsen 1993b; Leeper 1991; Mueller 1986; Rosenwasser and Dean 1989;

Rosenwasser and Seale 1988; Sanbonmatsu 2002; Sapiro 1982 and 1983; Shapiro and Mahajan 1986). Predictably, traits and issue expertise are related.

“Instrumental” traits, such as assertiveness and mastery, are linked with military, defence, and economic management, while “communal” traits, such as warmth and expressiveness, are related to health, education, and other “compassion” issues (Huddy and Terkildsen 1993b: 141). Moreover, voters tend to assume that women candidates possess communal traits and are expert in compassion policy fields, while male candidates are assumed to possess instrumental traits and expertise in military, defence, and similar policy fields (e.g., Burrell 1994; Kahn

1994b and 1996; Matland 1994; Matland and King 2002; Sanbonmatsu 2002 and

2004). The tendency to attribute sex-stereotypical traits and policy competence is even stronger in low-information contexts where voters know little about candidates (e.g., Sanbonmatsu 2004). Based on this extensive array of scholarly work, researchers must take seriously the possibility that women candidates gain an electoral edge when they are portrayed as aggressive, whether in televised news or in some other format. Huddy and Terkildsen’s work (1993a and 1993b) argues that women candidates can adopt masculine personality traits while not sacrificing the benefits women candidates obtain from being stereotyped as compassionate, honest, and ethical. Huddy and Terkildsen’s recommendation

(1993a, 1993b; see also Huddy 1994) is for women candidates to emphasize male personality traits. Yet, it is difficult to avoid questioning whether this

Chapter Six 257 Backlash or Boost? recommendation would be successful in real-world scenarios. In practice, “the prescription to ‘be feminine’ while simultaneously fulfilling agentic requisites may be a difficult and demanding balancing act akin to driving over rough terrain while keeping one hand on the wheel and the other reassuringly on passengers' backs” (Rudman and Glick 1999: 1009; see also Iyengar et al. 1997).

Finally, there is also a possibility that there is no sex-of-politician effect.

Citizen reactions to politicians acting aggressively in news stories may be unrelated to the sex of the politicians. If this option were to prove true, there would be no significant differences in reactions to male politicians versus female politicians, at least none attributable to the sex of politicians per se. The discussion turns now to a more detailed analysis of past findings related to the backlash and viability-boost hypotheses.

The theoretical underpinnings of the backlash hypothesis lie in cognitive and social psychology research on stereotypes. Psychologists have long been interested in how social-group stereotypes affect judgments of individual group members. Gender stereotypes can cause negative reactions to counterstereotypic women on two fronts: one cognitive and the other normative. Put differently, people can react negatively because counterstereotypic female behaviour is unexpected (and thus confusing) and/or because people perceive it to be out of step with prevailing social norms of ‘feminine’ behaviour.

Cognitive processing refers to how new cognitions or pieces of knowledge are integrated with existing beliefs and knowledge. Stereotypes are a form of cognitive schema, which are structures of organized knowledge based on

Chapter Six 258 Backlash or Boost? generalizations from previous experience that guide the processing of new information (Fiske and Linville, 1980; Thorndyke and Hayes-Roth, 1979). In other words, because they are a type of cognitive schema, gender-role stereotypes can be described as simplified typifications of complex information about the natural and social worlds (e.g., Bem 1981 and 1983).

Psychologists have demonstrated successfully that human beings react negatively to disagreement between existing knowledge and new pieces of information. Cognitive dissonance theory, developed first by Leon Festinger

(1957), is perhaps the most widely-known expression of this phenomenon. At its core, the theory holds that people seek congruence between their cognitions, whether due to some innate human propensity for order or because of socialization. A disjuncture between belief and observation produces mental discomfort and confusion, though largely at the subconscious level.

Cognitive dissonance theory has direct implications for how people perceive women politicians. Counterstereotypic behaviour by women politicians may contradict existing knowledge or beliefs about typical female behaviour, producing the type of mental discomfort described by Festinger (1957) and other cognitive dissonance theorists. Put simply, unconventional female behaviour may jar observers, because this behaviour is not easily reconciled with traditional gender stereotypes. As discussed in Chapter Two, gender stereotypes link femininity with modesty, cooperation, sympathy, kindness, and orientation towards others. In contrast, masculinity is linked with independence, aggression, forcefulness, and decisiveness (e.g., Heilman 2001). Men are perceived as more

Chapter Six 259 Backlash or Boost? agentic and achievement oriented while women are perceived as more communal oriented (Bem 1973 and 1993). Gender stereotypes lead to certain expectations about men’s and women’s behaviour. News stories that show women politicians acting in a combative way may run counter to the type of behaviour viewers expect based on traditional gender stereotypes.

The second type of negative reaction to counterstereotypic female behaviour is normative rather than cognitive. After all, Heilman (2001) reminds us “not only are gender stereotypes descriptive, they are also prescriptive. That is, they denote not only differences in how men and women actually are, but also norms about behaviours that are suitable for each – about how men and women should be” (659).9 On the flip side, the prescriptive aspect of gender stereotypes also informs members of each sex what they should not be. Usually this means traits and behaviours associated with the opposite sex “that are seen as incompatible with the behaviour deemed desirable for one’s own” (ibid.). This is why social observers can evaluate the same human behaviour quite differently, depending on whether the actor is male or female. Heilman provides a good example from the business world (2001: 662): putting off an important business decision may be viewed as prudent on the part of a male manager, but as passive or indecisive on the part of a female manager. We can apply the same logic to news stories of politicians. Combative behaviour may be seen as forceful on the

9 Many psychologists agree that the human need to make sense of their own experience is responsible, in part, for the prescriptive aspect of stereotypes (e.g., Jackman 1994). The idea is that people interpret what they observe as the natural order of things, forming prescriptive judgements based on empirical observation. In addition, Glick and Fiske (1999) argue that the prescriptive aspect of group stereotypes forms when the dominant group involved is dependent on the subordinate group, and thus has an interest in maintaining the status quo.

Chapter Six 260 Backlash or Boost? part of a male politician, but as shrill on the part of a female politician. Therefore, in addition to negative reactions caused by cognitive conflict between expected and actual behaviour, counterstereotypic women may encounter negative reactions because they flout conventional norms about suitable female behaviour.

As a result “this perceived violation of the stereotypic prescription is likely to induce disapproval – disapproval that can result in penalties for the violator”

(Ibid.: 661).

Among the leading researchers on how people perceive counterstereotypic women is Laurie A. Rudman, who has written or co-authored a variety of pieces on reactions to women in the corporate sphere (Rudman 1998; Rudman and Glick

1999 and 2001; Rudman and Fairchild 2004; Rudman and Goodwin 2004). The core finding of much of Rudman and her colleagues’ work is this: when women self-promote in order to display their professional acumen and highlight their competence, a decline in their social attractiveness tends to result. People do not like women who toot their own horns, so to speak, at least when compared to the same behaviour by men. Participants in Rudman and her colleagues’ experiments also perceive assertive self-promoting women not only as less likeable, but also as less hireable. Thus, in addition to general disapproval of self-promoting agentic women, there appear to be tangible penalties attached to counterstereotypic behaviour in the form of access to employment and promotion. Rudman’s conclusions speak to the idea of the “double bind” faced by women politicians

(Mandel 1981; Jamieson 1995), for her “results suggest that women pay a price

Chapter Six 261 Backlash or Boost? for counterstereotypical behaviour, even though it may be required for a successful career” (1998: 642).

Various studies corroborate Rudman’s findings. One study reports that descriptions of unconventional women are evaluated more harshly than those of traditional women (Haddock and Zanna 1994). Women leaders are evaluated as less effective than male leaders, especially in leadership roles that tend to be male dominated, such as those in the business and political worlds (Eagly, Makhijani, and Klonsky 1992). In addition, the same study shows that people tend to evaluate women with directive autocratic leadership styles more negatively than similar male leaders (ibid.). Another study reports that even when men and women in the corporate environment use similarly-assertive styles of speech, women are viewed as more aggressive (Wiley and Eskilson 1985).

Most of the studies discussed thus far do not pertain specifically to politics or to televised news. However, the evidence does demonstrate that it is less socially acceptable for women to be aggressive, or even simply assertive, compared to similarly-situated men. It is appropriate to link this work on stereotypes to the ideas of Mutz and Reeves (2005). One of Mutz and Reeves’ central claims is that people use standards of interpersonal interaction to evaluate behaviour viewed on televised news and political talk shows. Their work relates to general standards of polite or civil behaviour. However, standards of civility can vary greatly depending on context, the relationship between people involved in an interaction, and most importantly for the current discussion, the characteristics of the people involved in an interaction. Past work on gender

Chapter Six 262 Backlash or Boost? stereotypes illustrates quite clearly that standards of social appropriateness are different for women than they are for men. Indeed, the same behaviour can be judged quite differently depending on whether the actor is male or female (e.g.,

Henley and Freeman 1995), and prevailing stereotypic norms hold that assertiveness, aggressivity, and agency are more appropriate for men than for women. The implication of Mutz and Reeves’ findings then is that sex-specific norms of socially-appropriate behaviour that are used to judge people in everyday life will also be used to judge women and men politicians viewed on televised news programs. Viewers should have more pronounced negative reactions to televised aggressive behaviour when the aggressor is a woman politician, because this is the pattern of judgement toward female aggressivity in actual life, as outlined above.

There is some limited evidence that women politicians are judged more harshly than male politicians for aggressive behaviour or speech (e.g., Gidengil and Everitt 2003b; Witt, Paget, and Matthews 1994). Gidengil and Everitt (2003b) conducted an experiment with university undergraduate students that studied whether the students’ ratings of the language used to report the speech of political leaders were affected by the sex of the speakers and/or the sex of the participants.

Gidengil and Everitt then classified verbs journalists use to report speech based on students’ ratings. Aggressive verbs of reported speech include ‘attack’, ‘argue’, and ‘hammer home’. Neutral verbs of reported speech include ‘say’ or ‘tell’, whose usage is far more common than aggressive verbs. Compared to reactions toward male speakers, results show a small negative response toward female

Chapter Six 263 Backlash or Boost? speakers whose speech was reported using aggressive rather than neutral verbs.

Interestingly, only female participants reacted negatively. Therefore, this is a combined sex-of-speaker and sex-of-participant effect. While the sex-of-speaker effect was not large, its overall impact may be larger, since women politicians’ speech is less likely than men’s speech to be reported using the neutral ‘say’ or

‘tell’ (Gidengil and Everitt 2003b).

The backlash reaction to combative news portrayals of female politicians, especially party leaders, may be exacerbated beyond that described by the various strands of psychology research. There have been relatively few women in

Canadian politics, particularly in visible powerful positions. According to Kanter

(1977a and 1977b), token status can magnify negative evaluations of women.

Tokens receive considerable attention, and are usually under heightened pressure to perform. Tokens may be susceptible to even harsher disapproval when the positions they occupy have been considered sex inappropriate (Yoder 1991). The idea that women who play pioneering roles in politics are particularly susceptible to negative judgments in part because of their novelty and their heightened media attention is a possibility in the Canadian case. Among the several examples that come readily to mind is Kim Campbell, the first woman in Canada to occupy the roles of Prime Minister, Minister of National Defence, and Minister of Justice.

Media scrutiny of Campbell was intense, perhaps even more than that typically experienced by (male) prime ministers.

While there is convincing evidence to support the idea of a backlash against women who contravene gender-role stereotypes, it would be folly to

Chapter Six 264 Backlash or Boost? ignore the possibility that the benefits of counterstereotypic behaviour may offset or even outweigh the drawbacks. Women politicians may stand to gain from avoiding styles of speech and behaviour traditionally associated with femininity.

Historically, women have been viewed as less competitive and less competent than men (e.g., Broverman et al. 1972). Thus, women who adopt stereotypical masculine behaviours, including aggressive speech and action, may appear more competent as political candidates than women who are more conventionally feminine in speech and action. Aggressivity may boost perceptions of women’s suitability for politics and, thus, their viability as political candidates.

Viability can be a thorny issue for women candidates. People tend to make automatic assumptions that women are less viable candidates for office than men

(e.g., Sapiro 1982). In a mixed sex race, people tend to assume the male will win.

This is not surprising, because the term ‘politician’ is associated most strongly with masculine traits such as power, competitiveness, leadership, and steadfastness (Huddy and Terkildsen 1993a and 1993b). Women office seekers’ print coverage tends to focus more on viability rather than on issues, and their viability coverage tends to be more skeptical than that of men (Kahn and

Goldenberg 1991). Viability can be a minefield for women because gender stereotypes typically do not associate women with traits critical to political success such as toughness, ambition, leadership, independence, and assertiveness.

A woman candidate’s ability to win elective office is often in doubt, regardless of her background and credentials. In many ways, the problem is that people tend to unconsciously view women as unnatural political competitors, because

Chapter Six 265 Backlash or Boost? stereotypes provide the basis for voter’s inferences about candidates. This is especially true of voters who lack specific information about candidates (e.g.,

Kahn 1992; McDermott 1997 and 1998; Sanbonmatsu 2002 and 2004; Sapiro

1982). Thus, it is plausible that coverage highlighting a woman’s ability and willingness to aggress – a trait conventionally associated with masculinity – could boost perceptions of her viability for political office. Combative news coverage may send a strong signal that women are suited to the political world.

There is some evidence for the viability-boost interpretation. Gordon and her colleagues (2003) conducted an experiment using undergraduate students as participants. Students viewed negative campaign advertisements of men and women candidates, and these ads were “nested” between two “distracter” news items (Ibid.: 39). The ads were not real; they were scripted in order to manipulate the sex of the candidate and the tone of the ad. One of their key findings was that when ads showed women acting in ‘masculine’ ways – such as going on the attack – or emphasizing ‘masculine’ characteristics – such as leadership and independence – the women received a boost in ratings. Gordon and her colleagues conclude unequivocally by noting that their data “do not support the conventional wisdom that female candidates will be penalized more than male candidates for using negative advertisements” (2003: 49). Leeper’s (1991) findings are complementary, for the results of his experimental work show that women are not punished for adopting tough issue positions or masculine-style demeanours. “If women vying for executive posts stress unambiguous masculine themes,” states

Leeper, “they can expect voters to still assign to them a battery of feminine traits

Chapter Six 266 Backlash or Boost?

– possibly giving them the edge over their one-dimensional male opponent”

(Ibid.: 256). Huddy and Terkildsen (1993a) draw roughly the same conclusions from their experimental study: women candidates who stress masculine traits and policy issues gain an edge toward convincing the public that they approximate the archetypical politician. While the studies just discussed all rely on experimental methods – which invite questions about generalizeability – the viability-boost effect is certainly plausible in the Canadian context. Citizens may look favourably on women politicians who act (or are depicted in news) in the typical (masculine) fashion that has come to be associated with the social role of ‘politician’.

6.1c A Sex-of-Viewer Effect

In addition to the sex of the politician, the sex of viewers themselves may affect how coverage of politicians is understood and perceived, especially combative coverage. In general terms, research demonstrates that women are more perceptive to verbal and nonverbal communication (Argyle et al. 1970; Hall 1984;

Rosenthal et al. 1979). What this means is that women are more likely to notice and accurately perceive even the subtlest forms of communication, including changes in tones of voice and body language. Compared to men, women are particularly adept at noticing and correctly interpreting nonverbal cues (Argyle et al. 1970; Hall 1984; Rosenthal et al. 1979). Receptivity to social cues is not an inherent female characteristic; rather, this skill is related to gendered social roles and patterns of power. People in positions of lesser power have a lot to gain from reading even the subtlest of verbal and nonverbal cues.

Chapter Six 267 Backlash or Boost?

In terms of particular reactions to aggression, women are more likely than men to react with aversion to hostile or aggressive behaviour (Gidengil and

Everitt 2003b; Smith et al. 1989; Wiley and Eskilson 1985), regardless of the sex of the aggressor. Additionally, women’s reactions tend to be particularly negative when the aggressor is herself female. Rudman’s (1998) experiments show that women, although not men, “found ... self-promoting women less competent, less socially attractive, and subsequently less hireable than self-promoting men”

(1998: 640; see also Rudman and Glick 1999; Powers and Zuroff 1988; for opposing views cf. Carli 1990; Carli, LaFleur, and Loeber 1995). In other words, in the experimental studies, the strongest backlash against counterstereotpyical women came from women, not from men. Gidengil and Everitt report similar patterns from their experiment on language used to report the speech of politicians. Female participants had particularly negative reactions to reportage of women politicians’ speech that used aggressive verbs such as ‘blasted’ and

‘hammered home’ (Gidengil and Everitt 2003b: 225). In short, there are concrete reasons to expect that women viewers react more negatively than male viewers to news that depicts politicians as conflictive, a reaction that may be even stronger when the aggressor is a woman politician.

6.2 Data and Methods

To test the three aspects of audience reactions to combative portrayals of politicians, I use the content analysis data analyzed in Chapter Four, the news ratings provided by participants in the media reception study, and several

Chapter Six 268 Backlash or Boost? contextual variables taken from the media reception participants’ responses to questions from the Canadian Election Study (CES). I combined the three data sources to form a single, ‘stacked’ dataset10 with three components:

1) Variables classifying each of the 163 CBC news stories according to the level of aggressivity depicted by the leader who is the focal point of the story;11

2) Ratings of each of the 163 CBC news stories provided by each of the 56 participants in the media reception study, resulting in 9,046 ratings; and

3) Select social characteristics and political predispositions for each of the 56 participants in the media reception study taken from their responses to CES questions.

The central question this chapter addresses is how viewer perceptions of party leaders’ news stories are influenced by depictions of leader aggressivity in news, and the question is answered by a series of ordered logit regressions and statistical simulations. The ordered logit model is premised on the notion that the continuous variable of interest – in this case, how people react to news stories – is

10 In this stacked dataset, each participant/news story pairing is a separate case. Each participant provided ratings of each news story. There are 56 participants, and 163 news stories. Therefore, each participant appears in the dataset 163 times. This results in 9,046 news ratings (or ‘cases’). The audience reception study is a classic example of clustering, because each of the 56 participants underwent repeated measurement in terms of recording ratings for each of the 163 news stories. Thus, there are 56 clusters in the data, one for each of the participants. In these data, therefore, because observations are clustered, heteroskedasticity and serial correlation are potential worries (Fox 1991). The problem is addressed by including the cluster option, a standard feature of Stata’s regression commands, which produces robust standard errors that, in effect, correct for non-independence of repeated observations. 11 Before proceeding to the results of the statistical analyses, it is worthwhile to revisit how aggressivity was coded. As explained in Chapter Four, the content analysis tells us which leader or party is the main focus of each story as well as how the politician in each story is depicted. There are various measures of aggressive behaviour. First, the coding scheme indicated whether a politician was shown in a story attacking another party or leader verbally. In addition, politicians’ body language was also coded according to its level of aggressivity, an important element given that body language is a powerful and trusted form of communication. Three types of body language were coded as aggressive: finger pointing, fist clenching, and hand chopping. According to these two measures of aggressivity, verbal attack and aggressive body language, stories that featured Alexa McDonough were much more conflictive than stories that featured each of the three male leaders of national parties (Figure 4.2).

Chapter Six 269 Backlash or Boost? unobserved, but that we have observations on an ordered indicator – the five-point news rating scale – that represents the latent variable of interest. The indicator variable provides a series of ‘thresholds’ or cut-points (k1 … k5) that are not necessarily evenly spaced. The only assumption made is that they are ordered.

The ordered logit model estimates the log-linear relationship between the odds of being in a category above k or being in category k or below (Borooah 2002;

Menard 2001).

The dependent variable in all models is participants’ ratings of each news story on the 5-point scale from ‘very bad’ (score of 1) to ‘very good’ (score of 5), taken from the media reception study.12 It is not the news story per se that was rated by participants, but how the story reflects on the party that the story focussed on. Several independent variables are included in the analyses. The variable for the leader’s aggressive behaviour in each news story is coded from 0 to 1, where 0 equals no aggressive behaviour 0.5 equals either verbal attack or aggressive bodily gestures, and 1 equals both verbal attack and aggressive gestures.13

In terms of control variables, models include viewers’ sex, generational cohort (in three dummy variables with the pre-WWII cohort as the reference

12 The exact wording of the question posed to participants was whether the story was “very good, quite good, neither good nor bad, quite bad, or very bad for the party” that was the main focus of the story. The original coding of the variable started with very bad (score of 1) to very good (score of 5). I recoded so the scale went in the reverse order, from very good (score of 1) to very bad (score of 5). See Appendix Three for detailed information on coding of all variables. 13 I experimented with two alternative codings of the aggressivity variable: 1) coding no attack-style behaviour as 0, verbal attack only as .33, aggressive body gestures only as .67, and both verbal attack and aggressive body gestures as 1, and 2) coding no attack-style behaviour as 0, aggressive body gestures only as .33, verbal attack only as .67, and both verbal attack and aggressive body gestures as 1. Alternative codings of the aggressivity variable had little impact on the variables of interest, so I decided to use the simpler three-value variable (0, .5, 1), as reported.

Chapter Six 270 Backlash or Boost? category),14 whether or not the viewer is a university graduate, party identification

(whether or not a viewer’s party id is the same as the party a given story is about), and baseline feelings about each of the leaders (100-point thermometer recoded 0 to 1).

Viewer sex is included in order to measure whether men and women respond differently to leaders’ aggressive behaviour. Generational cohort and education are included because older people and the more educated tend to be more heavy news watchers (e.g., Blais et al. 2002a; Gidengil et al. 2004;

Robinson 1971) and are more likely to use a diversity of news sources (e.g.,

Ahlers 2006). Thus, viewing a single news source or one series of stories may have less influence on perceptions of politicians among older people and the well educated. Put differently, their impressions of politicians may be more resilient and less likely to change. Older people are also more likely while the well educated are less likely to adhere to traditional conceptions of gender roles (e.g.,

Inglehart 1990, 1995, and 1997; Inglehart and Norris 2003; Inglehart and Welzel

2005; Nevitte 1996; van Deth and Scarbrough 1995). Older people, therefore,

14 In addition to the reference category (participants born prior to 1945 in the pre-war cohort), participants were grouped into the following cohorts: Boomer, those born 1945 to 1959; Generation X, those born 1960 to 1969, and post-Generation X, those born 1970 to 1982. These cohort categories were used in part because they coincide roughly with the time periods of the three stages of feminism. First-wave feminism drew to a close in 1945 with the end of WWII, second-wave feminism occupied the 1960s, and third-wave feminism was ushered in during the early 1970s (e.g., Cott 1987; Gillis, Howie, and Munford 2004; LeGates 2001; MacIvor 2003). Each of these waves has had its own ethos and goals in terms of sex/gender equality and women’s relationships to the home, family, men, and the public sphere (including work, the community, and the polity). Therefore, as I have defined them, each of the cohorts was socialized during a distinct period of feminist thought/organizing, and may therefore have distinct attitudes toward women in/and politics.

Chapter Six 271 Backlash or Boost? may be less tolerant of women whose behaviour is assertive or aggressive, because such women breach traditional ideas of appropriate female behaviour.

Party identification is coded 1 for participants whose party identification is the same as the party/leader a news story is about, and coded 0 for participants whose party identification (including no party identification) is not the same as the party/leader a news story is mainly about.15 The rationale for coding this way is that it is not party identification per se that influences how participants perceive politicians in news stories; what matters is whether or not one is watching a story about one’s preferred party. In other words, party identification functions as a filter through which figures and events shown in news are perceived and evaluated (e.g., Cundy 1994; Holbert 2005). Partisanship is commonly viewed as a deeply-held psychological attachment typically formed early in life (Campbell et al. 1960), so

when a voter brings this type of psychological baggage to a mediated political communication experience like television news viewing, political party identification has the potential to influence when a media effect takes place or can alter the direction of the effect across different groups of individuals (Holbert 2005: 419).

Party identification and leader feeling thermometers (as measured in the CES post-election survey) are included, because both of these factors undoubtedly boost ratings of stories about one’s preferred party or leader.

15 The coding of the party identification variable takes into account the strength of party affiliation. Weak identifiers are coded as having no party identification (e.g., Clarke et al. 1979, 1984, 1991 and 1996; Blais et al. 2001 and 2002a; Johnston 1992). Only viewers who reported a moderate or strong attachment to their preferred party are treated as genuine partisans, a practice that has become the convention in Canadian voting behaviour studies (e.g., Blais et al. 2001 and 2002a).

Chapter Six 272 Backlash or Boost?

6.3 Results

Starting with some simple graphical analyses, clearly, there is variance in how the news ratings break down by leader (Figure 6.1). At first blush, it appears that

McDonough was not hurt by news that showed her on the attack. Stories about

McDonough received the highest mean rating (3.5) on the five-point scale from

‘very bad’ (score of 1) to ‘very good’ (score of 5). Clark followed McDonough closely with a mean rating of 3.3, and Chrétien and Day trailed with mean ratings of 3.0 and 2.8, respectively. Day was the only leader to receive a mean rating below a score of 3. Keeping in mind that participants in the audience response study were all from the Toronto area, this distribution of mean story ratings undoubtedly reflects Day’s unpopularity among Ontarians relative to the other leaders during the 2000 campaign (e.g., Blais et al. 2002a: 167).

(Figure 6.1 about here)

Initial analyses of news ratings also suggest that a viewer’s sex influences how they evaluate news stories. Men and women media study participants differed somewhat in their mean ratings of each of the leaders’ news stories

(Figure 6.2). Compared to the women participants, men tended to assign higher scores on average to Chrétien’s stories and slightly higher scores to Day’s stories.

Conversely, women tended to rate Clark and McDonough’s stories more positively than did the men. Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney (WMW) tests of statistical

Chapter Six 273 Backlash or Boost? significance16 indicate that the differences in men and women’s mean ratings are significant for stories about Chrétien, Clark, and McDonough, but not for stories about Day.

(Figure 6.2 about here)

In Figure 6.3, each leader’s story ratings are reported separately for attack- and non-attack-style coverage. Chrétien and Clark’s mean ratings were much higher when stories showed them attacking another party/leader while also using aggressive body language such as fist clenching and finger pointing. As Figure

6.3 illustrates, the opposite was true for McDonough. Viewers’ mean rating of stories about McDonough declined when she was shown on the attack, and she is the only leader for whom this occurred. There was no significant difference in the mean rating of stories that showed Day on the attack versus stories that did not, as indicated by the z scores reported in Figure 6.3. Clearly, the extent to which politicians can use aggressive behaviour to their advantage varies significantly.

While McDonough’s stories had the highest mean rating when the leaders were not shown on the attack, her mean rating slipped to third place, behind Clark and

Chrétien, when she and the other leaders were shown on the offensive. In terms of the effect of depictions of McDonough’s aggressive behaviour, this preliminary look at the data appears to support the backlash-effect hypothesis, not the viability-boost hypothesis.

(Figure 6.3 about here)

16 These are represented as z scores in Figures 6.2 and 6.3. The WMW test is the appropriate version to use for testing differences in mean news ratings, because the variable is ordinal, as outlined in Chapter Three.

Chapter Six 274 Backlash or Boost?

Given the differences in mean ratings when leaders aggressed, as well the differences between men and women’s mean ratings of news stories, the next step was to test whether the sex-of-politician and sex-of-viewer relationships held up when other variables were controlled. In addition, ordered logit regression analyses also allow us to test the general videomalaise effect. For all models, both odds ratios and logit coefficients are presented, and robust standard errors are reported in brackets. I discuss results with reference to the odds ratios. Odds are used extensively in healthcare research, particularly epidemiological research, and in social science research, particularly survey research (e.g., Westergren et al.

2001; see also Bland and Altman 2000).17 Probabilities and odds contain the same information and are equally acceptable measures of chance or effect size. The odds of an event or condition happening is the probability that the event or condition will happen divided by the probability that the event or condition will not happen. If the odds are greater than one, then the event is more likely to happen than not, and if the odds are less than one, the event is less likely to happen than not. An odds ratio is used to compare the odds of two groups. An odds ratio is calculated by dividing the odds in group one by the odds in group two. If the odds of an event happening are the same across two groups, then the odds ratio will be 1, which would indicate no association between an independent variable and the dependent variable. If there is a relationship, the odds ratio will be higher or lower than 1. An odds ratio less than 1 indicates that the event or condition is more likely to occur in group one (or less likely to occur in group

17 The following discussion of the logic behind odds and odds ratios is based on Westergren et al. (2001: 268-269; see also Borooah 2002).

Chapter Six 275 Backlash or Boost? two), and an odds ratio greater than 1 indicates that the event or condition is more likely to occur in group two (or less likely to occur in group one). The more the odds ratio deviates from a value of 1, the larger the difference in odds of the event happening for the two groups. An odds ratio can vary from 0 to infinity, but it must be greater than 0.

While there has been considerable debate on the utility of odds and odds ratios versus logit coefficients, two points should be kept in mind. First, methodologically, odds ratios provide an acceptable alternative to logit coefficients (e.g., DeMaris 1993).18 Second, and more importantly, logit coefficients have little interpretive value, while odds are relatively more intuitive.

Thus, odds are “worthy of consideration in the place of probabilities as the substantive ‘currency’ of logit modeling” (Ibid.: 1057).

Starting with the general effect of conflictive behaviour in news, Table 6.1 presents the results of an ordered logit regression analysis of all of the 163 news stories. The variable for leader aggressive behaviour (leader aggressive) shows how news depictions of party leaders’ conflictive behaviour affect participants’ ratings of news stories. In this case, the leader aggressivity variable had no independent effect. Taking the leaders as a whole, depictions of conflictive behaviour have no general impact on how positively or negatively viewers evaluated news stories, overall. This is not surprising considering the information presented in Figure 6.3. Stories about Chrétien and Clark boasted higher ratings,

18 DeMaris (1993: 1057) argues quite convincingly, “the odds ratio is an exact summary measure of the net multiplicative impact on the odds of an event for each unit increase in a given predictor, and is therefore a multiplicative analog of the partial slope in linear regression”.

Chapter Six 276 Backlash or Boost? on average, when each leader aggressed, while McDonough’s stories had lower mean ratings, and Day’s mean story ratings did not vary with the level of aggressive behaviour. The effect of leaders’ aggressive behaviour on ratings of their news obviously depends on a variety of factors. Thus, these data provide no significant support for a general videomalaise effect.

(Table 6.1 about here)

The second model presented in Table 6.1 (model 6.1.2) repeats the same logit estimation, but this time with the addition of an interaction term for sex and leader aggressivity. While sex-of-viewer had no independent effect (female viewer), the interaction term in model 6.1.2 (female viewer*leader aggressivity) indicates that women participants in the media reception study were more likely to assign stories lower ratings on the 5-point scale when the stories depicted uncivil leader behaviour. This provides preliminary evidence for the hypothesized sex-of-viewer effect whereby women are less tolerant of aggressive behaviour than are men.

The well educated tended to give lower ratings to news stories compared to those without university degrees, other things being equal. The likelihood of rating a story higher on the 5-point scale from ‘very bad’ to ‘very good’ increased rather dramatically when a participant’s partisan affinities matched the party/leader that was the focal point of a story. In other words, people were more likely to allot higher scores to stories about their preferred party or leader.

Feelings about a leader (as measured in the CES post-election survey) had a small

Chapter Six 277 Backlash or Boost? impact on ratings, net of party identification. If participants reported strong affect for a leader, they also tended to assign higher scores for that leader’s news items.

A second group of ordered logit regressions was performed in order to test directly the impact of depictions of each leader’s behaviour on news ratings

(Table 6.2). This provides a preliminary test of the sex-of-politician effect. First, I modelled the effect the identity of each leader had on news ratings, irrespective of the aggressivity of their verbal and nonverbal behaviour (Model 6.2.1). The model includes three dummy variables for Day, Clark, and McDonough, with Chrétien as the reference category. These leader dummy variables tell us the impact each leader had on news ratings when each was the focal point of news stories. Day had no significant effect on news ratings. Clark and McDonough, on the other hand did. Compared to stories about Chrétien, stories about Clark and

McDonough tended to be rated much higher on the 5-point scale from ‘very bad’ to ‘very good’. These findings, of course, are expected given the distribution of mean news ratings reported in Figure 6.1. The impact of socio-demographic and political variables is virtually the same as in Table 6.1 – all the same variables are significant, work in the same direction, and have roughly the same magnitude of effect as before.

(Table 6.2 about here)

The next step in assessing the relative impact of each leader on news ratings was to include interaction terms for leaders and aggressive behaviour

(model 6.2.2, Table 6.2). Doing so enables comparisons between leaders in terms of whether aggressive behaviour boosted or diminished their news ratings,

Chapter Six 278 Backlash or Boost?

because the logic behind an interaction term is that variable x1 (aggressive behaviour) is thought to affect the dependent variable y (news ratings) differently depending on variable x2 (leader). Put differently, the effect each leader had on news ratings may be modified by whether s/he was shown engaging in conflictive behaviour.

None of the interaction terms was significant (model 6.2.2, Table 6.2).

However, the effect for McDonough is what we would predict if the backlash hypothesis were correct. While the interaction was not significant, the odds increased that McDonough’s stories were rated higher on the 5-point scale when she was not shown on the attack, and lower when she was on the attack. These findings correspond with comparisons of means in Figure 6.3, which shows that

McDonough’s mean rating was lower when she was aggressive.

The next step was to assess both the sex-of-politician effect and the sex- of-viewer effect. This was done by analyzing each of the four leaders’ news ratings individually. Ideally, this would be conducted with a larger sample of leaders or politicians. However, the data set limits the number of leaders to four and the number of female leaders to one. This must be kept in mind when assessing the evidence – a cautionary note made in previous chapters.

Nonetheless, it is also important to reiterate that this is a highly powerful and novel combination of data.

Table 6.3 presents ordered logit regressions for each party leader’s stories separately. This set-up demonstrates whether and to what extent aggressive behaviour affects each leader’s ratings differently. Analyses start with a model

Chapter Six 279 Backlash or Boost? that includes variables for generational cohort, education, party identification, leader feelings, leader aggressivity in the news story, and sex-of-viewer. A second model includes one additional variable interacting sex-of-viewer with leader aggressivity. This interaction term reveals whether ratings of stories with conflictive leader behaviour were significantly different depending on the sex of the viewer.

(Table 6.3 about here)

Ratings of stories about Jean Chrétien and the Liberal Party are presented first. Clearly, the odds of assigning higher ratings to news stories about Chrétien and the Liberals increased dramatically when Chrétien was conflictive (odds ratio of 3.94, Model 6.3.1). Adding the interaction term does not alter the findings

(Model 6.3.2). The impact of Chrétien’s aggressive behaviour on story ratings was not significantly different for women than it was for men.

Depictions of aggressive behaviour had a different effect on ratings of stories about Stockwell Day and the Alliance. Day’s conflictive behaviour had no independent significant effect on his story ratings (Model 6.3.3). However, when the sex-of-viewer was interacted with leader aggressivity (model 6.3.4), it is clear that women tended to assign lower ratings to stories about Day when he was depicted as conflictive.

For stories about Joe Clark and the Progressive Conservatives, results are more akin to those obtained for Chrétien and the Liberals. When Clark went on the offensive, odds increased that viewers would assign higher ratings to stories about Clark and the PCs (model 6.3.5). The relationship is certainly not as strong

Chapter Six 280 Backlash or Boost? as for Chrétien’s aggressive behaviour, but results do indicate a positive relationship between Clark’s aggressivity and higher news ratings. Depictions of

Clark’s aggressive behaviour did not influence men and women differently, as the non-significant interaction term indicates (Model 6.3.6).

Finally, we move to results for the lone female leader in the 2000 campaign, NDP leader Alexa McDonough. Female participants in the media reception study tended to assign higher ratings to stories about McDonough than did the male participants (odds ratio of 1.50, Model 6.3.7). In other words, affinity for McDonough was stronger among women participants compared to the men, ceteris paribus. Depictions of McDonough’s aggressive behaviour had no significant independent impact on her story ratings, suggesting that depictions of aggressive behaviour neither hurt her nor helped her. There was no general backlash, nor a general viability boost, the two potential effects discussed earlier in the chapter. However, the addition of a variable interacting depictions of aggressive behaviour with the sex of the viewer changed the picture substantially for McDonough’s ratings (Model 6.3.8). As the interaction term shows, compared to male viewers, women viewers tended to rate McDonough’s stories more negatively when the NDP leader was on the attack. Because this model includes an interaction for female and McDonough’s aggressive behaviour, the main effect of the variable female indicates the effect for women when McDonough was not depicted as aggressive. The effect is positive and significant (1.71), indicating that when stories did not show McDonough on the offensive, women viewers tended to assign higher ratings to the leader’s stories. The point to take away from results

Chapter Six 281 Backlash or Boost? on how McDonough’s stories were rated is that while there is no general backlash or boost effect, there is a backlash effect among women viewers, who respond more negatively to depictions of the female leader’s attack-style behaviour than do male viewers.

The final stage of the analyses of story news ratings was to simulate expected mean news story ratings in order to analyze: 1) the substantive impact of aggressive leader behaviour on news ratings (sex-of-politician effect), and 2) the substantive impact of aggressive leader behaviour on news ratings for men versus women (sex-of-viewer effect). Essentially, the technique allows comparisons between the uncontrolled means presented in Figures 6.2 and 6.3 and the controlled predicted means produced by the simulation techniques. I re-estimated all of the models in Table 6.3 using OLS regression rather than ordered logit regression (the results of the OLS regression are included as Table 6.4).19

Following this, I used the statistical simulation techniques provided by Clarify to examine the substantive impact of the variable of interest – in this case leader aggressivity and viewer sex – while holding all the other variables (cohort, university education, party identification, and leader feelings) at their means.

Specifically, I held all the other variables at their means, and adjusted the leader aggressivity and sex-of-viewer variables to see how news story ratings changed

19 I present simulated results from OLS models rather than ordered logit regression models simply for convenience and ease of interpretation. With OLS models, Clarify provides predicted values, but with ordered logit models, Clarify provides the probability of being in each category of the dependent variable (in this case five categories, since my dependent variable is a five-point scale of news ratings). Therefore, simulations with a dependent variable that assumes 5 values would, in this case, become cumbersome to report and, more importantly, to interpret. For further information about Clarify, see King, Tomz, and Wittenberg 2000; Tomz, Wittenberg, and King 2003.

Chapter Six 282 Backlash or Boost? depending on leaders’ aggressivity and, subsequently, whether the viewer was male or female. Figures 6.4 and 6.5 present the outcome of the simulations.

Results are grouped by leader, and statistical significance within 95% confidence intervals is indicated by an asterisk (*) next to simulated mean ratings.

(Table 6.4 about here)

(Figure 6.4 about here)

Figure 6.4 presents the expected news rating values for each leader, broken down by ratings for news stories in which the leaders were depicted as aggressive versus ratings for stories in which they were not. When McDonough was not shown in her news stories on the attack, her mean rating neared 3.5 out of

5. Keep in mind that other variables that influence news ratings are controlled in the simulation, such as age, sex of the viewer, education, party id, and baseline leader feelings. Clark and Chrétien’s ratings were somewhat behind

McDonough’s, and Day’s were far behind. However, the picture changed when I simulated news ratings for the four leaders when they were shown on the attack in their stories. In this case, both Chrétien and Clark’s stories were rated higher when they went on the attack. Chrétien’s gain was a substantial three-quarters of a point – huge considering the dependent variable is only a 5-point scale. In the case of Day, there was no statistically significant difference in his story ratings whether he was on the attack or not (although the direction of change is negative).

McDonough was the only leader whose story ratings significantly suffered when she was confrontational. She went from having the highest mean rating to trailing both Clark and Chrétien. In total, McDonough lost about a third of a point in her

Chapter Six 283 Backlash or Boost? mean rating overall when she was portrayed on the attack, while Clark and

Chrétien each gained substantial favour with depictions of conflictive behaviour.

What about a sex-of-viewer effect? While the general trend was a loss in story ratings for the female leader and a gain (or no effect) for the male leaders when they went on the attack, do reactions depend on whether the viewer is a man or a woman, as previous research suggests they might (e.g., Rudman 1998)? In the case of stories about Chrétien, the simulated mean story rating among male viewers in the media reception study increased from 2.75 on the 5-point scale to

3.5 when the Liberal leader aggressed (Figure 6.5). The pattern is similar for female viewers, although women rated Chrétien slightly lower in both cases than their male counterparts.

(Figure 6.5 about here)

Men’s simulated mean rating of stories about Day was not significantly different when the Alliance leader aggressed. However, women’s mean rating of stories about Day decreased from 2.61 when Day did not aggress to 2.38 when he did, and the difference in this case is significant.

Clark benefited from aggressive behaviour, and there was no real difference in terms of male and female viewers’ scores. The simulated mean rating of stories about Clark increased from 2.94 to 3.32 among men when the

Conservative leader’s aggressivty score was changed from 0 to 1. Similarly, the mean rating women viewers assigned to news stories about Clark increased from

3.06 to 3.39 when Clark was depicted on the attack. For both men and women viewers, the differences in their respective mean ratings for stories about Clark

Chapter Six 284 Backlash or Boost? were significant. Overall, while leader aggressivity had an impact on simulated ratings of stories about Clark, men and women’s mean ratings of Clark’s stories changed in the same way when the leader’s aggressivity score was changed from a value of 0 to a value of 1.

Finally, adjusting the leader aggressivity score from a value of 0 to a value of 1 had the opposite effect for McDonough’s mean ratings. Male viewers’ mean rating declined from 3.39 to 3.20 when McDonough was depicted on the attack, while women viewers’ mean rating declined by an even greater extent, from 3.63 to 3.30. For both men and women, there was a significant difference in mean ratings of stories about McDonough when the aggressivity variable was changed from 0 to 1. Overall, the decline in McDonough’s mean rating among women participants in the audience reception study was the largest drop in ratings across all the simulated values (a difference of 3.63 - 3.30 = 0.33 decline). This suggests that women viewers’ responses to depictions of aggressive behaviour in news are somewhat harsher when the source of the behaviour is a woman, as opposed to a man.

6.4 Discussion

What do the results mean for the three effects hypothesized at the beginning of the chapter? First, as noted, these analyses offer little evidence that conflictive behaviour per se has a general negative effect on viewers’ evaluations of news.

There is no general correlation between portrayals of leader aggressivity and news ratings (Table 6.1). In fact, for Chrétien and Clark, depictions of aggressive

Chapter Six 285 Backlash or Boost? behaviour appear to have boosted ratings of their stories, as the ordered logit results in Table 6.3 and simulated probabilities in Figures 6.4 and 6.5 demonstrate.

Simulated results suggest that there may be a general sex-of-politician effect of attack-style behaviour (Figure 6.4). It is important to bear in mind that for the ordered logit results presented in Tables 6.2 and 6.3, depictions of

McDonough on the attack had no independent effect on her news story ratings.

However, results in Table 6.2 do show that while the interaction variable

McDonough*aggressive was not itself significant, the effect for McDonough is what we would predict if the backlash hypothesis were correct. McDonough’s story ratings declined when news showed her on the attack and, conversely, her ratings improved when she was shown not on the attack (model 6.2.2 of Table

6.2).

The preceding analyses also suggest that there is a sex-of-viewer effect consistent with past findings that women viewers are turned off by aggressive or hostile behaviour (e.g., Gidengil and Everitt 2003b; Smith et al. 1989; Wiley and

Eskilson 1985). Women were turned off by conflictive news stories about the

2000 federal election campaign in general (Table 6.1). Moreover, women viewers were particularly turned off when Alexa McDonough was shown on the attack

(Table 6.3 and Figure 6.5). McDonough was the only leader that women viewers both punished for aggression and rewarded for calm or non-aggressive behaviour.

Women viewers’ reactions to depictions of attack-style behaviour on the part of the male leaders were mixed. There were no sex-of-viewer effects for

Chapter Six 286 Backlash or Boost?

Chrétien or Clark. Like McDonough, ratings of stories about Day declined among women viewers when he was shown on the offensive. However, Day’s story ratings did not increase among women viewers when his stories contained no conflictive behaviours. In other words, Day was not rewarded for non-aggressive behaviour. Women viewers generally rated Day’s stories negatively (below a score of 3), and gave even lower scores when Day was depicted as aggressive.

Generally, women viewers were partial to McDonough, which is not surprising given that predisposition toward female leaders tends to be stronger among female voters than among male voters (e.g., Banducci and Karp 2000;

O’Neill 1998; Plutzer and Zipp 1996). However, in this particular case, underlying the affinity women viewers felt toward the female leader is an interesting reward-and-punish dynamic. Women viewers tended to assign higher ratings to McDonough’s stories when she did not aggress and lower ratings when she did. Women viewers did not apply a straightforward reward-and-punish effect to stories about the three male leaders. As discussed toward the beginning of the chapter, similar patterns have been reported in psychology research. Women – not men – have the strongest, negative reactions to counter-stereotypical women, especially self-promoting or agentic women (e.g., Rudman 1998). One of the likeliest explanations for women’s reactions to McDonough is the idea that women viewers apply different standards of behaviour to female politicians.

Research on women’s moral reasoning (e.g., Gilligan 1982) and women’s political culture (e.g., Burt 1986; O’Neill 2002) suggests that there is a distinctively female approach to politics. Women seem to place more stock in

Chapter Six 287 Backlash or Boost? consensus-style decision making rather than individualized competition. Women are also more likely to define themselves relationally (Gilligan 1982). While these are general observations about women’s styles, not ironclad rules, they do suggest that women often have different expectations of other women than they do of men. In the political sphere, women may expect other women to avoid highly conflictive behaviour, posturing, and the type of attack-style mud-slinging that has increasingly dominated election campaigns. Uncivil behaviour may be interpreted as incongruous with consensus-style politics, in other words, with a distinctively ‘women’s’ way of doing politics. Following this logic, men are not penalized to the same extent for combative behaviour, because male aggressivity is the norm. The exception here was Day, but women were less likely to favour

Day and the Alliance in the first place (e.g., Blais et al. 2000). Women voters punish women politicians because they expect different conduct, or perhaps more accurately, better conduct.

Before moving on to consider broader implications of the findings presented in this chapter, this is a good point at which to remind the reader that my analyses have been conducted on a Toronto-based sample, which does require careful interpretation and cautious generalization to other contexts. All my models control for important variables such as party identification, age, education, and baseline feelings about each of the leaders of national parties in the 2000 campaign. To illustrate my point, the fact that I control for party identification, for example, means that the tendency for Liberal supporters to be concentrated in

Ontario and in urban ridings is built into my models. Nonetheless, region of

Chapter Six 288 Backlash or Boost? residence as well as whether one lives in an urban or rural area may have independent effects (or even interactive effects) on how one rates news, news of men and women leaders, and, most importantly, news of men and women leaders shown on the attack. Research on regional (Henderson 2004) and provincial political cultures (Nevitte 1995; Simeon and Elkins 1974 and 1980) in Canada suggests that there are genuine value differences as well as different attitudes toward government from one part of the country to the next. There is also work that identifies intra-provincial or intra-regional cultures, especially along urban- rural lines (e.g., Henderson 2004; MacDermid 1990), suggesting that urban-rural differences can overlay regional or provincial cultural differences. In short, these are the sorts of factors that must be taken into account when generalizing from a small and geographically-restricted sample.

Keeping in mind the limitations (and also the tremendous advantages) of my dataset, what are the broader implications of my findings for women politicians? Analyses presented in this chapter illustrate that among all the party leaders in the 2000 campaign, attack-style news depictions posed the largest threat to McDonough’s news ratings. Women’s ratings declined significantly when news stories showed McDonough on the offensive, which was often. While

McDonough had the fewest news stories among the four leaders of national parties in 2000, she had the highest proportion of attack-style coverage. As discussed in Chapter Four, thirty-three percent of McDonough’s stories showed her on the offensive, compared to only 5.5, 10, and 12 percent for Chrétien, Clark, and Day, respectively (Figure 4.2). The fact that McDonough’s ratings were

Chapter Six 289 Backlash or Boost? consistently high, whether she was on the attack or not, misses the point. The crucial point is that her ratings would have been higher had 33 percent of her stories on the CBC news not shown her combining verbal attack with aggressive body language.

To be clear, Figure 6.4 illustrates that the mean rating of stories about

McDonough declined by one-third of a point when she was on the attack, and this was the largest decline in any of the four leader’s ratings when the aggressivity variable was changed from 0 to 1. Certainly, one-third of a point on a five-point scale is not a big effect. Yet, the cumulative impact of depictions of McDonough on the attack could be much larger, because a much larger bulk of her news showed her on the attack (Figure 4.2). What this may amount to in the end is a considerable net reduction in news story ratings for McDonough. In other words, attack-style news coverage could counteract the advantage women candidates enjoy among women voters and, in fact, lead to a net loss in support among women in the electorate. Ultimately, the findings suggest that attack-style news coverage can be an electoral liability for women politicians, particularly in close races where small fluctuations in support could mean the difference between victory and defeat.

The sex-of-viewer effect has even wider implications for female leaders. A party’s success is linked inextricably to its leader, who personifies the party for the electorate (e.g., Carty 1992; Carty, Cross, and Young 2002). In no small measure, voters cast ballots based on how they feel about the party leaders (Blais et al. 2002a; Gidengil et al. 2000; Johnston et al. 1992; Pammett 1994). Thus,

Chapter Six 290 Backlash or Boost? highly combative coverage of women leaders may jeopardize the standing of female-headed parties among women voters throughout the country.

The next chapter addresses themes similar to those explored in the preceding pages, for it focuses on the effects of media depictions on elections and political careers, but this time from the perspective of the politicians. Media effects research tends to focus on how audiences react to the content and style of the news product, and only rarely do scholars consider how men and women politicians themselves understand and navigate their interactions with news media. Indeed, this chapter has demonstrated empirically what women politicians seem to know implicitly: the way news tend to portray them can harm their appeal among citizens.

Chapter Seven 291 Political Image-Crafting

CHAPTER SEVEN

Political Image-Crafting through Media:

Canadian Politicians Speak

The danger in all this is that you will lose track of who you really are, that your public persona will no longer reflect your private self.1

In 2000 a wetsuit-clad Stockwell Day, former leader of the now defunct Canadian

Alliance, roared to a beachside press conference on a Sea-Doo. It was a strategy designed to highlight Day’s youth, athleticism, and energy juxtaposed with the advancing age of incumbent Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. Would a woman politician have contemplated the same move? Would a woman consider doing a press conference with wet, stringy hair, dressed in spandex, riding a motorized watercraft? The answer, in most cases,2 would be no. Admittedly, the stunt did not work in Day’s favour, for it appeared contrived and silly. In the case of women politicians, however, if the stunt appeared silly, it would have been precisely because the rider was a woman. In other words, unlike Day, women politicians

1 Audrey McLaughlin, former leader of the federal NDP (McLaughlin 1992: 204). 2 Of course, there are exceptions. For example, Deborah Grey, a former Reform/Alliance/Conservative MP who also served as Reform Deputy Leader, Interim Party Leader of the Canadian Alliance, and leader of the opposition, regularly attended photo ops on her motorcycle. On May 2, 1997, during the 1997 federal election campaign, she picked up Reform Party Leader Preston Manning from the Edmonton airport on her motorcycle. Manning rode on the back of the motorcycle, and together they drove up and down the tarmac in front of news cameras, both wearing Edmonton Oilers jerseys, since the hockey team had made the Stanley Cup Playoffs. See “Manning taken for a ride,” The Globe and Mail, May 2, 1997, A2. In fact, the cover of Grey’s autobiography, Never Retreat, Never Explain, Never Apologize: My Life, My Politics, shows her with her motorcycle, holding a helmet under her left arm, dressed in leather, in front of the Canadian Parliament building. The point is that Grey never avoided what might be traditionally understood as ‘masculine’ scenarios or behaviours.

Chapter Seven 292 Political Image-Crafting would fear appearing unnatural holding such a press conference, and would anticipate negative gendered media coverage of such an event.

The Sea-Doo press conference is an example of gender differences in how men and women politicians present themselves to news media. Not all differences are so blatant, but they exist nonetheless. This chapter takes up this theme and presents evidence that men and women politicians’ experiences of the news media environment – from coverage to relationships with newsmakers – differ in consequential ways. Men and women have different expectations about how media will cover them. In turn, this leads to (or at least exacerbates) divergences in self-presentation styles, as the Sea-Doo example highlights. Avoidance of gendered coverage is often a component of women politicians’ media and public relations strategies. These claims are borne out in a series of first-hand, personal interviews conducted by the author with Canadian federal MPs.

Aside from a few notable exceptions (e.g., Bystrom and Miller 1999;

Bystrom et al. 2004; Ross 2002; Ross and Sreberny 2000), scholars have largely neglected systematic examination of how women politicians (the topic of study, after all) understand their media coverage and what strategies, if any, they adopt to navigate news media. A blind spot in the literature has resulted, particularly in the Canadian setting, where first-hand information about women politician’s understandings of media and political communication is sparse. Several studies do provide a glimpse of the provincial level. Manon Tremblay’s research suggests that federal women politicians believe they receive harsher coverage than their male colleagues (1999), and Don Desserud’s observations about women in New

Chapter Seven 293 Political Image-Crafting

Brunswick politics point to parallel conclusions (1997). Yet, both of these are regional studies, and neither is specifically focused on media. In Canada, there are no comprehensive national analyses of women politicians’ reflections on their media experiences. By undertaking this task, the chapter makes an important contribution to the growing literature on women, media, and politics. Collectively, news media constitute an important political agent, and how politicians perceive their own navigation of the media environment is a necessary ingredient for a thorough understanding of political communication. This is especially true in the case of women politicians’ experience of media, because women entered politics in significant numbers only in the last few decades, and women’s experiences with media have been different from men’s in important respects.

The value of this chapter lays not only in examining women politicians’ attitudes to media or even in contrasting the experiences of women politicians against those of their male counterparts. Perhaps more importantly, this chapter is embedded within a comprehensive project that simultaneously examines media content, audience responses to content, and politicians’ self-presentations to news media. Much of the Canadian work on women, media, and politics begins and ends with news content (e.g., Trimble 2005; Trimble and Sampert 2004). There are several Canadian pieces linking audience perceptions to news content of men and women politicians (e.g., Gidengil and Everitt 2003b and 2006; Mendelsohn and Nadeau 1999), but this literature is not abundant. The fact that the existing

Canadian literature identifies linkages between public perceptions and news content across several elections (Gidengil and Everitt 2003b and 2006;

Chapter Seven 294 Political Image-Crafting

Mendelsohn and Nadeau) suggests that further sustained analysis is required. Few political scientists have examined in any in-depth manner the role journalists play in the equation, particularly the constraints imposed by large-scale socio- structural factors such as prevailing gender-role norms, the sociology of newswork, and the political economy of the news industry, despite the fact that the gendered mediation thesis posits these as consequential factors in the production of a masculine news discourse. No single work on women, media, and politics has combined all of the elements presented in this dissertation: large-scale content analysis, a systematic media response study, a detailed examination of news staffing and gender differences in reporting, and first-hand accounts of women and men politicians’ personal understandings of news media. In sum, this final portion of the project completes my analysis of the triangular relationship between politicians, journalists, and their audiences. In drawing together all of the components that form the universe of ‘political communication’, the story I am telling is not simply about each of the components, but also about the dynamic and symbiotic relationships between the components.

The shifting and interdependent relationships between news actors, citizens, and politicians is rarely addressed directly, a point Everitt (2005) emphasizes in her recent survey of the literature on women, media, and politics.

Everitt’s conclusions echo a claim made earlier in the dissertation: “Politicians need the media to convey their messages to the public and regularly work to cultivate the media’s attention. On the other hand, journalists seek to challenge politicians, but also market their stories” (Ibid.: 394). Everitt draws in examples

Chapter Seven 295 Political Image-Crafting from Ross’ (2002) book, Women, Politics, Media, one of the few works that

“acknowledges that news results from regular negotiation between politicians and reporters” (Everitt 2005: 394). Fundamentally, Ross recognizes the complexities of these negotiations. In her concluding chapter, for example, Ross notes how her interviewees did not criticize the press’ tendency to identify women politicians by their first names. On the contrary, Ross’ interviewees felt that the practice made them seem more accessible and down-to-earth (2002: 166). In contrast, scholarly assessments have emphasized the risks, claiming that media’s use of women’s first names, rather than last names or proper titles, undermines their credibility because it denies them the authority that comes with the use of ‘Ms. McDonough’ as opposed to ‘Alexa’, for example. The point here is that women politicians’ goals – winning elections, maintaining favourable public personas, promoting their policy agendas – must be kept in mind when assessing their understandings of and behaviour before media.

Women politicians also have pre-established notions of how media operate, and these can vary according to ideology, partisanship, personal outlook, and individual career trajectories. Recognizing that politician-media relationships are symbiotic, dynamic, and context-dependent allows us to examine the ways that politicians self-censor based on expectations of how their speech, appearance, and behaviour will be selectively presented in news. In this sense, we can examine how women politicians attempt to control their media personas, at times avoiding what they regard as negative forms of gender-specific coverage and in other

Chapter Seven 296 Political Image-Crafting instances deliberately choosing media opportunities that make the most of their positive traits and policy ideas (e.g., van Zoonen 1994, 2005).

The chapter concludes by assessing the consequences of women’s different media strategies and self-presentation styles. The outcome seems to be a more constrained – or at least differently constrained – environment in which women office seekers construct likeable, credible, and most importantly,

‘electable’ public images.

7.1 The Political Role of Image

A favourable public image is a necessary ingredient for political success, a truism for virtually all times and places. In turn, the art of ‘image crafting’ requires adept use of political communication. Election campaigns, in particular, stand out as the

‘Olympics’ of political communication management. The voting literature has tended to underestimate the impact of political communications, emphasizing instead the influence of partisan attachments, economic judgments, or social background characteristics on people’s political attitudes and decisions. However, this is changing, as “the truth lies somewhere between exaggerated notions that political communications are either decisive or irrelevant” (Norris et al. 1999:

172). Indeed, exposure to political communications during campaigns affects citizens’ judgments of politicians (e.g., Gidengil and Everitt 2006; Iyengar and

Kinder 1987; Mendelsohn and Nadeau 1999; Zaller 2002), issue priorities (e.g.,

Norris et al. 1999), and vote intentions (e.g., Johnston et al. 1992; Dobrzynska,

Blais, and Nadeau 2003). In addition, we must also remember that elections are

Chapter Seven 297 Political Image-Crafting rarefied political events. The universe of political communications extends far beyond campaigns. Popularizing legislation and policy change, minimizing the fall-out of difficult political decisions or even scandal, and maintaining inter- election public support all depend to varying extents on political image and, by extension, savvy media strategies for guiding public impressions.

The importance of image transcends regime type. Maintaining favourable public perceptions and, by extension, popular support can confer some measure of legitimacy on a non-democratic government and its leader. A favourable image is so valuable in both the domestic and international contexts that all leaders work to enhance their images, even those whose rhetoric of democracy is little more than lip service. In short, public perceptions formed quickly and often unconsciously affect the course of one’s political career. At the very least, politicians and their consultants believe that image is critical. Hence, understanding how politicians themselves see image is necessary in order to gain a thorough understanding of political communications.

‘Public image’ should not be understood as referring solely to appearances, although politicians’ attractiveness, physique, dress, and other physical traits can influence how citizens perceive them (e.g., Jamieson 1996;

Kraus 1996; Rosenberg, Kahn, and Tran 1991; Verser and Wicks 2006;

Waterman, Wright, and St. Clair 1999). Public image also encompasses factors such as the way a politician speaks, tone of voice, the ability to articulate oneself concisely for sound bites and quotes, as well as body language, use of personal space, and inter-personal interaction style. Together physical appearance plus

Chapter Seven 298 Political Image-Crafting idiosyncratic manners of voice, speech, and behaviour constitute much of what we understand to be ‘image’.

7.2 Impression Management and Self-Presentation

As noted in Chapter Two’s discussion of the dissertation’s analytical framework, impression management is defined by social psychologists as the goal-directed activity of controlling information in order to influence the impressions formed by an audience (Schlenker 1980, 2003). Impression management can be conscious or unconscious, and it can involve managing perceptions of people, events, objects, or ideas (Ibid.). An individual tries to guide perceptions social observers form of her/his own image, an activity that is referred to as ‘self-presentation’. The most famous work on the subject is Goffman’s The Presentation of Self in Everyday

Life (1959), which uses the vocabulary of the theatre to explain how people ‘stage manage’ the images they attempt to convey to those around them. In Goffman’s parlance, acts of stage managing one’s image are referred to as ‘dramaturgy’, because social interaction is like a “performance”, shaped by the environment as well as the audience and constructed to provide others with “impressions” in line with the chosen ends of the “actor” (1959: 17).

Goffman is very careful to explain that acts of self-presentation are not free of restrictions. How we present ourselves to others depends on the situation and the make-up of the audience. Self-presentation is also guided by social mores and expectations about ‘normal’ or desirable behaviour. Analyzed in detail in

Chapter Six, expectations about behaviour often are based on stereotypes –

Chapter Seven 299 Political Image-Crafting cognitive typifications of reality that facilitate inferences about individuals based on their social group memberships (e.g., Baron and Byrne 1977; Stangor and

Schaller 1996). Stereotypes also contain a prescriptive element, for assumptions about how a group acts commonly develop into norms about how members of a group should act. In other words, assumptions about group behaviour become normalized, and deviations from the behaviour are seen as anomalous.

An abstract collection of personas – or “social fronts” to use Goffman’s term – already exists in society. We implicitly know what types of behaviour, dress, speech, and ideas are typical of doctors, musicians, and stockbrokers, for example, and there are rules and conventions, largely unspoken, about how each type of person dresses, speaks, and acts. Self-presentation must abide by the implicit rules that define appropriate behaviours for a given social role, particularly since impression management and self-presentation are goal-directed activities. Unsuccessful self-presentation – which flouts the social conventions of acceptable behaviour for a given social role, for example – would contradict the motives of the actor. In electoral campaigns, for instance, a candidate trying to project a ‘family man’ image would likely not wear an earring. Similarly, a candidate trying to give the impression she is an environmentalist would probably not drive a large SUV. Typically, neither of these behaviours is associated with the projected social role or image.

Another constraint on self-presentation is the necessity of spontaneity.

Goffman emphasizes that spontaneity (or the appearance of spontaneity) is key to the ‘performance’, for the ‘actor’ must create a believable persona, one that does

Chapter Seven 300 Political Image-Crafting not appear contrived. This is particularly important, and also especially difficult, in the political realm. The bulk of political communications are carefully rehearsed, such as televised debates, or highly edited, such as candidate campaign advertisements. It is all too easy to appear artificial or phoney, which was

Stockwell Day’s downfall with the Sea-Doo press conference.

7.3 Self-Presentation in Political Communications

Goffman did not discuss how presentation of self applies to politicians. Thus, before examining past research on gender differences in political self- presentations, a few general points about the exigencies of self-presentation in political communication are necessary. People’s experience of politics tends to be confined to mediated sources of information. What this means is that most members of a polity do not observe politicians’ self-presentations directly, that is, in real time, first-hand, in a face-to-face setting. First-hand citizen experiences of politics certainly occur, such as during political rallies, party events, constituency nomination meetings, and house calls from campaigning candidates. Nonetheless, the bulk of politicians’ self-presentations are made through media, such as campaign advertisements, web sites, pamphlets, televised debates, and, of course, news. The fact that self-presentations are mediated introduces a layer of complexity for politicians as well as for political researchers, particularly around issues of control over self-presentation (e.g., van Zoonen 1994, 2005).

Forms of mediated political communication can be divided roughly according to whether or not they are controlled by politicians (Bystrom et al.

Chapter Seven 301 Political Image-Crafting

2004; Just et al. 1996; Kaid and Bystrom 1999; McKinney et al. 2005). Self- presentations in campaign advertisements, pamphlets, press releases, televised debates, and televised addresses to the nation, such as the American president’s

State of the Union address, can be thought of as politician-controlled.3 Teams of people are involved in creating these communications, such as campaign consultants, speechwriters, and production specialists, and politicians rely heavily on professional expertise. Yet, final authority over self-presentation in the above examples resides with the politician. As Nesbit notes, “in the competition between producer and candidate, it is the candidate who ultimately determines what the ingredients of his [or her] videostyle will be” (1988: 28).

Among the forms of mediated self-presentation politicians do not control, the primary example is news.4 Politicians have virtually no control over which events are covered by news media. More importantly, they have no control over how their behaviour and speech is presented in news. Each speech they make, event they attend, or press conference they hold – if covered at all – is inevitably condensed into a news story that is only minutes or, more realistically, seconds in length. Content analysis of the CBC’s televised coverage of the 2000 Canadian federal election campaign revealed that the average length of leaders’ sound bites

– video footage where a politician is shown and heard speaking in his/her own

3 To clarify, self-presentations in televised debates and addresses to the nation can be thought of as politician-controlled only if they are presented in full on television (radio, print, webcast), more or less free of editing. If these types of communication are condensed or edited in any way by an outside party, such as a news outlet, this would take some amount of control over the self-presentation away from the politician. 4 As in other chapters, discussion of news media in the present study focuses primarily on television news. However, many of the points made throughout this section are equally applicable to other news media.

Chapter Seven 302 Political Image-Crafting words with no voice over – is 7.08 seconds (Chapter Four: Table 4.3). The challenge is that for any given speech or press conference – which may be five, ten, or even thirty minutes long – politicians do not know which seven seconds will appear on news. Decisions about which portion of a speech to use as a sound bite or which video footage to use as accompaniment to a journalist voice-over are made in the newsroom with no input from politicians or their staff. Likewise, politicians have no influence over how clips and sound bites are combined to form a news story or how journalists paraphrase their speech. Politicians have no veto over unflattering video footage, and they have no control over the ordering of news stories. They have no input into how a story will be framed, and they have no influence over the tone and content of commentary made by anchors, reporters, and pundits.

Because politicians have little control over news coverage, there is a substantial degree of uncertainty in their impression-management efforts. Self- presenting for news requires a two-step exercise in prediction. Like all social actors, politicians must anticipate how their audiences will perceive them. This step by itself is difficult for politicians, whose political communications are intended typically for large heterogeneous audiences (Kaid and Davidson 1986).

For politicians, there is an added step. Anticipating how audiences will respond to self-presentation is contingent on predicting how news will cover a speech or event. A politician contemplating how audiences will react to a particular style of self-presentation must first predict which events will be chosen as news and, then, how her speech and behaviour will be presented. Therefore, self-presentations are

Chapter Seven 303 Political Image-Crafting tailored for two audiences: the public and newsmakers. Anticipation of how news will cover politicians’ speech and behaviour may be particularly important in the case of televised news. The intimate visual style of televised news masquerades as

‘reality’ for many audiences (Mutz and Reeves 2005), irrespective of the fact that news is a selective projection of the political world. In principle, most people are aware that news is a stylized version of ‘reality’; yet, the seeming realism of televised news tends to discourage questioning whether its take on politics is accurate.

7.4 Women Politician’s Self-Presentations to News Media

To this point, discussion has not considered men and women politicians separately. Irrespective of gender, all politicians pay considerable attention to public persona and must consider how audiences and newsmakers will interpret their speech and behaviour. Differences between men and women politicians, however, rest in how they understand and accomplish these activities. This section examines existing research about how women themselves understand news media treatment of women politicians and, in turn, how these understandings influence women politicians’ self-presentations to news media.

Based on personal experience of their coverage as well as on observations of how other women in the public eye have been covered, many women politicians believe that news media cover them differently than their male colleagues (e.g., Ross 2002; Ross and Sreberny 2000; Tremblay 1999; van

Zoonen 1994, 1998b, 2000a, 2005). Women of all partisan stripes and

Chapter Seven 304 Political Image-Crafting backgrounds generally agree that sex differences in coverage tend not work in women’s favour, on the whole. In addition, past evidence indicates clearly that women’s self-presentations to media are adapted to avoid some of the more prominent pitfalls of media attention, such as newsmakers’ focus on their domestic roles and appearances (Banwart and McKinney 2005; Bystrom and

Miller 1999; Bystrom et al. 2004; Ross 2002). The following discussion is divided thematically according to the issues that seem to be particularly salient for women politicians’ understandings of and relations with media.

7.4a Types of Media

Karen Ross has led the way in subjecting women politicians’ experiences of media to systematic analysis. For her 2002 book, Women, Politics, Media: Uneasy

Relations in Comparative Perspective, Ross interviewed numerous women politicians from the UK, South Africa, and Australia. Among the recurring issues raised by Ross’s interviewees were the advantages and drawbacks of various forms of media. Most of Ross’s interviewees preferred live interviews to pre- recorded news stories, because her interviewees tended to feel that live interviews leave much less room for “creative editing” (2002: 103). At the same time, live interviews – as well as live appearances in debates, press conferences, party events, and press scrums – carry particular risks (Ibid.). All politicians must carefully manoeuvre live appearances. Interviewers can ask difficult questions, and claims made ‘off-the-cuff’ can beleaguer politicians, particularly during

Chapter Seven 305 Political Image-Crafting campaigns. Yet, in some cases, speaking spontaneously seems to be more damaging for women politicians.

Kim Campbell’s experience during the 1993 Canadian federal election campaign is a good example of the dangers of speaking off-the-cuff. Certainly, the Conservatives’ 1993 campaign was less-than-perfect, as Campbell has outlined in detail in her autobiography (1996). Yet, there were several instances throughout the campaign where Campbell’s words were quoted out of context in a way that made for negative media coverage. Early in the campaign, she told reporters “you can’t have a debate on such a key issue as the modernization of social programmes in 47 days,” because “Serious, honest and realistic changes to our social programs require and demand extensive consultations with the provinces and more importantly with every Canadian.” Plainly, her point was that election campaigns are not long enough to discuss complex political issues, and many people likely concur with this sensible view of the nature of in-depth policy debate. A number of media reports put their own spin on Campbell’s remark, portraying her comments as arrogant and elitist. An op-ed piece after the 1993 campaign noted that “until she made her disastrous statement about campaigns not being the place to discuss serious policies, Kim Campbell was in contention to be prime minister.”5 According to Greenspon and Sallot, “the statement convinced others that Ms. Campbell was an arrogant intellectual who felt ordinary voters

5 Edward Greenspon and Jeff Sallot. “How Campbell self-destructed,” The Globe and Mail, October 27, 1993, A1.

Chapter Seven 306 Political Image-Crafting were incapable of informed debate on such issues as the future of social programs.”6

Campbell was dogged frequently in this manner. At the very beginning of the 1993 campaign, Campbell made a statement about employment prospects: “I think realistically all the developed industrialized countries are expecting what I would consider an unacceptable level of unemployment for the next two, three or four years.”7 She continued by noting that she “would like to see, certainly by the turn of the century, a country where unemployment is way down.”8 Across the country, the early- to mid-1990s were marked by a stunning recession that was pegged as the worst economic downtown since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Within this context of economic malaise and knowing that it takes time to tackle a major unemployment problem, Campbell’s remarks were honest and reasonable.

A campaign post-mortem portrayed her comment as cold: “Ms. Campbell was supposed to persuade Canadians who had seen their expectations dashed that she would create new opportunity for them. Instead, she told them not to expect work for the rest of the decade.”9 Another piece claimed that her jobs remark exhibited

“about as much sympathy for job-seekers as a Zurich banker has for overdrafts.”10

Again, Campbell’s comments were portrayed in a simplistic manner and as evidence of her alleged arrogance and elitism.

6 Ibid. 7 “They’re off!” The Gazette, September 9, 1993, A1. See also: “Fur starts flying on central issue: Jobs,” Toronto Star, September 9, 1993, A16. 8 Ibid. 9 Greenspon and Sallot. 10 “Staying the course with Campbell,” The Globe and Mail, September 14, 1993, A1.

Chapter Seven 307 Political Image-Crafting

Interestingly, off-the-cuff remarks made by Chrétien during the 1993 campaign did not attract the same type of negative attention. During the campaign, Liberal leader Jean Chrétien was asked whether he would raise taxes to meet his deficit-reduction target. Chrétien snapped back: “Don’t ask me. I cannot make a budget for three years from now.”11 Several days later, he told reporters,

“Let me win the election and after that, you come and ask me questions about how I run a government.”12 Chrétien’s comments were not interpreted as arrogant or menacing, unlike those of his rival, Kim Campbell. According to the Fraser

Institute’s National Media Archive, “Campbell was portrayed as confused, and often having to explain and re-explain her statements… In contrast, Jean Chrétien was rarely asked to clarify his statements.”13 Imbalances in treatment of Campbell and Chrétien became so evident that journalists themselves remarked on the seeming double standard in media reports, noting “would Tory leader Kim

Campbell be allowed to make such a statement without being accused of arrogance?”14 and

Let’s see if we’ve got this straight. Kim Campbell says something that everyone acknowledges to be true, and it’s a ‘gaffe’. Jean Chrétien vows to do something that everyone knows will accomplish nothing, and it is said to offer ‘hope’.15

11 “Liberal Leader has had it easy,” The Globe and Mail, September 30, 1993, A1. 12 “Quote of the day,” The Globe and Mail, October 8, 1993, A1; “Chretien’s policy is to have no policy,” The Globe and Mail, October 9, 1993, B2. 13 “Election ’93: What role did television play in the outcome?” On Balance 6(9): 3. 14 “Liberals go after ‘protest’ vote,” The Globe and Mail, October 9, 1993, A6. 15 “A gaffe is when you tell the truth,” The Globe and Mail, Sept. 14, 1993, A16.

Chapter Seven 308 Political Image-Crafting

It certainly appears as though Chrétien was given more leeway by the press. His statements were often as vague or as arrogant-sounding as Campbell’s, but journalists did not take him to task in the same way.

Journalists took substantial licence with Kim Campbell’s impromptu comments, and existing research suggests this type of media treatment of women politicians is a more generalized pattern (e.g., Aday and Devitt 2001). Therefore, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that women politicians must attempt to compensate with tailored media strategies. Some of the women Ross (2002) interviewed talked about using politician-controlled communication to supplement a lack of coverage by media or to compensate for unfavourable or gendered coverage. Elizabeth Grace, an Australian MP, and Tersia King, a South

African MP, both talked of writing their own article-type inserts for newspapers, which they financed with their own campaign funds (Ross 2002: 116). As Grace pointed out, this gave the women more control over their self-presentations to citizens:

I’m going to print a newsletter that is an insert in the local paper, so it looks like part of the paper and that’s going to have things about what I’m doing and I’m paying for it, and hopefully, people will read that, as if it was an article, rather than the rubbish or the nonreporting that happens in the rest of the paper (Ibid.).

Grace’s motivation was, first, to attain coverage and, second, to put into the public sphere ideas she felt were not represented in the press. She likely thought that her piece for the newspaper would be more credible if it looked like a conventional news story versus a politician-purchased self-endorsement. The fact that she wanted it to look like a regular news article may also be related to the idea that

Chapter Seven 309 Political Image-Crafting women politicians are less likely to explicitly point out their achievements or take personal credit for their policy work, as evidenced by content analyses of candidate web sites (e.g., Bystrom et al. 2004: 124) and campaign ads (e.g.,

Panagopoulos 2004: 147-148).

Some women politicians may be sceptical about whether tactics such as newspaper inserts would be suitable tools for effective self-presentation. Ross and

Srenberny (2000: 86) aptly point out, “in an era of presentation politics and an apathetic polity, many women feel their constituents only believe they are actually doing their job and representing their interests when they see them ‘live’ on television.” In other words, while using other media such as newspaper inserts may help to counter negative televised coverage, no form of media can substitute for the important role television news plays in impression management.

In terms of the media formats preferred by women office seekers, Ross

(2002) found that several women were positive about the benefits of radio compared to television or print news. With a radio interview, a politician has much more time to make her point, and is therefore less likely to be quoted out of context in a six-second sound bite.16 Because there is no visual aspect, radio also encourages viewers to focus on what women politicians say, as opposed to how they look.17

16 Telephone interview with Kim Campbell. 22 September 2005. 17 Ibid.

Chapter Seven 310 Political Image-Crafting

7.4b Sticking to the Script

Another strategy employed by several of Ross’s interviewees was to stay ‘on message’.18 With respect to interviews, Jeannie Ferris, an Australian MP, stated,

“The best way to ensure that what you want to say comes out, is to say exactly what’s in the press release and go no further” (Ibid.). This strategy could be used to traverse a number of potential media ‘landmines’ including misquotation – as the Kim Campbell examples discussed above illustrate – tricky or irrelevant questions, and politically damaging spontaneous remarks. To be sure, sticking close to the script is a strategy used by some male politicians as well; the extent to which this is true of the male colleagues of Ross’s interviewees is not known, as

Ross did not interview any men for her study. The point remains, however, that staying on message may be a useful strategy for women considering that several of Ross’s interviewees reported feeling bullied by journalists at some time or other.

7.4c Trivialization and Feminine Stereotypes

Part of the reason that women politicians prefer to stay ‘on message’ has to do with the prevalent belief among women that journalists do not treat them as seriously as their male peers. As Ross aptly notes

18 In their book of the same title, Norris and her colleagues offer this explanation of the strategy of staying ‘on message’: “...successful communications depends upon parties fighting professional campaigns with clear objectives which identify target voters, consistent themes and images which touch a chord with their supporters, and coordinated messages across all party publicity. Parties which achieve these aims can be assumed to stay ‘on message’, rather than being deflected by the attacks and counter-attacks of their opponents” (1999: 67).

Chapter Seven 311 Political Image-Crafting

some women who had had experience of the interrogation-style interview believe that presenters will often see women as easy targets for intimidation and bullying, particularly as women have generally had far less match-practice than men and are more likely to follow the rules, unlike the men who, when interrupted, will simply shout more loudly (Ibid.: 103).

An American study based on interviews with Congress members’ press secretaries reports similar findings.19 One press secretary claimed that his

Congressperson is “a woman first to the media, and it’s always as if she was elected to be in some kind of special woman’s seat, like her job is somehow different from that of the men in the delegation” (Niven and Zilber 2001b: 154).

In terms of impression management, many women politicians deliberately keep their families out of the public eye (e.g., van Zoonen 1998b, 2000a, 2005), as discussed in Chapter Four. Relatively rare were the instances in which Alexa

McDonough, Kim Campbell, or Sheila Copps, for instance, attended political events with a significant other or a child in tow. Part of the explanation, of course, is that a large portion of prominent women politicians in Canada – McDonough,

Campbell, Copps, McLaughlin – have been divorced, which is another way that women politicians’ situations tend to differ from those of their male colleagues.

Shielding partners and spouses from media attention is important to women politicians for two key reasons (e.g., van Zoonen 1998b, 2000a). First, many women politicians do not want to jeopardize the privacy and security of their

19 While the authors did not interview women politicians directly, the findings are both valid as well as comparable to other studies that are based on first-hand interviews with politicians themselves. According to the authors, Congressional press secretaries are “the media arm of House offices. Press secretaries not only map out media strategy, they implement it. In fact, more so than the members themselves, it is the press secretaries who have media expertise and experience” (Niven and Zilber 2001b: 151; see also Cook 1989; Miller 1977; Niven and Zilber 2001a).

Chapter Seven 312 Political Image-Crafting families, particularly their children, by exposing them to media scrutiny. Second, keeping family out of the foreground is also meant to discourage news media from using traditional ‘wife’ and ‘mother’ designations in their coverage. Indeed, analyses of news content have consistently shown that women politicians are more likely to be discussed in terms of their marital and parental status (e.g.,

Bystrom, Robertson, and Banwart 2001: 178-179; Kahn 1992 and 1996; Kahn and

Goldberg 1991; Robertson et al. 2002; Muir 2005b). As Carmen Lawrence,20 the first female premier of an Australian state (Western Australia, 1990-1993), noted,

“When I became Premier, all this stuff came out, [using my] first name, wanting images of me shown in domestic situations and references to my family and all that stuff that comes out with women ... you rarely see a man described as Joe

Bloggs, 54, father of three...” (Ross 2002: 87).

In the Canadian setting, it is commonplace to see family members of male politicians. Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin, Brian Mulroney, and others have often brought their wives to political events. In the 2000 Canadian federal election campaign, Joe Clark travelled the country with his daughter, Catherine Clark, who became a focal point of media attention. News reports explicitly claimed that

Catherine’s Clark’s involvement was intended to add youth, beauty, and

20 Carmen Lawrence was first elected to the Western Australia state legislature in 1986, winning for the Australian Labor Party (ALP). In a leadership change in February 1990, Lawrence became Premier of Western Australia and Australia’s first woman Premier, as noted above. Following Labor’s narrow defeat at the 6 February 1993 State election, Lawrence became Western Australia’s first woman Opposition Leader. She also held the positions of Shadow Treasurer and Shadow Minister for Employment and Federal Affairs. Lawrence entered Federal politics through a by-election win in March 1994, following which she was appointed Minister for Human Services and Health and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women. In November, 2003, Lawrence was elected by the first popular ballot of ALP members as President of the Australian Labor Party (2004-2005).

Chapter Seven 313 Political Image-Crafting

“pizzazz” to the PC leader’s campaign tour.21 Quite aside from the fact that Joe

Clark saw no liability in bringing his family into the campaign, media treatment of Catherine Clark was interesting in itself. Reporters automatically assumed that she acted as ‘window dressing’ for Joe Clark’s campaign, despite the fact that she was a public relations specialist for one of the largest such firms in the country,

Hill & Knowlton, and acted as a campaign advisor for her father during the 2000 campaign.

While signifiers of wifehood and motherhood can be problematic because they emphasize the socially-constructed tension between women’s private and public roles, women politicians are also quite conscious of how news portrays any

‘unconventional’ aspects of their domestic situations. Women often confront questions about their sexuality if they are unmarried or unattached, or if they are not regarded as ‘feminine’ in the stereotypical sense of the term. Journalists have hinted about lesbianism in coverage of Audrey McLaughlin, Sheila Copps, and

Deborah Grey (Sharpe 1994: 31-32). So frequent were innuendos about Former

US Attorney General Janet Reno’s sexual orientation in the American press that

Reno insisted to a couple of different news sources, “I am just an awkward old maid with a very great affection for men” (quoted in Jamieson 1995: 73). The wisdom of replying to such rumours, particularly in so candid a manner, is certainly debatable; however, Reno plainly felt that she had to explicitly present

21 See: “Clark's daughter big part of campaign --- Catherine proving to be valuable addition on the Tory election trail,” The Toronto Star, October 26, 2000, 1; “The Catherine factor; Joe Clark's daughter adds pizzazz to the Conservative election campaign,” Kitchener-Waterloo Record, October 26, 2000, A08; “Helping Dad means picking out his tie,” The Toronto Star, October 30, 2000, 1.

Chapter Seven 314 Political Image-Crafting herself to media as a heterosexual woman. Similar remarks about possible lesbianism have been made about New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark

(Labour), despite the fact that she has been married, although without children, for some time.

Divorced women and single mothers face their own challenges – a theme that was first explored in Chapter Four. Divorced women politicians tend to be portrayed as unstable, as in the case of former Conservative Prime Minister Kim

Campbell and Liberal MP Belinda Stronach. Coverage of Stronach’s decision to switch parties – from Conservative to Liberal – in the spring of 2005 repeatedly drew parallels between her inability to commit to one party and her alleged inability to commit to one man. One reporter (a woman) put it bluntly:

A glance at Stronach's romantic history reveals a pattern of allying herself with men who accessorize her interest du jour. In 1990, while taking the elevator up the Magna ladder, she wed Don Walker, a Magna up-and-comer. They had two children and split in 1995. (Stronach replaced Walker as Magna CEO in 2001.) She met Koss in 1999 while in her Olympic-related good-work phase. They married later that year and divorced in 2003, just before politics beckoned, around the time her friendship with Bill Clinton hit the tabloids. MacKay has served his purpose. In what might be his last official boyfriend duty, he was the one to inform Harper of her defection.22

Ensuring coverage also focused intently on her relationship with Conservative MP

Peter MacKay, for the two had been dating for a few months prior to her decision to join the Liberals. Headlines reading “Break with Party Breaks a Heart?”,23

22 “MacKay has served his purpose: In last boyfriend duty, he informed leader of decision,” National Post, May 18, 2005, A5. 23 The Toronto Star, May 18, 2005, A08.

Chapter Seven 315 Political Image-Crafting

“Blue Boyfriend MacKay Spends Day Behind Closed Doors”,24 and “Devastated

MacKay was Last to Know”25 emphasized this very personal aspect of the event over the issue of her qualifications for her new Cabinet position.

Even women with more ‘conventional’ domestic lives have faced criticism, as evidenced by coverage of women who opted to keep their maiden names, such as Maureen McTeer, who ran for the Progressive Conservatives in the 1988 Canadian federal election, and former US presidential candidate

Geraldine Ferraro (Democrat) (Jamieson 1995: 166). McTeer, the wife of former

Prime Minister Joe Clark, caused a tremendous stir, as she was the only Prime

Minister’s wife to have kept her own name. For McTeer, it was a personal decision in line with her feminist values (McTeer 2004); for media and pundits, it signified her lack of deference to her husband. The title of McTeer’s autobiography, In My Own Name (2004), illustrates the extent to which her public life has revolved around her surname (or, more accurately, the deeper issues associated with a married woman’s surname).

Niven and Zilber’s analysis (2001) of how Congressional press secretaries approach media relations highlights clearly the extent to which media problematize women in ‘non-traditional’ domestic situations. One press secretary to a female member of Congress relayed a particularly telling story:

Our opponent in the last campaign was a man running on family values. He portrayed himself with his granddaughter as the paragon of what a family man should be. We had reason to believe he was not what he seemed, and eventually he admitted his “granddaughter” was in fact his out-of-wedlock biological

24 Montreal Gazette, May 18, 2005, A1. 25 Calgary Herald, May 18, 2005, A5.

Chapter Seven 316 Political Image-Crafting

daughter, who he had never acknowledged as his own, or even admitted to his affair with her mother. We expected to have a field day with this to really tear him apart for his hypocrisy. Instead, the media turned right back at us, and basically said, well your candidate is a single mother, so it’s really the same thing (Ibid.: 155).

The press secretary (and presumably the Congresswoman she represented) was taken aback that a journalist would equate the man’s rather scandalous background with a woman’s single parenthood. In addition, the press secretary and the Congresswoman may have also been frustrated that they would not be able to use the male opponent’s questionable decisions against him during the campaign.

Tactical manoeuvrings to prevent references to their gendered identities is not confined to avoidance of ‘wife’ and ‘mother’ references. Some women politicians also strategize to avoid sexualized coverage (see Chapter Two). It is easy to see how this can become a ‘catch-22’. As the classic ‘Madonna/whore’ dichotomy goes, if a woman is not viewed as a wife/mother, the traditional alternative is to regard her as a sexualized object whose main value is aesthetic.

Robinson and Saint-Jean’s work on Canadian women politicians echoes the classic ‘Madonna/whore’ duality, except they refer instead to “spinster” versus

“woman of easy virtue” labels (1991 and 1996). Whatever labels are applied, a woman can never be both, because the two options are poles apart; yet, it is impossible to be neither. In addition to conventional feminine stereotypes, visible minority women face additional stereotypes related to race, according to press secretaries for African-American members of the US Congress (Niven and Zilber

Chapter Seven 317 Political Image-Crafting

2001). Projecting an image of a professional, serious politician – who also happens to be a woman, wife, mother, African-American, and/or attractive

‘knockout’ – is a delicate exercise. As British MP Hilary Armstrong stated to

Ross and Sreberny “[Media] have a long way to go before they treat us as people with views who happen to be female and are happy being female” (2000: 89).

For women politicians, avoiding stereotyped coverage is further problematized by the rise of “celebrity politics” (van Zoonen 1998b, 2000a, 2005,

2006; see also Corner and Pels 2003; Jones 2005; Muir 2005a; Street 2003), a phenomenon Ross and Sreberny call “the tyranny of telegeneity” (2000: 88). As politics intersects with and increasingly imitates entertainment – a phenomenon that stems from the popularization and personalization of politics (van Zoonen

2005, 2006) – women politicians’ interactions with media have become fraught with strategic dilemmas. The personal and political lives of politicians are increasingly intertwined, forming “a hybrid political persona” (van Zoonen 2006:

299). For women, however, the confluence of the personal and the political highlights “their non-standard gender choices” of “public mission instead of private fulfillment” (Ibid.; see also Muir 2005b, van Zoonen 1998b, 2000a, 2005).

At the same time, female celebrity is historically associated with glamour, sexuality, and “hyper-femininity” (van Zoonen 2006: 296), characteristics not associated with politics or the ideal politician (e.g., Huddy 1994; Huddy and

Terkildsen 1993a, 1993b). Consequently, “female heads of state and female politicians in general, more extremely than before, are ‘others’ to dominant

Chapter Seven 318 Political Image-Crafting images of femininity while remaining ‘others’ in the political sphere, due to their minority position” (Ibid.).

With both the spinster/Madonna and whore/woman-of-easy-virtue stereotypes, media coverage tends to focus on women’s physique and dress. Dawn

Primarolo, a British MP interviewed by Ross and Sreberny (2000: 87), had this to say:

I don’t know whether it is deliberate or it’s so ingrained, but a woman’s appearance is always commented on. That never happens to male politicians, ever, unless they have made a particular point about their style, but then they are presented as extreme, exceptions that prove the rule. Women are never the right age. We’re too young, we’re too old. We’re too thin, we’re too fat. We wear too much make-up, we don’t wear enough. We’re too flashy in our dress, we don’t take enough care. There isn’t a thing we can do that’s right.

Virtually all of the women interviewed for Ross’s (2002) and Ross and Sreberny’s

(2000) analyses expressed some feeling from annoyance to anger to exasperation that their age, weight, and dress were considered worthy of news coverage. This type of coverage can trivialize women politicians, because the underlying message (whether intentional or not) is that women are different. They are not

‘regular’ politicians, but special ‘women’ politicians. The focus on physical appearances sends not-so-subtle messages that women are visual (and sexual) objects first. With frequent references to her blonde hair and her fashion-forward wardrobe, media treatment of Canadian Liberal MP Belinda Stronach provides a fitting illustration of sexualized coverage (Trimble 2005, 2006).

Male politicians do not escape media commentary on their appearances, for they must contend with the requirements of “celebrity politics” as well (van

Chapter Seven 319 Political Image-Crafting

Zoonen 2005, 2006), a point made early in the dissertation (Chapter Two).

Clothes, body, hair, mannerisms, and other aspects of physical attractiveness are important for all public figures, particularly since the rise of television has placed a premium on the visual aspect of political communication. Liberal leader Jean

Chrétien’s wardrobe made headlines during the 1993 campaign when he started going out on the hustings in a denim shirt. Amid fears that Chrétien would look like “yesterday’s man”, particularly next to PC leader Kim Campbell, Chrétien’s communications director at the time, Peter Donolo, said that the shirt “makes him look contemporary and rugged at the same time”26. Media dubbed Chrétien the

“Marlboro Man”.27 Another article suggested that the denim shirt was intended to juxtapose Chrétien’s masculinity with Campbell’s femininity, because ‘The

Shirt’, as it was called, was the kind of attire that “that even a logger wouldn't find wimpy”.28 Presumably, the point in emphasizing maleness, in this case, was to link Chrétien with leadership, assertion, and competence, all stereotypically- masculine traits. Former Reform party leader Preston Manning’s ‘geek chic’, former US President Bill Clinton’s weight, and current Canadian Prime Minister

Stephen Harper’s weight have also been emphasized by media. Yet, the consequences are likely different for male politicians. As outlined in Chapter

Two, commentary on the clothes, appearances, or personal lives of male politicians does not automatically tie in to their gender. Coverage of personal

26 “The shirt 'takes years off Chretien',” Toronto Star, September 8, 1993, A14. 27 Ibid. See also: “Television ads confront Chretien’s negative image head on,” The Globe and Mail, September 27, 1993, A6. 28 “Gender-bender signals emanate from party leaders,” Toronto Star, September 10, 1993, A25.

Chapter Seven 320 Political Image-Crafting appearance has different and potentially more damaging implications for women than it does for men, a point Naomi Wolf makes quite forcefully in The Beauty

Myth (1997). Men are rarely cast as either brainy or beautiful, unlike women, because our collective beliefs assume no disjuncture between male sex appeal and male competence. Women, on the other hand, must contend with the legacy of the mind/body, reason/emotion, male/female dualities that implicitly cast doubt on the credibility of women in stereotypically-masculine roles.

Interestingly, some women politicians have played up their femininity and attractiveness, just as Chrétien emphasized masculinity and vitality in ‘The Shirt’ during the 1993 campaign. The now-famous photograph of a bare-shouldered

Kim Campbell holding her Minister of Justice robe in front of her is a perfect example.29 Shot in 1990, the playful image was intended to imply that Campbell was nude behind the robe. Two years later, when the portrait was shown in

Ottawa, it caused a media stir. According to Campbell’s autobiography (1996:

232), the British press called her “The Madonna of Canada”. Originally,

Campbell had not planned to say anything about the portrait or its news coverage,

29 At the time of the photograph, Campbell was Minister of Justice and Attorney General in the Conservative government headed by Brian Mulroney. The photograph was taken by Barbara Woodley for Woodley’s book, Portraits: Canadian Women in Focus (1992). According to an interview with Woodley in BC Bookworld, “She had wanted to wear her Minister of Justice robe, which at that time—in 1990—she had just received. She had brought the robe with her. It was on a hanger with the cellophane from the dry cleaners. I had explained to her that I couldn't take that photo because I'd already taken a picture of Supreme Court Justice Beverley McLachlin wearing her robe. As I was setting up, I saw the robe on the hanger with the plastic around it. I thought perhaps she could hold the robe in font of her. The bare shoulders was entirely my idea. She agreed to it because she has some artistic sense. She knew having a blue blazer and pearls and a scarf behind a black robe wouldn't work. It would take away the simplicity and strength of the robe. We both wanted to create a strong simple portrait emphasizing the robe in front and the woman behind it. Getting the robe into the picture was what was most important to her all along. That’s exactly how the photo came about. Kim Campbell never even saw the photo until it was exhibited publicly in Vancouver in 1990.” See: http://www.abcbookworld.com/?state=view_author&author_id=5991.

Chapter Seven 321 Political Image-Crafting but she reports telling the press, “the difference between me and Madonna [is] the difference ‘between a strapless evening gown and a gownless evening strap’”

(Ibid.). More recently, Liberal MP Belinda Stronach has also emphasized an ultra- feminine public image (Trimble 2005, 2006).

At other points, however, Campbell downplayed her attractiveness and desirability with a self-deprecating sense of humour. During her bid for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party , Campbell told party members at an evening event that few people would be interested in reading a memoir of her stint as Justice Minister, the title of which, she quipped, should be called “Sex and the Single Justice Minister” (National Film Board of Canada 2000).

Throughout 1993, Campbell made several references to an uneventful love life and the loneliness of Ottawa. In the summer of 1993, she told a gathering of people in Nova Scotia that “the Highland fling is the only fling she has time for these days”.30 Her weight was another issue Campbell joked about. Referring to the bare-shouldered photograph, Campbell said “I was fat when they took that picture … The only part of me that looks good when I’m fat is my shoulders.”31 In fact, it got to the point where journalists started to get annoyed by her focus on her looks and body: “sometimes it seemed you couldn’t shut her up about it: her sex life … the size of her bum.”32

30 “Kim Factor triumphs in the battle of the barbecues,” The Globe and Mail, August 21, 1993, D1. 31 “Campbell hews to line: Jokes, but no hokum.” The Globe and Mail, September 11, 1993, A6. 32 “Fill in the blanks,” The Globe and Mail, September 25, 1993, D6.

Chapter Seven 322 Political Image-Crafting

Why would women politicians draw attention to their gendered identities in these ways? Why overtly display one’s sexuality to media? Why draw attention to one’s love life or bodily insecurities? Are these strategies not obviously perilous for women politicians, or do they have a different point of view? From the female politician’s standpoint, these strategies may be perfectly rational. Self- deprecating humour can be used to diffuse media attention. Knowing that media would inevitably emphasize her purportedly ‘unstable’ private life as well as her weight, perhaps Campbell felt that by drawing attention to these factors herself, media would lose interest or be discouraged from asking questions about these topics. If the media are going to criticize your weight, hair, clothes, or romantic life anyway, women can beat journalists to ‘the punch’, thereby decreasing the news value of such coverage. Joking about one’s weight or romantic life may have the added benefit of making women politicians appear humourous and down-to-earth.

Self-deprecation may also be used to combat the so-called “beauty is beastly” effect (e.g., Heilman and Saruwatari 1979; Heilman and Stopeck 1985;

Lewis and Bierly 1990; Sigelman et al. 1986; Spencer and Taylor 1988). Beauty is widely regarded as a heuristic in the physical attractiveness bias literature. We regularly make inferences about people’s traits based on whether they are attractive or not. Debate hinges, however, on whether beauty is beneficial or a detrimental (e.g., Hitchon and Chang 1995; Lewis and Bierly 1990; Sigelman et al. 1986). In general, much of the evidence weighs in on the ‘beauty is good’ conclusion (e.g., Eagly, Ashmore, Makhijani, and Longo 1991; Marlowe,

Chapter Seven 323 Political Image-Crafting

Schneider, and Nelson 1996). Most studies focus on the labour market, and conclude that attractive people fare better in decisions about hiring, salary, and promotion. From a gender perspective, however, beauty can be a liability for women. While physical attractiveness leads to the attribution of more desirable traits, it also intensifies perceptions of masculinity in men and femininity in women (e.g., Heilman and Saruwatari 1979; Heilman and Stopeck 1985).

Therefore, because beautiful women are seen as highly feminine, they can be perceived as less suited for ‘masculine’ roles. Empirical evidence for this gendered “beauty is beastly” effect is somewhat dated (e.g., Heilman and

Saruwatari 1979). For the purposes of this chapter, the important point is that women politicians may believe that beauty is detrimental to their public personas, thereby using self-deprecation and other tactics to play down their appearances when dealing with media.

In addition to humour and self-deprecation, there are other options for dealing with media’s tendency to make gender the primary focus of women politicians’ coverage. Expert advice is available for women politicians. In 1992,

Campaigns & Elections, an American periodical aimed at professionals in the political marketing industry, published an article discussing tactics for avoiding gendered media coverage (Jahnke 1992). Written by a media trainer/public speaking coach, the article offers several pieces of advice for women politicians and their advisors. Jahnke (1992) advises women to prepare for “inane, condescending questions”, such as “Has your husband given you permission to run?” (Ibid.: 41). Women are instructed to respond with something like: “My

Chapter Seven 324 Political Image-Crafting husband supports me now, just as he has supported me for the 14 years I’ve served as [blank]” (Ibid.: 42). Likely, the question would be offensive to many women. Yet, in the context of a campaign, it may be unwise to get indignant in front of a news camera, particularly because a woman who does so runs the risk of being portrayed as preachy or shrill. As Fox’s (1997) study highlights, candidates and their advisors feel little choice but to respond to gender issues when they arise. Jahnke’s suggestion is to address the question quickly and civilly while at the same time reminding the journalist and voters that the woman has been in politics for years. In this sense, Jahnke’s answer is a more subtle way to make the point that questions about women’s spouses are irrelevant, and it is also a bonus that Jahnke’s answer highlights for the audience the woman politician’s past political service. Thus, while women often feel forced to respond to gendered questions, the trick is to guide the focus back to their own campaigns, political service, or issue positions with a quick but polite response.

The Campaigns & Elections article also addresses the pitfalls of emotional displays. Women are advised to be careful in showing emotion, because what may seem sensitive and compassionate for a man may seem weak for a woman. To illustrate the point, Jahnke provides the following example:

In 1988, Rep. Patricia Schroeder ... cried as she announced the end of her exploratory bid for president. Her tears were interpreted by the media as a sign of weakness. More recently, President George Bush shed tears over the Persian Gulf War. The media not only accepted his watershed, but said it was good for his public image (Ibid.: 42).

Chapter Seven 325 Political Image-Crafting

In practical terms, the author instructs women office seekers not to “...wave your arms or frown deeply or jerk your head unless – if you’re a woman – you want to be called shrill” (Ibid.: 42). Such behaviours are also interpreted as ‘hysterical’ or

‘emotional’, the latter often being a negative adjective when attached to women.

Certainly, it is not always true that male emotion is praised while female emotion is criticized. Sometimes public displays of emotion create political liabilities for male politicians. Self-disclosure of emotion can be interpreted as more natural and acceptable from female politicians due to traditional feminine stereotypes (e.g., Jamieson 1995). Former US Vice-Presidential candidate

Edmund Muskie’s behaviour during the 1972 Democratic Presidential

Nomination contest is an apt illustration of these claims. Early in the 1972 campaign, Muskie was the candidate favoured to win the nomination. During the

New Hampshire primary, a New Hampshire newspaper published negative remarks about Muskie’s wife. Responding to the article’s claims, Muskie choked with anger and seemed to cry (Kendall 2000). Similar to unfavourable coverage of

Patricia Shroeder’s tears, reports in the press claimed that Muskie had ‘broken down’ and implied that he was weak (e.g., White 1973). Muskie lost the

Democratic nomination to South Dakota Senator George McGovern, and the crying incident is widely thought to have fatally damaged Muskie’s campaign.33

More recently, Muskie’s emotional display has been compared to Howard Dean’s

33 See for example, “1972: Nixon’s last campaign,” Manchester Union-Leader, November 1, 2004. Ironically, this is the newspaper that provoked the crying incident with its comments about Muskie’s wife, Jane. See also, “Media frenzies in our time,” Washington Post, March 27, 1998; “FBI finds Nixon aides sabotaged democrats,” Washington Post, October 10, 1972; “One man’s primary – and how he lost,” The New York Times, May 21, 1972.

Chapter Seven 326 Political Image-Crafting behaviour in the 2004 Democratic Presidential nomination campaign.34 By fall

2003, Dean was seen as the front-runner for the nomination, but placed third in the Iowa Democratic Caucuses (after Senator John Kerry and former Senator John

Edwards). During his concession speech, Dean was red-faced, his fists were clenched, and at one point during the speech, he appeared to scream into the microphone. Media interpreted the scream as an example of volatile and

‘unpresidential’ behaviour.35 The conclusion is that while limited displays of emotion may be positive for male candidates – making them seem compassionate or approachable – for both sexes, “emotion…must be controlled... Remember they are watching you at home in their kitchens, bedrooms, and living rooms”

(Jahnke 1992: 42). Over-emoting is not beneficial for either men or women politicians, because it may be interpreted as a sign of instability, weakness, or a lack of self-restraint.

7.4d Relationships with Journalists

To combat some of the particular challenges women politicians face in attaining fair coverage, Jahnke’s article in Campaigns & Elections advises women politicians to focus heavily on developing strong relationships with journalists

34 See for example, “From Muskie’s tears to Dean’s screams,” Forum 37(1); “Democratic tantrums in N.H.,” Boston Globe, August 22, 2006; “Is it Muskie’s tears all over again? Dean exhortation in Iowa,” The Oakland Tribune, January 22, 2004. 35 See for example, “The Dean disappointment,” The Wall Street Journal, January 8, 2004; “N.H. may be the perfect place for Dean’s modesty makeover,” USA Today January 22, 2004; “Not too shabby,” American Journalism Review, April/May 2004; “Role of a lifetime,” Boston Globe, September 12, 2004; “Presidential candidates wear hearts on sleeves: Dean, Kerry, Clark don’t hide their feelings,” The Record, November 28, 2003; “Whoops, oops, and the state of the political slip,” The New York Times, January 25, 2004; “Emotions now rule the political world,” Associated Press, November 19, 2003.

Chapter Seven 327 Political Image-Crafting

(1992). The article claims “the first step in removing gender as an issue or even as a means of description is to establish rapport with key political reporters and commentators” (Ibid.: 41). Relationships with individual journalists and the ‘press pack’ as a whole were raised repeatedly in the interviews conducted by Ross

(2002) and Ross and Sreberny (2000), as well as by the author’s Canadian interviewees, as following sections of the chapter discuss in considerable detail.

In terms of media relations, two broad themes are particularly common: women politicians’ discomfort with traditional news culture and wariness toward women journalists. The culture of professional journalism is male-dominated, as

Chapter Five illustrated. In fact, women journalists themselves sometimes express discomfort in a profession whose atmosphere has been variously described as a

“pub and club culture” (Smith 1976), “old boy network” (Chambers, Steiner, and

Fleming 2004: 98), and “male ordered culture” (Ross 2001). Likewise, women politicians can also feel out-of-place among journalists. In both the UK and

Canada, information exchange between politicians and journalists takes place in the lobby of the House of Commons on a near-daily basis. After politicians complete House business and emerge into the lobby, journalists wait to be “picked up” by politicians for short question-and-answer sessions (Ross 2002: 114).

British MP Fiona Mactaggart had distinct views on the difficulties of relating to journalists in this setting, asserting that “the awful thing about the lobby journalists is that they have to hang around like tarts and I don’t think that men have the same views that women have, about standing around in the lobby waiting for the pick up” (Ibid.: 116). Moreover, Mactaggart also said that “one of the

Chapter Seven 328 Political Image-Crafting reasons why women MPs don’t have great relationships with the lobby is because the places in which most of those relationships are nurtured are horrible places for women to be, smoky bars” (Ibid.). This echoes women journalists’ discomfort with the traditional pub-and-club culture of their profession.

Views about dealing with women journalists tend to vary. Some of Ross and Sreberny’s interviewees claimed that women journalists are fairer to women politicians or that they are more comfortable dealing with journalists of the same sex. However, on the whole, the attitudes of women politicians toward women journalists tended to range from wariness to outward disdain. According to British

MP Angela Eagle, “they always get women to write nastily about women, and I think they do it deliberately so we can’t complain that it’s sexism from a man”

(Ross 2002: 108). This is an interesting perspective on how stories are assigned. A more likely explanation is that women journalists face considerable pressure to conform to standard journalistic modes of writing, which is both adversarial toward politics and masculine in style. In addition, because they work in a male- dominated environment that often has a backroom old-boys club atmosphere, women journalists can be more harsh in their journalistic style in order to “prove their professional mettle”, as Ross herself points out (Ibid.: 108; see also Gidengil and Everitt 2003b).

Another theme highlighted by Ross’s interviewees is the feeling that women journalists are used to “...disarm interviewees and thus encourage them to disclose more than they want....” (2002: 108) There is a perception among some women politicians that feelings of comfort working with journalists of the same

Chapter Seven 329 Political Image-Crafting sex can backfire, because the women politicians let their guards down and reveal more than they would to a male journalist.

7.4e The Silver Lining

The picture is not altogether bleak for women politicians. From time to time, being a woman provides an advantage, particularly in terms of quantity of coverage. This was the case for several of Ross and Sreberny’s (2000) British interviewees. Consider, for example, the challenges backbenchers confront in attracting media interest. Ministers and other senior MPs are newsworthy practically by definition. Most MPs have no such easy access to coverage, particularly in national media. In Ross and Sreberny’s interviews (2000: 86), several women “pointed out that backbench invisibility is slightly less of a problem for women MPs, because of their novelty value” (see also: Jamieson

1995: 210). Of course, women politicians do not want to be framed specifically as novelties or outsiders, which may connote a lack of fitness for the role. Thus, even this small advantage enjoyed by women politicians carries a risk.

In general, women politicians clearly feel that media hamper their self- presentations to audiences and constituents. Moreover, past research provides firm evidence that women tailor their media tactics to avoid or, at the very least, minimize the impact of what they regard as imbalanced media treatment. Past research has been revealing in this respect, but significant gaps remain. First, among the rare in-depth studies of women politicians’ understandings of media, there has been very little effort to investigate the views of male politicians. The

Chapter Seven 330 Political Image-Crafting ability to compare men and women’s understandings of and strategies for dealing with media would permit clearer conclusions about the extent to which women’s experience is different. The second gap is spatial, for there is a dearth of literature on the Canadian setting. The following sections help to bridge both of these gaps.

Many of the themes emphasized by Canadian women politicians parallel those of their Australian, British, South African, and American counterparts. At the same time, several new themes, as well as differing perspectives on familiar themes, arose through the course of the author’s first-hand qualitative research.

7.5 Canadian Politicians Speak

Many of the experiences and attitudes revealed through the course of the interviews36 echo past research, which is unsurprising since scholarly research has established quite firmly that gendered coverage of women politicians is a cross- national phenomenon. Ross (2002) and Ross and Sreberny’s (2000) research was conducted with politicians in other Westminster systems, so the institutional configuration as well as some of the cultural influences are similar in the

Canadian setting compared with Britain and Australia, though to a much lesser extent, South Africa.

The natural starting point for this analysis is the extent to which Canadian women MPs talked about gender issues in relation to media at all. As outlined in

Chapter Three, interviewees were not informed that the topic of study is gendered aspects of political communication, nor were any questions/topics related

36 For a full discussion of the mechanics of the interviewing process, see Chapter Three, section “3.1d Semi-Structured Personal Interviews”.

Chapter Seven 331 Political Image-Crafting explicitly to gender included in the interview guide that was sent prior to each meeting. Of the 18 female interviewees, 12 talked spontaneously about how being a woman had influenced (either for good or for bad) their experience of news media and the coverage. The six other women did not raise any type of gender issue on their own. When asked at the end of their respective interviews whether gender played a role their news coverage, these six women responded affirmatively, and most gave short examples of how they had felt being a woman had either hindered or helped their coverage or media strategies.

7.5a Types of Media

Similar to work done by Ross (2002) and Ross and Sreberny (2000), several

Canadian politicians had distinct views on how the different media formats affect their coverage. Former Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Kim Campbell was unequivocal in her preference for print and radio over televised media.37 She said that “TV is difficult, because they take a five-second sound bite and end up presenting none of your points and often you are presented out of context.” Earlier sections of the chapter talked in detail about the difficulties Campbell had with her comments being distorted in news reports, particularly the election-is-no-time- to-talk-issues comment and the jobs comment. It is clear that Campbell is sensitive to being misrepresented in news. In fact, she even noted that “Chrétien was repeatedly let off the hook with off-the-cuff comments and blunders….”, and then explicitly commented that “this is a gender thing”.

37 Telephone interview with Kim Campbell. 22 September 2005.

Chapter Seven 332 Political Image-Crafting

Media format preferences are not just a function of gender. This is not the whole story. Certainly, given Campbell’s autobiography, Time and Chance, and her personal discussion with me, not only was Campbell annoyed at media’s tendency to take her speech out of context, she was at times uncomfortable with the media’s focus on her clothes and weight during her political career, and highly visual media certainly do emphasize physical appearance. However, there were other factors at play. As Campbell continued with her reasons for preferring print and radio over television media, she also noted explicitly that “this may be an age thing”. With this comment, it is clear that gender is not the only factor affecting politicians’ preferred media formats. I suspect that her comment about generational differences in media format preferences were also a function of the age gap between the interviewer (me) and the interviewee (her). In Campbell’s opinion, “radio is the best of all, because you can talk and get your points out, and people can hear the tone, pitch, and variety in your voice, but without the distraction of the visuals.” Campbell talked in detail about how distracting television is as a medium, because of its fast pace and its focus on the visual, which she felt detracted from politicians’ messages, which are sometimes complex and require fairly rapt attention.

The idea that Campbell’s preference for print and radio is an “age thing” may in fact be bolstered by Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer’s insight into the matter. In our interview, Jaffer’s unambiguous position on the best type of news coverage was that “TV is key”.38 He also said that “A second best is a print story

38 Personal Interview with Rahim Jaffer. 21 February 2005.

Chapter Seven 333 Political Image-Crafting with a picture accompanying it, preferably in color.” At 33 years old at the time of our interview, Jaffer was one of the youngest MPs in the House of Commons.39

Having grown up in the era of personalized “candidate-centred” politics

(Wattenberg 1995), Jaffer is comfortable with highly “distracting” (in Campbell’s words) and highly visual media. The value Jaffer placed on visual depictions also extends to print media, given that he qualifies print media’s second-best status by saying that a print story must have a picture to accompany it, and ideally a picture that is printed in coloured ink.40

The idea that TV was the best media was relatively common. Most of the

MPs expressed this opinion. In fact, one Conservative female MP said that getting on the local or, less often, national television news, typically by asking an oral question during Question Period, was “by far” the best way for her constituents to see her in Ottawa doing her job. Incidentally, this female MP was one of the interviewees who subscribed to the attitude that ‘there’s no such thing as bad publicity’. She was clearly motivated to be very visible to the public, in part because she wanted to make sure she was visible to her constituents.

The views former NDP leader Ed Broadbent, another male politician, diverged from Jaffer’s and were more in line with Campbell’s comments, despite

39 In fact, when he was first elected in the 1997 Canadian federal election, Jaffer was “at the tender age of 25”, as his online biography notes. See: http://www.rahimjaffer.com/default.asp?id=68&menuID=68 40 As a brief aside, Jaffer did not mention radio media at all, perhaps because of a short- lived scandal in 2001 whereby one of his parliamentary assistants impersonated him on the radio. The story in the media following the incident was that Jaffer had been double-booked; thus, his assistant, Matthew Johnston, stepped in to take Jaffer’s place on a talk-radio call-in show at a Vancouver radio station. Unfortunately, Jaffer initially lied and said that he had done the interview himself, but then later admitted that his assistant had done the interview. See: “The great Rahim Jaffer phone-in hoax.” The National Post, March 21, 2001.

Chapter Seven 334 Political Image-Crafting the fact that both Broadbent and Jaffer are men and, at the time of their interviews, neither had served on the government side of the House. Broadbent noted that he used to far prefer print news to any other format, but then proceeded to discuss his uncertainty about where he stood currently given the declining standards of print news in Canada over the past three or four decades.41 Broadbent noted that “the size of the Globe and Mail bureau in Ottawa has declined by about half over the last two decades.” He continued by explaining that

papers have fewer specialist experts these days. For example, some papers used to have a labour columnist. So, not only is there less political news as opposed to other types of news, but there is less substantive news in terms of experts and expert analysis.

In Broadbent’s opinion, the job of reporters has changed: “theses days reporters will be doing a story on politics one day and a story on genetically modified foods the next day. Reporters are all generalists, not specialists like they maybe used to be.” Arguably, if there is a generational difference in media format preferences, as

Kim Campbell claimed, Broadbent is part of this “age thing”.

What can be gleaned from these conversations with MPs? First, there was clearly a gender angle that figured in preferences for different types of media, as

Kim Campbell’s comments illustrate. However, there were other considerations as well that influence whether MPs favour print over television, or vice versa.

Generation appears to have been a significant influence in this regard. Older interviewees suggested that television was not the preferred source of media coverage. In Broadbent’s case, he seemed to prefer print media in the past, when print journalists were more focussed on areas of expertise and papers had larger

41 Personal Interview with Ed Broadbent. 24 February 2005.

Chapter Seven 335 Political Image-Crafting numbers of reporters in Ottawa. As an NDP leader and MP, Broadbent particularly liked the fact that there was some expertise in reporting on labour issues in newspapers in the past. Finally, past experience with different types of media formats also seemed to play a role in politicians’ preferences. Campbell had a history of being critiqued on her dress and general physical appearances during her time in federal politics, as well as being misquoted in newspapers and television news. Thus, Campbell’s preference for radio interviews was motivated by the longer amount of time this format gave her for articulating complex points.

In addition, Jaffer did not mention radio news or interviews at all, and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this was due, in part, to the (relatively minor) scandal that arose when one of his assistants conducted a radio interview pretending to be Jaffer.

7.5b Media Focus on Appearances

Moving beyond issues of visibility and the preferred types of media coverage, in terms of gender-specific news coverage, the most common theme raised by female interviewees was the extent to which news focuses on their looks and their personal lives. However, several of the women noted that print media, not televised news, were the worst offenders in this respect. One of the reasons why this is the case, although none of the women identified this as a factor, may be the fact that televised news is much shorter in content than newspapers. Discounting the time used for opening credits, commercials, and closing credits, the average

Chapter Seven 336 Political Image-Crafting televised newscast is really quite short. This is why newspapers are often said to produce more in-depth coverage than televised news.

In specific terms, women complained about news focus on their dress and on their weight. Alexa McDonough, former NDP leader and opposition MP at the time of interview, recounted an anecdote harking back to the beginning of her time in Ottawa.42 She was at home one morning, and an aide called excitedly to tell McDonough about a big story she had gotten in the Ottawa Citizen.

McDonough went to get the paper, and at first glance, she was very pleased to see a large picture of herself next to the headline. She explained that politicians are always happy to get any media coverage, particularly opposition leaders, but that having a large picture in the paper to accompany a story is considered a ‘big score’. She said it is always important to get as much visibility as possible, not only for constituents but also to increase one’s reputation and credibility with other politicians. McDonough’s satisfaction with the story, however, did not last.

The first section of the story was about an event she had attended two evenings previous. The story went on to say that she had worn the same dress to two different events in one week, and concluded by speculating that perhaps she had not had time to go to the drycleaner. McDonough was quick to point out that this was not an op-ed piece or a column, which often contain informal or humour- injected writing. This was a legitimate news article.

42 Personal interview with Alexa McDonough. 25 February 2005. McDonough resigned as NDP leader in 2003, and was replaced by former Toronto city councillor Jack Layton. McDonough is currently an NDP MP.

Chapter Seven 337 Political Image-Crafting

At the time, McDonough was angered by the story. With the passing of years, she said that it became “par for the course”. While superfluous commentary on dress and looks did not happen all the time, she said that it happened to her and other women with sufficient frequency that one could never discount it as a possibility. She said that this was one of the reasons why she started wearing the colour orange regularly. If reporters were going to write about her outfits, it could at least result in some publicity and relevant political commentary about her partisan affiliation, since orange is the NDP’s colour. One Liberal woman made a similar comment about how the media always notice what women wear, even if they do not specifically talk about it in news stories, so for her, wearing red seemed like a good way to emphasize her connection to the Liberal Party. These are specific examples where women talked about making gendered coverage work in their favour. More accurately, dressing in party colours in anticipation that media ‘naturally’ notice what women are wearing is a way to make the most of a sub-optimal situation.

For McDonough, the sheer ridiculousness of writing about women’s physical appearance and dress became clear when she considered the lack of coverage about men’s looks. Referring explicitly to the Ottawa Citizen story, she rhetorically asked how many men in Parliament do not wear the same suit twice in one week? Could you imagine a story, she continued, with the following headline “Jean Chrétien wears same suit twice in one week”? “No man has ten suits,” she said, “and no one expects them to, but a woman is supposed to have a closet full of clothes.” Audrey McLaughlin, McDonough’s predecessor as NDP

Chapter Seven 338 Political Image-Crafting leader, recounts a similar story in her autobiography. McLaughlin recalls an event where two PC women Ministers went to an event wearing the same outfit, causing a minor media stir. “Whatever for?” asks McLaughlin “The papers could as easily have run the following headline: ‘Two Hundred and Fifty Male MPs Appear in

Commons Wearing Same Dark Blue Suit’” (1992: 92).

7.5c Media Focus on Visible Minority Status

Visible minority women face unique dilemmas, as their sex intersects with their ethnicity, provoking further anticipation that media will focus on their appearance, in this case highlighting their minority status as well as their gender.

A growing body of literature highlights the sexist and racist aspects of news (e.g.,

Carter, Branston, and Allen 1998; Law 2002). Work on media representations of

Black women contends that “sexualized and servile images of Black women are widely disseminated in popular culture” (Lawson 2002 :199), regardless of the fact that “racist discourse is increasingly coded with more ‘acceptable’ signifiers of difference” (Ibid.: 203).

In her autobiography, Rosemary Brown shares a glimpse of the way she thought about her media coverage during her political career. Referring specifically to her bid for the national NDP leadership in 1975, Brown has this to say:

I believe that [reporters] hoped I would win so that they could conduct endless research on ‘the impact of a Black female immigrant socialist on the political landscape of Canada,’ and they hoped that I would lose to demonstrate the accuracy of their political forecasting. I imagine that even as wild and bizarre

Chapter Seven 339 Political Image-Crafting

headlines were zipping through their heads – ‘White Canadian Party Elects Black Leader’, ‘One of the World’s Largest White Countries Led by Radical Black Feminist Socialist’, ‘Shocked Canadians Appeal to the World for Help After Black Leader Elected’, ‘White No More’, ‘Brown is Beautiful says Black Leader to White Country’, ‘Country Falls to Feminists’ – tantalizing them, they were hoping that in the end the party would choose a staid, sensible leader in the Canadian mould” (1989: 172).

Indeed, in much of Brown’s discussion throughout her book, references to her gender or to sexism are intertwined with discussion of race and ethnicity in

Canada. Similarly, in the National Film Board documentary Sisters in the Struggle

(1991), an interviewer asked Brown whether it was racism or sexism that she fought hardest against. Brown’s response, to paraphrase, was that it was neither, because she could not separate her feminism from her efforts to combat racism.

One male MP also highlighted media focus on his ethnicity. Gurmant

Grewal said that his coverage regularly includes reference to his ethnicity and/or religion.43 He said that stories tend to start with “The Indo-Canadian Member from…” or “Gurmant Grewal, a non-practising Sikh, said yesterday….” Grewal explicitly questioned what relevance his religion is to his activities as MP. He continued by noting that media do not report on the religious affiliations of other

MPs, “the Christians and Jews in Parliament”. He said that media do this because he is different. Similar to gender, ethnicity and religion are factors superfluous to the activities of politicians, except in cases where politicians choose to weave gender, ethnicity, or religion into their politics, which Grewal has not, for the most part. Reference to ethnicity and religion signify the same insidious messages

43 Personal interview with Gurmant Grewal. 24 February 2005.

Chapter Seven 340 Political Image-Crafting as references to gender: this person is different, this person is novel, this person is an outsider, this person does not belong with the rest of us.

The population of visible minority Members of Parliament was – and is currently – small, and the sample of visible minority members that I interviewed was even smaller. Thus, it is difficult to discuss the conversations I had with interviewees who chose to be unidentified in this dissertation, because factors such as partisanship, the province or region they represent, and, in some cases, the nature of their comments could conceivably identify them. In general terms, the small number of visible minority MPs I interviewed tended to think that their ethnocultural identities were often mentioned in news coverage, even in cases where this was irrelevant to the policy fields or committee work they tend to do.

In one case, an interviewee did mention that being linked to ethnic heritage could be a positive factor if one was running in a riding with a large number of people of the same ethnic origin. Yet, still, the person mentioned that it is not necessary to specifically mention one’s ethnic background in this case, because people are usually aware of the identifiers of shared ethnic background, such as last names.

There was only one case where a visible minority MP I interviewed did not mention his ethnocultural heritage in any context: Conservative MP Rahim

Jaffer. I did not ask him about his heritage or his experience as a visible minority

MP, so I have no suggestion about how to interpret this finding. Perhaps Jaffer does not feel it is relevant to his work in Ottawa, and perhaps he has not noticed or does not mind if media makes what other MPs have described as seemingly

Chapter Seven 341 Political Image-Crafting irrelevant mention of ethnocultural background. Jaffer is the exception in this case, however.

7.5d Media Focus on Politicians’ Personal Lives

Several of the women also talked about how media had intruded on their personal lives. One woman noted that many of the women MPs have been either divorced or single, and that this plays havoc with their media coverage. She said that women’s coverage – again, particularly in print sources – frequently mentions if they are divorced or single mothers. Interestingly, the same interviewee continued briefly by noting that she had never before consciously considered how many women “in Ottawa” have been divorced, and listed on her fingers Sheila Copps,

Alexa McDonough, and Belinda Stronach as examples. She continued for a minute or two about how the divorce rate among women parliamentarians is not surprising considering how difficult it can be to manage two lives, two households, and the demands of being an MP. Such comments refer directly to what Janine Brodie calls “role strain” (1985). While men benefit from unambiguous norms that their productive work is in the public sphere, women must reconcile their public roles with the demands of their private roles in the domestic sphere.

Former Progressive Conservative Prime Minister, Kim Campbell, noted very explicitly that women politicians endeavour to keep their “love lives” out of the public eye, because the coverage can harm women’s personas in a way that it does not for men. Alexa McDonough corroborated this point with her discussion

Chapter Seven 342 Political Image-Crafting of her concerted efforts throughout her entire political career – in both provincial and federal politics – to keep her personal life out of the public spotlight, as discussed in Chapter Four. McDonough noted explicitly that she suspected her status as a divorced woman could – and would – be used against her by media.

McDonough also explained that the negativity around divorced women was not just the fault of the media. Ultimately, the problem was that the public would

“buy into” the idea that her leadership and policy-making abilities could be questioned because she was divorced. Moreover, McDonough has deliberately kept her children from media scrutiny throughout her career, both for her own sake and, more importantly, for the sake of her children.44

Women politicians’ perspective that family and romantic lives must be shielded from media and public scrutiny is a recurring theme throughout the dissertation. This is also a general theme in the literature, particularly in the recent contributions made by van Zoonen (1998b, 2000a, 2000b, 2005, and 2006), whose analyses of media coverage of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and

Finnish Prime Minister Tarja Halonen, as well as American Senator Hillary

Clinton and Dutch Green leader Femke Halsema, demonstrate that women have found it increasingly necessary to become “reticent about opening up their private personae to the scrutiny of the media and public” (van Zoonen 2006: 297).

44 McDonough makes this point again in Why women run (1999), a National Film Board documentary on the fight between NDP leader McDonough and two-time Liberal incumbent Mary Clancy for the federal riding of Halifax in the 1997 Canadian federal election campaign. In this election, the riding of Halifax had one of the most highly contested races in the country, and it was one of the rare occasions when two viable and experienced women candidates were running against each other.

Chapter Seven 343 Political Image-Crafting

The data gleaned from my personal interviews with Canadian MPs – coupled with recent empirical and theoretical analyses from Van Zoonen and others – support the need to analytically separate provision and presentation when analysing news content. This contention is one of the primary theoretical contributions I am making to the gendered mediation literature, as well as the gender, media, and politics literature more broadly. Beyond doubt, women politicians participate in their own media coverage, and news content must be viewed with an eye to separating the characteristics of women’s coverage that are due to mediation from those that are due to women politicians’ own tactical choices. This chapter on men and women’s media experiences and strategies confirms that the distinction between provision and presentation is a substantial factor determining what becomes news content, and while many of the tactical decisions made by women politicians about how to present themselves to the public through media are guided by past imbalances and even mistreatment (real or perceived) in news content, the distinction between provision and presentation is a necessary modification to gendered mediation theory.

Not all of the women were so critical of media’s focus on women’s private lives. One of two female MPs (a Liberal) interviewed after the media stir over

Stronach’s floor-crossing from the Conservatives to the Liberals said that politicians sometimes invite this sort of commentary. Referring specifically to

Stronach, she said that while too much of the coverage focused on Peter McKay’s reaction and all the “jilted lover garbage”, Stronach should have expected something like this. For the interviewee, the best strategy, as in any workplace,

Chapter Seven 344 Political Image-Crafting was to avoid “office romance”. She said that for women to be taken seriously, they should not mix their personal and private lives. Her attitude was that it was foolish to expect that media would shy away from potentially headline-grabbing information. News is a business, after all, and political gossip sells.

None of the male interviewees had much to say about their families or personal lives. In fact, only two male MPs mentioned their families. The first was

Gurmant Grewal, a former Conservative MP from British Columbia. Grewal talked in some detail about the fact that his wife, Nina Grewal, was also an MP.

Grewal noted with some pride that they were the first married couple to serve as

MPs in the House of Commons at the same time and that they had received a lot of media attention for this historic first, both in local and national news. The second male MP said that his wife does not tend to accompany him to “official events”. In this case, the concern was not about media or public attention to his personal life, but it seemed to be a simple fact that his wife found party events boring. Clearly, there was a major divide in terms of how men and women perceive media and public scrutiny of their personal lives. For women, there were endless pitfalls; for men, it did not seem to be an issue of much concern or need for strategic self-presentation. Indeed, the systematically sex-imbalanced treatment of politicians’ personal lives is one of the reasons why male politicians do not even really need to consider how their personal lives will be portrayed in public, at least for heterosexual men. In my interview with former PM Kim

Campbell, she seemed most disgusted by this obvious double standard: “look at

Chapter Seven 345 Political Image-Crafting

Trudeau, for example, whose love life was a mess. It didn’t hurt him. Quite the opposite – media and the public thought he was dashing and sexy.”

7.5e Campaign Coverage

With respect to understandings of media coverage of campaigns as well as strategies to attain favourable campaign coverage, three factors were consistently identified as relevant to whether and how one was covered: party, region, and gender. Not surprisingly, NDP and Conservative MPs tended to feel that campaign coverage focused too much on the governing Liberals. New Democrats, both male and female, said that it is particularly hard for them to get coverage. Ed

Broadbent was perhaps the only MP to argue that “it’s appropriate for media to pay more attention to government” (at that time, the Liberal Party). Six of the 18 women MPs mentioned party or region before gender as a factor in their coverage.

One of the challenges several women politicians mentioned specifically is the lack of knowledge reporters have about women candidates in an election. One woman said that unless you are a “high profile” candidate, such as a long-serving incumbent or a Minister, journalists just tend to overlook you. She said journalists ask questions that plainly indicate they know very little about you, such as asking about children when you have none. She said that this indicates for her that journalists do not care to take the time to “do their research” on women candidates. Given past research on media’s tendencies to trivialize women politicians or focus on their viability as candidates, part of the explanation for the

Chapter Seven 346 Political Image-Crafting interviewee’s experience may be that journalists do not expect women to win.

Experience is also a factor in this case. Compared to their male colleagues, women politicians tend to be relative newcomers to federal election campaigns.

Politics has been dominated by men, and women have entered federal campaigns in large numbers only in the last two or three decades. Women have started winning seats in large numbers only since the 1980s. Thus, not only are there far fewer women candidates in Canadian election campaigns, many women are far less familiar to journalists and to the public in contrast with their male colleagues.

Related to the idea that journalists know little about women politicians is a story told by NDP leader, Alexa McDonough. She said that when she first came to Ottawa in 1995 and even continuing into the 1997 campaign, many journalists routinely addressed her as “Audrey”. Audrey McLaughlin was McDonough’s immediate predecessor, having led the federal NDP from 1989 to 1995, the year that McDonough took over. McDonough noted that, in fairness, it was not difficult to make ties between the two women. Both led the NDP (one after another), both were social workers, both are mothers of two children, both are divorced, and both have names whose initials are “A. Mc”. However, she said that this never happens to men. For example, she said, in the 1980s, there were several men named “John” – John Turner, John Crosbie, and Jean Chrétien – but media never mixed them up. She continued by noting that there have been several men named “Bill” or “Mike” in Canadian politics, as well as many men of the same profession or with the same number of children, but media never confused one

Chapter Seven 347 Political Image-Crafting with another. She noted explicitly that the “mindset” of journalists is that two women, such as herself and Audrey McLaughlin, are “interchangeable”.

McDonough’s comments on this issue are evocative of sociological work on “outgroup homogeneity bias” (e.g., Mullen and Hu 1989; Quattrone and Jones

1980; Robbins and Krueger 2005), a cognitive bias whereby one perceives members of other groups to be less varied or more “interchangeable”, to use

McDonough’s words, than members of one’s own group. Outgroup homogeneity bias is the same as essentializing members of other groups, such as women or

Asian-Canadians. There are overtones of outgroup homogeneity bias in Rakow and Kranich’s work on gender and media (1991), for they contend that news coverage reflects the assumption that any particular woman can act as “sign”, or signifier, for “woman”.

Dealing with this tendency is difficult for women politicians. McDonough said that unfortunately, short of wearing a name badge to press conferences and media scrums, there was little she could do to avoid being confused with her predecessor, Audrey McLaughlin. One approach McDonough used, she said, particularly in her early years as leader, was to make sure she had someone, often an assistant, introduce her to journalists. She said that this strategy was good for formal events, such as press conferences and speeches, but it was not feasible for impromptu situations where a journalist just “puts a microphone in your face”.

Kim Campbell also talked about how media seem to know less about women politicians, but she attributed the lack of knowledge to assumptions made about women politicians. In her case, she said that journalists tried to say she slept

Chapter Seven 348 Political Image-Crafting her way to the top or that “Mulroney warmed her irons”. In her opinion, it was outside their frame of reference that as a woman, her success had been achieved through “intelligence, political know-how, and hard work.” Similarly, she noted that reporters kept calling her a “rookie”, which was “congruent with their ideas about women in politics”. But, she was no rookie. As she noted in our discussion, she was one of the most experienced politicians to ever become prime minister: she had held a variety of Cabinet posts (National Defence, Justice) and had held office at all three levels of government. She continued by noting that she was more experienced than many of the men who had become prime minister. Pierre

Trudeau had one year of experience in Cabinet before becoming prime minister.

Prior to 1965, Trudeau had never held elected office. She also noted that Brian

Mulroney, her immediate predecessor, had no Cabinet experience before assuming the role, and neither had Joe Clark. Her point, ultimately, was that “the media could have called me a moron or an idiot, which is a matter of opinion, but the facts just did not support the use of the adjective ‘rookie’ to describe me.”

When asked how she dealt with this aspect of her coverage, she noted that a politician can do a lot to cultivate good coverage in non-election periods, but that while in the middle of a campaign, “there is little a politician … can do about damage control.”

Other women interviewees were somewhat more optimistic about the extent to which they could influence their coverage during a campaign, particularly those who had received campaign training. Four of the women MPs – three of them Liberals – mentioned having attended a campaign school at some

Chapter Seven 349 Political Image-Crafting point early on in their political careers. The fact that three of the four women were

Liberals may indicate that the Liberal Party has more resources for training seminars and campaign schools as well as a greater stake in presenting a uniform style to media. None of the men talked about campaign schools or any type of training in running a campaign or interacting with media. Of the four women who mentioned campaign schools, all said that it had improved their media skills markedly. One woman who attended the campaign school session after her first nomination as a Liberal candidate said that running a campaign and, in particular, dealing with media are “not intuitive”. She emphasized that there are specific skills involved, such as public speaking and networking skills.

Judging from the four women’s comments, instruction and advice on media relations in the campaign schools seem to relate more to getting coverage than to influencing how one is covered. In fact, many of the MPs, both male and female, focused equally, if not more, on the quantity rather than the quality of their coverage. Advice given in the campaign schools varied. One of the women said that for her, the best advice was on timing your campaign events correctly.

She said that if she wants coverage on the nightly television news, she must hold her major event of the day in the morning or early afternoon. She continued by noting that she can save less important events, typically local appearances in hospitals or seniors’ homes, for the end of the day. Newspapers can pick these stories up, if they are interested, since they prepare their papers at night. She noted that these less major events toward the end of the day tend to be geared toward local media, particularly local papers.

Chapter Seven 350 Political Image-Crafting

7.5f Question Period

While differences between men and women MPs in how they talk about and present themselves for campaign coverage were not drastic, a marked gender divide arose on the topic of inter-election coverage, particularly coverage of

Question Period. One of the topics/questions interviewees were invited to share their impressions about was their experience of news coverage in non-election periods (see Appendix Five). Twenty of the 27 interviewees mentioned coverage of Question Period, and a large portion talked at length about this aspect of

Parliament. Of the 20 MPs who mentioned Question Period, eleven were women, and nine were men, which is the total number of men that were interviewed.

Neither Kim Campbell nor Alexa McDonough mentioned Question Period or the media coverage it attracts, which was interesting considering that both are former party leaders, and Campbell is a former prime minister. Ed Broadbent and

Stockwell Day – two male former party leaders – both mentioned Question Period and its coverage in media. In general, it was not surprising that so many MPs mentioned Question Period, because it is the only aspect of Parliamentary activity that receives habitual news coverage (e.g., Maas 1998; Penner, Blidook, and

Soroka forthcoming). Lacking in drama and conflict, legislative debates and points of order do not make for enticing news stories; Question Period, on the other hand, is exciting, fast-paced, and conflictive.

Women interviewees tended to focus their comments on Question Period itself, as opposed to how news cover it. Two of the 18 women indicated that

Chapter Seven 351 Political Image-Crafting

Question Period was by far their least favourite aspect of House business, and a female Liberal MP said she often retires to the Liberal Lounge to catch up on phone calls during Question Period,45 because she does not like all the yelling and

“table slapping”. Only one man, former NDP leader Ed Broadbent, gave any indication of dissatisfaction with the tone of Question Period. When asked specifically for their thoughts on how media cover Question Period or how media have covered their own performance in Question Period, the women’s attitudes tended to be that Question Period is rowdy, so naturally the media coverage is rowdy. In other words, these women felt that news depictions of Question Period simply reflect the atmosphere of the House during that hour of the day. A woman on the Liberal side of the House, in fact, said that if you can survive Question

Period, dealing with media is a “piece of cake”. The same woman said that in her opinion, it could be particularly challenging to go through Question Period, and then have to meet the media scrum in the House lobby directly afterwards. She said that one never really leaves Question Period or a media scrum feeling that the interaction has been good, because even if one really nails a question or a sound bite, the atmosphere is unbelievably chaotic.

Compared to their female colleagues, the attitudes of male MPs toward

Question Period were strikingly different. Except for Ed Broadbent, male MPs tended to focus their discussion on this aspect of House business and how they

45 Each party has a lounge that has direct access to the House of Commons. These lounges have telephones, computers, as well as food and beverage services. Stockwell Day explained to me that many of the MPs come in and out of their party’s lounge through the course of a typical day in the House. They also use the lounges to meet with people, and they have messengers who take notes in and out of the party lounges, since access is restricted to caucus members.

Chapter Seven 352 Political Image-Crafting use Question Period to attract news coverage. Liberal male MPs were less thrilled with Question Period than opposition MPs, which is no surprise given that government members are the target of oral questions,46 but Liberal men were not overwhelmingly negative about this aspect of House business. The most interesting and candid discussion of Question Period came from Conservative MP

Rahim Jaffer. Jaffer started by talking about how Question Period has come to focus on the “theatrics” instead of important policy debates, such as reform of financial institutions and the foreign policy review that occurred throughout the winter of 2005. At the same time, he said, he was quite comfortable “going over the top, getting theatrical in QP”. He said that as members of the Official

Opposition, this is their job, and there is a group of three in the Conservative caucus who are known as the “hit squad” for their “hard-hitting style”. He said that it had been great for the three men’s visibility, because they are often shown on the nightly news attacking the government, which is what their constituents want to see and also what Westerners and Conservatives in general want to see.

46 Question Period – referred to as a “weapon” by one author (Lewis 1982) – is a daily 40-minute session of oral questioning in the House of Commons that permits any opposition member to ask spontaneous questions to the government. In principle, Question Period is an accountability mechanism, whereby governments must publicly defend their policies and programmes in the House (Franks 1987; Docherty 1997). The Cabinet is the target of oral questioning. A recent article highlights the challenges of responding to questions: “Oral questions in the Canadian House of Commons can catch governments off-guard, elicit often unprepared – and perhaps more truthful or more damaging – responses, or be driven by morning media headlines” (Penner, Blidook, and Soroka forthcoming). Paramount among opposition parties’ aims is to ensure “the government’s failures are brought to light” (Maas 1998: 6). The fact that each questioner is permitted to pose two supplementary questions in addition to their original question makes the experience even more difficult for government members (e.g., Franks 1987; Maas 1998). Performing well in Question Period is always important for government members, but it is even more important considering that Question Period is the only aspect of parliamentary proceedings that routinely receives media coverage. Question Period is the public face of parliament in Canada. For more on Question Period, see Franks (1987); Docherty (1997); Lewis (1982); Marleau and Montpetit (2000); Penner, Blidook, and Soroka (forthcoming).

Chapter Seven 353 Political Image-Crafting

Jaffer’s comments convey a distinct comfort with the adversarial style of

Question Period, as well as the media coverage it produces, that none of the women MPs shared. Roughly mid-way through the interview, Jaffer discussed an interesting gender angle to Question Period. There was an incident, he said, where the “hit squad” had attacked then Immigration Minister Judy Sgro. In Jaffer’s recollection, media reports were along the lines of “all-male aggressors harass woman in the House who is just trying to work on social issues.” He said that their immediate reaction was to “re-tool” their Question Period strategy. The very next day, all of the party’s questions were assigned to women Conservatives, an effort toward “damage control”. From then on, Jaffer said, the Conservatives tended to assign women caucus members to “go after” the female government members.

The most interesting aspect of the story is that it reveals how gendered norms can challenge and constrain men, although neither Jaffer nor any of the other male interviewees couched their comments in precisely these terms. Jaffer’s comments, as well as the Conservative caucus’ “re-tooling” of their Question

Period strategy, is an example of how a male attack on a women politician would likely breach traditional norms of chivalry or gentlemanly conduct. Previous research demonstrates that avoiding attacks toward women politicians is a common tactic for male politicians. Lake’s (1984, cited in Kahn 1993) interviews with male politicians in the US reveals that men are less comfortable criticizing or attacking female opponents, and Kahn’s (1993) analysis of campaign commercials shows that men are less likely to run candidate-centred attack ads

Chapter Seven 354 Political Image-Crafting when their rivals are women. Plainly, men do not want to be seen as “beating up on” women (Ibid.: 491).

Women politicians probably do not like the ‘sympathetic’ coverage when men attack them either, because the message is that they are too delicate to handle debate and critique. While women tend to be more critical of the adversarial style of politics, particularly Question Period, gendered reportage hinting that mixed- sex political sparring is an unfair fight precisely because one of the politicians is female is problematic for any politician, irrespective of their sex. In addition, the

Conservatives’ revision of their Question Period strategy to pit Conservative women against government women can also raise problems – as the following paragraphs illustrate – because media often depict woman-to-woman debate/conflict using a “cat-fight” frame.

In fact, women politicians are often wary of appearing too aggressive at all, regardless of the sex of opponents. Former Prime Minister Kim Campbell’s autobiography makes this point very clearly. The format of the 1993 leaders’ debate was not the traditional series of one-on-one confrontations, “which enabled leaders to argue without struggling to be heard” (Campbell 1996: 278). Rather, the format took the form of discussion among all the participants “which would make it extremely difficult for one leader to contradict or question another if it was his or her turn to speak. In theory, there was to be a certain amount of open give and take, but in reality, it meant we would often be talking over one another”

(Ibid.). In reference to her preparation for the debates, Campbell notes, “If I wanted to respond to an attack – and I was to be the recipient of the lion’s share of

Chapter Seven 355 Political Image-Crafting the attacks – I ran the risk of appearing too aggressive, and aggressiveness is seen as less attractive coming from a woman” (Ibid.). Throughout her analysis of her time in office Campbell repeatedly returns to the idea that media’s inflexibility to move beyond gendered stereotypes constrains politicians, men and women alike.

Quoting a paper authored by Frizzell and Westell, Campbell writes:

“Journalists might well pause to reflect on whether they would really be open to ‘the new politics’ for which they so often call. For example, what if a woman leader – or a man for that matter – brought to political campaigning qualities said to be feminine, such as gentleness, peacemaking, compassion, conciliation, the ability to listen, and comfort? Could traditional news values adjust to report fairly such an eccentric approach to politics?” (Frizzell and Westell 1994 quoted in Campbell 1996: 401).

7.6g Situation Avoidance

One of the most distinct forms of media strategizing that several women politicians discussed was their avoidance of situations where they felt positive that coverage would be gendered. This goes back to the hypothetical scenario at the beginning of the chapter where the question was posed whether a woman politician would consider roaring up to a beachside press conference on a Sea-

Doo. None of the women mentioned the Sea-Doo event specifically, although it is clear from the direction of the conversations that women do avoid particular situations, which is further justification to integrate the analytical distinction between provision and presentation in analyses of news content and media effects.

Again, it is clear from the empirical evidence that I present in this dissertation, as

Chapter Seven 356 Political Image-Crafting well as from recent work from other scholars (e.g., van Zoonen 2000b, 2005, and

2006), that women politicians participate in their own mediation.

In my interviews, five of the 18 women talked about avoiding or carefully managing events with other women, as media tend to frame conflict between women as ‘cat-fights’. Alexa McDonough gave a particularly illustrative example.

Before taking up the leadership of the NDP in 1995, McDonough was a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) in the Nova Scotia provincial legislature and leader of the Nova Scotia NDP. When the Nova Scotia Premier was assembling his team for the round of constitutional negotiations that led to the Charlottetown constitutional accord,47 McDonough was chosen. She noted that the women’s movement mobilized against the Accord,48 but as a delegate to the talks,

McDonough obviously supported it.

47 When Canada repatriated its constitution in 1982, Quebec did not authorize the document. Two successive rounds of constitutional negotiation between all ten provinces and the federal government ensued, both aimed toward securing Quebec’s agreement to the constitution. The first round of negotiations produced the Meech Lake Accord (1987), which did not receive the required unanimous ratification by the eleven governments by 1990 (Manitoba and Newfoundland failed to ratify). The second round of negotiations produced the Charlottetown Accord, which was put to a national referendum on October 26, 1992. The accord was defeated in the referendum. The Charlottetown Accord attempted to resolve long-standing disputes about the federal-provincial division of powers. The accord also proposed a social charter to promote health care, welfare, education, environmental protection and collective bargaining. It contained a ‘Canada Clause’, which attempted to codify the values that define Canadian identity, such as egalitarianism, diversity, and the recognition of Quebec as a distinct society within Canada. Aboriginal self- government was approved, but the accord was not specific on the particulars. The accord also proposed a number of institutional changes. The composition and the appointment process for the Supreme Court of Canada were to be constitutionally entrenched. The Canadian Senate would have been reformed. The accord proposed that senators would be elected either in a general election or by the provincial legislatures. Six Senate seats would be assigned for every province, 1 for each territory, and future seats would be determined for Aboriginal voters. The powers of the Senate were scaled back, and on matters relating to culture and language, passage of a bill would require a ‘double majority’ -- a majority in the Senate as a whole as well as a majority of francophone senators. 48 For feminists and the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC) – an umbrella group representing a diversity of women’s organizations in Canada – opposition to the Charlottetown Accord was based on several factors. First, many feminists thought the Accord weakened the federal government, and they feared this would result in a loss of national standards

Chapter Seven 357 Political Image-Crafting

McDonough was asked by media to go “head to head” in a televised debate with Judy Rebick, at the time president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC). The purpose, said McDonough, was to debate on the merits of the Accord for the women’s movement. McDonough telephoned

Rebick, with whom she had worked on a number of women’s issues. Neither of the women wanted to do the debate. They wanted to keep the interests of the women’s movement above “sparring” and “media clashes”, a common angle on stories about the NAC and the Canadian women’s movement generally (Goddu

1999). McDonough said that she and Rebick did not want to give media a chance to portray the women’s movement as divided, and most importantly, McDonough said she knew it would trivialize women’s issues and her own reputation, because it would have been portrayed as “the catfight of the century”. In McDonough’s experience, “this is what media do when there are two women in the picture”.

Ultimately, McDonough felt that the situation was regretful, because the debate would have been great exposure for women’s issues, for the Accord, for Rebick and the NAC, and for McDonough personally. She said that men never have to worry about this sort of coverage, but women have to be careful about their actions in front of media due to sexist and stereotyped coverage.

for programs and policies that affect women. Second, the negotiations that produced the Accord offered little room for the participation of women. For more on the women’s movement’s stance on the Accord see, for example Bashevkin (1998), Day (1993), Dobrowolsky (2004), Goddu (1999), and Rebick (2005).

Chapter Seven 358 Political Image-Crafting

7.5h “The Shark Tank”

The final theme discussed at length by the MPs was their relationships with journalists, either on an individual or collective basis. Attitudes toward their relationships with journalists ran the full gamut among interviewees, for there were sharp differences between men and women, and there were also differences among women. One of the most prominent differences was the degree to which men endeavoured to build personal relationships with journalists. Except for Ed

Broadbent, all of the men either touched on or talked at length about their efforts to forge relationships with journalists. Stockwell Day talked at length about the differences between national and local journalists.49 He said that during his time in the Alberta provincial government,50 he had been friendly with all the local reporters, and he could count on them for favourable coverage. Of course, he noted, getting positive coverage was not difficult in the Alberta context, because of the usually consistently high levels of public support for the Conservatives as well as the lack of a viable challenging party. Nonetheless, Day said that relations with media extended beyond the workplace, for they would often socialize together at charity events, party events, and so on.

The men were not alone in reporting positive experiences with regional media. Three women politicians expressed perceptions that relations with reporters at the provincial level tend to be easier, including Alexa McDonough and Kim Campbell. McDonough said that she never felt uncomfortable or

49 Personal Interview with Stockwell Day. 24 February 2005. 50 Day was a Conservative MLA in the Alberta provincial legislature from 1986 to 2000. Day was appointed Provincial Treasurer, the equivalent of Finance Minister, in 1997.

Chapter Seven 359 Political Image-Crafting marginalized by the Halifax or Nova Scotia media during her provincial political career and that there was a sense of intimacy and of working toward the “same goals”. She said that even when in “difficult times” (i.e., when mistakes or gaffes were made), Nova Scotia journalists were much less likely than national journalists to “cross the line”. Kim Campbell felt that the “Ottawa press pack” was particularly exclusive and caught up in a political “who’s who game” that she felt left her and a lot of other women on the outside. Her experience was different

“in the regions” because “these reporters do not focus exclusively on national politics, and they would listen to my policies on the wheat trade, for example.”

Her point was that regional reporters care about issues that affect the area – such as the wheat trade on the Prairies – while members of the Ottawa press corps are overly concerned with partisan politics, gossip, and power politics.

While several of the men and women alike reported a preference for local media, especially Day and McDonough, who had had extensive careers in provincial politics, men and women differed when describing their relations with journalists in Ottawa. Stockwell Day noted that Ottawa politicians, particularly opposition members, have to work a lot harder to “get journalists on their side”.

Many of Day’s Conservative Party colleagues that I interviewed corroborated this point, one of them noting that “the Calgary Herald is the place to get good coverage if you’re on our side of the country”. Day continued by noting that as a

Westerner, leader of the Canadian Alliance, and purported “right-wing nut-job” and “Christian fundamentalist”, getting Ottawa journalists to “warm up” to him was not easy. He talked at length about how the documentary, The Fundamental

Chapter Seven 360 Political Image-Crafting

Day,51 an in-depth examination of Day’s religious beliefs aired on CBC’s The

National during the 2000 campaign, sank his image. Yet, he worked at rehabilitating his image with journalists, who tended to preface his coverage with

“the Christian fundamentalist leader” or “the right-wing leader”, which is akin to

Grewal’s comment that he is always introduced in articles as “The Indo-Canadian

Member from…” Indeed, male politicians also feel negatively stereotyped in media coverage.

Rahim Jaffer, another Conservative MP from Alberta, also mentioned how he felt that Ottawa media were biased against Westerners and politicians on the right, particularly from the old Reform/Canadian Alliance. He said that the trick is to bring journalists into “your fold”. His favourite strategy for doing this is to hold social events where politicians and journalists can get to know one another better.

When he was elected he made a point of getting in touch with journalists and inviting them for a drink or for dinner. He said that it is easier to get covered if you have personal relationships with them. As another example, Jaffer talked about a reception he organized for media with Edmonton MPs (which is where his own riding is located). He said this was the first time this sort of thing was done,

51 The Fundamental Day was reported by CBC journalist Paul Hunter and broadcast on November 14, 2000 (about mid-way through the campaign). The documentary questioned the links between Day’s religious and political beliefs, particularly the impact of his alleged belief in creationism on policy. The documentary describes Day’s time in Bentley, Alberta, “the heart of Alberta’s Bible belt” and claims Bentley is the place where Day “first mixed religion and politics”. The documentary also mentions Jim Keegstra, a teacher who taught anti-Semitic beliefs in high school classrooms, and pointed out that Keegstra lived just thirty minutes down the road from Day. The documentary also claims that Day once called homosexuality “a mental disorder”, that Day said women who were victims of incest or rape “should not get government-funded abortions unless their pregnancy is life-threatening”, that he supported a book ban of Of Mice and Men, “calling the language … blasphemous”. To view a clip from The Fundamental Day, see: http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?/news/2000/11/15/can_election001115

Chapter Seven 361 Political Image-Crafting and he spearheaded the effort. He said it was a good way to get to know the journalists in a social environment. Carefully cultivated media relations are of additional importance, Jaffer continued, “when things go wrong”, “when you make a mistake or a gaffe”. In these cases, journalists may be softer on the MP.

Jaffer thinks it is harder to heavily criticize someone when the person is a social acquaintance. He said that journalists are more likely to give the “benefit of the doubt” in these cases, because they are thinking, “Oh, this is a good guy, but he just made a mistake”. Jaffer finished by noting that there are always journalists who are going to be harsh, no matter how much effort the MP devotes to improving relations. But even in these cases, making the effort to court media can still make a difference when “you screw up”. The coverage may be harsh, but not be as harsh as it might have been otherwise.

Discussion with women MPs, in contrast, did not reveal anything approaching personal or social relationships with journalists. Nor did any of the women raise instances where they have organized or participated in events, receptions, or even dinners with journalists. This is not to say that such occurrences have never happened, but it certainly was not a topic of discussion with the female interviewees. When asked about MPs’ relationships with journalists, women tended to be either negative or ambivalent. The negative comments, predictably, emphasized the conflictive aspect of journalist-politician relations. One Liberal woman MP called the Ottawa media a “shark tank”, and another Liberal woman said Ottawa journalists operate according to a “barracuda mentality”. This latter woman’s comments referred to journalists’ practices and

Chapter Seven 362 Political Image-Crafting the tone of their questions, which tend to aim “straight for the jugular”.

McDonough was less harsh in her judgments of journalists. She said that she was struck most by how “impersonal” the experience of media is in Ottawa. In the end, McDonough continued, journalists are just doing a job, and they have to sell their stories. The difference in opinion between McDonough and the example of the two Liberal women probably hinges on the fact that McDonough has always been an opposition member, while the two Liberal women are on the government side of the House. Compared to opposition members, government members, whether men or women, tend to find themselves disproportionately on the defensive with reporters.

One of the points of particular interest was women MPs’ attitudes toward women journalists. Two of the women mentioned women reporters spontaneously, a Liberal MP and McDonough. McDonough said that at several points through the years she had felt supported by women journalists. Both the

Liberal MP and McDonough talked in particular about Julie Van Dusen, now the

CBC’s Middle East Bureau Chief. The Liberal woman said that Van Dusen was the best reporter in Ottawa, in her opinion, and Van Dusen had always been willing to tell male journalists to “back off” or “get real” when a “sexist” question was posed. She continued by remarking that in the midst of a media scrum, small niceties like this between women can mean a world of difference, particularly after a gruelling day.

For the other 16 women who did not raise the issue on their own, I posed an explicit question asking about their experiences with women journalists.

Chapter Seven 363 Political Image-Crafting

Eleven of these women said that they have experienced incidents where women journalists had been particularly nice, gender-sensitive, or supportive, either in person or in their reportage of these women politicians. Kim Campbell noted that when she was misquoted as saying “an election is no time to talk about issues”, several women journalists said “that’s not what Campbell said”. However, at least half of the women politicians, including Campbell, communicated that such incidents are isolated. Despite the general agreement that women journalists are little different than their male colleagues, several of the women MPs said that it is often preferable to work with other women. I got the sense, although implicitly, that women interviewees tended to trust or feel more comfortable with women journalists, even if the MPs could not recall specific instances when women journalists had provided different coverage.

The personal accounts offered by female MPs during my interviews support the arguments I presented in Chapter Five about sex differences in journalists’ sourcing. To explain the finding that women journalists chose more female sources than their male colleagues in the CBC’s televised news coverage of the 2000 federal election campaign, I pointed to past research suggesting that women tend to prefer interacting with other women – because there are socialized to do so – and that women in male-dominated professions have sharper sensitivities about including members of historically-marginalized groups in news coverage, which is an argument about outsider consciousness. Women MPs who told first-hand stories about feeling comfortable around and supported by women journalists seem to corroborate these arguments.

Chapter Seven 364 Political Image-Crafting

Finally, when asked explicitly about experiences of women journalists, five of the women MPs basically communicated that male and female journalists act the same and report the same. This perspective is also corroborated by analyses in Chapter Five, which analyzes the restrictions imposed on women journalists and the current lack of sex-of-reporter differences due, in part, to women journalists’ inferior status in the profession. One of the women MPs, a

Conservative, who felt that male and female reporters are basically indistinguishable in terms of reporting styles, did say that it was good to see more and more women reporters. Yet, this same woman MP maintained that she could not accurately say there were noticeable differences between the two. She said that so much depends on personality, and there are men and women journalists that she respects as well as those that she does not respect. Kim Campbell’s take on the matter was very astute, for she pointed out that “women are not making the editorial decisions.” In other words, women do not have influence in newsmaking, a fact I establish plainly with respect to Canadian English-language television news outlets (Chapter Five). In addition, Campbell noted that “women are not always sympathetic and do not always feel a solidarity with other women”.

Speaking about American political talk shows, Campbell noted that even when women are in positions of power, such as the female host of Meet the Press, you do not see more women on the show or more attention to topics that are specifically regarded as important to women. Campbell also pointed out a third obstacle to supportive relationships with women journalists: “the media culture is another barrier, because there is a certain way of getting and writing stories, and it

Chapter Seven 365 Political Image-Crafting is pre-defined, and it is hard for any individual to buck this.” To frame the matter slightly differently, Campbell’s statement refers to the very same arguments I make in Chapter Five about the powerful constraints imposed on women journalists – indeed, all journalists – by the sociology of newswork and the political economic organization of the news industry.

7.5i The Silver Lining

This analysis ends with a brief discussion of the ‘silver lining’, as several of the interviewees discussed the benefits of womanhood in dealing with media. A

Conservative woman MP felt that media can sometimes be less critical of women

MPs. Presumably, her response refers to similar dynamics as discussed above whereby it is considered ‘ungentlemanly’ for male reporters to heavily criticize women. Alternatively, it may be that coverage of women is so focused on their viability, their clothes, their weight, or other factors that women’s policy positions are subject to less critical examination compared to those of their male colleagues.

As the following discussion illustrates, many of the women MPs talked about how their status as gendered beings (my term, not theirs) hindered both their media visibility as well as the quality of coverage; however, women politicians’ verdicts on their media treatment were by no means straightforward.

Similar to Ross and Sreberny’s (2000) British interviewees, several Canadian

MPs – including backbenchers – commented on how being female attracted coverage, and in some cases the discussion seemed to suggest that this was due to the relative novelty of women politicians.

Chapter Seven 366 Political Image-Crafting

In several interviews, women politicians told me about instances in which they had felt that being a woman (and, thus, ‘different’) had positive effects on their media coverage. This highlights the complex nature of women politicians’ attitudes toward media. One Liberal woman politician noted (with what might be called a slightly tongue-in-cheek tone) that she had greatly benefited from “all the fuss” about women in politics. This interviewee was not a Cabinet member, nor prominent in the party or the legislature. Through the course of our conversation, it became clear that she thought she would have received less media coverage if she had been a similarly-unexceptional male MP. I use the word ‘unexceptional’ not in a derogatory sense, but to highlight the fact that among MPs and by her own description, this interviewee was relatively junior, and had not occupied any special role in the party or the legislature beyond that of rank-and-file backbencher. Obviously, the fact that she was an MP and, thus, a member of the political elite, made her exceptional by most standards. The overarching point here is that women politicians’ approaches to media are multifaceted in that they have identified positive aspects of media’s focus on them as gendered individuals, a point that van Zoonen makes as well when she talks about the “opportunities that the personalization of political culture produce for female politicians” (2006:

289; see also van Zoonen 1998b, 2000a, 2000b, and 2005).

In cases where enhanced visibility is a function of ‘difference’, it may be rational for politicians to view this as advantageous, because more coverage is always preferable to less coverage when one’s career depends on re-election. In fact, given that visibility is a fundamental objective of politicians, one can

Chapter Seven 367 Political Image-Crafting imagine scenarios where women politicians might decide to strategically, and subtly, draw attention to their marker of difference, womanhood, in order to gain coverage. It is important to keep in mind that the primary goal of many woman politicians, like their male colleagues, is re-election, not revolutionizing the political system and the media industry. Put differently, it is important to interpret interviewee’s statements in light of their chosen priorities and goals. In the case of politicians, while many of the MPs I interviewed expressed serious dissatisfaction with gendered and racist coverage, it is obvious that the issue is complex, for there are positive aspects to being different in a news environment that regards the anomalous and the surprising as newsworthy.

On a related point, a variety of the MPs interviewed, men and women both, expressed some variant of the old saying ‘there’s no such thing as bad press’. In total, my assessment is that 7 of the 27 expressed this attitude, though not necessarily in direct or explicit terms. Generally, my interpretation of this attitude was that there are limits to how bad the coverage can get before it does become negative. Interestingly, none of the party leaders (past and present) seemed to put stock in this old adage, at least not judging from the course of my conversations with the leaders. This was something that men and women leaders had in common. If they had led parties, they did not believe that visibility was the overarching priority in terms of news coverage. Former NDP leader Alexa

McDonough was very direct: “I get more respect from media now that I’m not leader anymore.”

Chapter Seven 368 Political Image-Crafting

The likely explanation for the difference between those who had served as party leaders and those who had not is that party leaders had personally experienced (or, at the very least, witnessed) the worst forms of news coverage: mud-slinging; highly unflattering photos and camera angles; unwanted attention to one’s past, one’s personal life, or one’s family; and the inevitable attacks from columnists and pundits about one’s ineptitude for leadership or uninspiring policy vision. Leaders are always subject to very high volumes of news coverage, for in

Canada, parties are personified by their leaders (e.g., Carty 1992; Carty, Cross, and Young 2002), and leaders are the focus of campaign coverage (Muir 2005a), particularly on televised news. Naturally, experience as a party leader would lead one to adopt a more measured attitude toward the idea that ‘there’s no such thing as bad press,’ having been subject to more intense media scrutiny than the average backbencher.

7.6 Discussion

News is an important factor in how voters perceive political figures. At the same time, news is also the most unpredictable form of political communication for politicians, because the politicians have virtually no control over how news is selected and interpreted. Politicians’ self-presentations to audiences are mediated by newsmakers. This means that politicians must predict not only how audiences will react to their self-presentations – their style, speech, ideas, interpersonal manner, and gestures, to give a few examples – but politicians must first anticipate how newsmakers will select and present events to the public. Moreover,

Chapter Seven 369 Political Image-Crafting they must do all this while maintaining the appearance of spontaneity, which is one of the key ingredients in a successful presentation of self (Goffman 1959).

The chapter has analyzed how men and women understand news media, and further, how men and women tailor their presentations of self to media in order to produce positive public personas. There are various similarities between men and women politicians in both respects. Both men and women see news media as distorting reality. Men and women also see news media as focusing on or even exploiting stereotypes. Politicians’ dissatisfaction with stereotypical coverage is a common theme in the relatively small literature that brings politicians’ first-hand accounts to bear on analyses of news (e.g., Ross 2002; Ross and Sreberny 2000). Many of the women I interviewed mentioned gender stereotypes as a definite factor in their coverage. At the same time, men reported stereotypical coverage of their religious beliefs (“Fundamental Day” and “right- wing nut-job”) and their ethnicity (“the Indo-Canadian Member”). This is one of the advantages of comparing men and women, which is a rarity in the literature, because several of the patterns in politicians’ understandings of media are not unique to women. Stereotyping is a generalized practice in political reportage, and members of a variety of historically-marginalized groups perceive a disadvantage working with mainstream media because of their markers of difference.

Kim Campbell took this analysis one step further in our conversation. She noted perceptively that stereotyping is a widespread problem that is not only or even necessarily a function of media. In her estimation, it is difficult for women

Chapter Seven 370 Political Image-Crafting

to act in a naturally feminine way given that politics is defined by men. Disempowered people never know what it is like to be themselves in politics. Women CEOs have the same problems…. Women leaders have to hold back and cannot be their true selves, because their true selves do not mesh with the definition of leadership. What is the professional and psychological price of holding back?

In this context, the term “psychological price” refers to how donning a public mask in order to avoid outward projections of their gendered selves affects women in leadership roles. Campbell very clearly thought that this can be personally harmful to women, because “you forget to be true to yourself”.

Campbell’s assertion is virtually identical to that expressed by Audrey

McLaughlin at the beginning of the chapter: “The danger in all this is that you will lose track of who you really are, that your public persona will no longer reflect your private self.”52 While the context in this case is women’s experience as gendered individuals, the issue is similar for members of outgroups in the main.

While there were notable similarities in men and women’s understandings of media, there were also important differences. Women tended to identify and criticize media focus on their physical appearances and private lives – a regular complaint of women politicians from Canada to the UK to Australia to South

Africa to continental Europe. In the Canadian context, women also tended to disapprove of Question Period and coverage of Question Period, although sharp distinctions were not drawn between Question Period as an event and the way it is covered by news media. This is one of the topics on which gender differences in politicians’ discussion of media became sharp. Most of the men were comfortable

52 Audrey McLaughlin, former leader of the federal NDP. Written in McLaughlin (1992: 204).

Chapter Seven 371 Political Image-Crafting with Question Period and several were quite satisfied with it. Women, on the other hand, expressed discomfort with the unruly nature of Question Period, and the ensuring (inevitably) rowdy coverage. While past work has not focussed specifically on Question Period, Ross’ (2002) finding that women are sometimes ill-at-ease with the aggressive nature of media interviews runs parallel to my findings.

Politicians’ attitudes toward their relations with journalists were also characterized by conspicuous gender differences. Some of the women had felt supported by women journalists; yet, in general, the women MPs were critical or ambivalent about journalists of both sexes. Men, on the other hand, tended to talk at length about strategies for gaining the trust and friendship of journalists.

Women politicians seemed wary of journalists, although some of them did report better relations with regionally-based journalists as opposed to the “Ottawa press pack”. Yet, Ross’ conclusions seem to hold in the Canadian context: “women politicians are circumspect about getting close to journalists. It is always a double- edged strategy and of course for some women, positive media strategies mean not cultivating relations with journalists … because such relations are often contingent and fragile….” (2002: 115).

One of the most intriguing aspects of this component of the dissertation project was my interview with Kim Campbell. Among women politicians in

Canada, she is unique in having been the only prime minister. She is also quite politically experienced, as she herself pointed out. Yet, she also has an academic background, and has taught at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard

Chapter Seven 372 Political Image-Crafting

University, including a course entitled “Gender and Power”. She is well versed in the literature on political communications, cognitive psychology, and gender and politics. She talked about how voters and journalists use “cognitive shortcuts” and

“schema” to typify reality. She also talked about how neither citizens nor journalists question their preconceptions about women and how this affects women in leadership roles. In short, her perspective on women politicians is not one based purely on her experience as a politician. Campbell alternated between speaking very concretely about her personal experiences of media and speaking as an academic who knows the theoretical and empirical literature on political communications. ‘Academic Campbell’ was somewhat forgiving about media practices that produce gendered coverage, because stereotyping is “natural” and

“rarely done with malice”. Yet, ‘Former Prime Minister Campbell’ was often quite understandably annoyed at her treatment by media during her tenure in

Ottawa.

In the end, Canadian women MPs have similar, though certainly not identical, understandings of media and self-presentations through media as their counterparts in Britain, the UK, and the US. One of the important features of the preceding analysis is that it includes both men and women, allowing a direct comparison of the topics they focus on when talking about media as well as the substantive content of their discussion. There were gender differences, but there were similarities as well, a point that has not been developed in past research. In addition, the analyses have also revealed that gender is the basis of one perceived imbalance in media, but politicians identified several others: ethnicity, religion,

Chapter Seven 373 Political Image-Crafting region, and partisanship. None of these factors is necessarily distinct, for gender, ethnicity, religion, region, and partisanship can all interlink, depending on one’s background, making media terrain and self-presentation potentially much trickier due to the intersection of various marginalized identities. The chapter encourages a nuanced approach to women politicians’ experience of media. In many cases, how the women interviewees talked about media depended on which side of the

House of Commons they sit, on their social background, and on their political experience. While certain themes did recur in the way women talked about news media, campaigning, Question Period, and dealing with reporters, the preceding analyses of important differences between women is another issue insufficiently explored in existing research, making this chapter a significant empirical contribution to our understanding of how men and women politicians understand media, as well as how they participate in their own mediation.

Chapter Eight 374 Conclusion

CHAPTER EIGHT

Conclusion

Media constitute the primary information system of modern polities. Most citizens experience politics and politicians through media, whether through television news, televised leaders’ debates, newspapers, radio, Internet, campaign advertisements, or discussion with others who have themselves received their political information from some form of media. Relatively few people meet their prime minister, a party leader, or even their local legislative representative. Few people know politicians and the political world intimately enough to base their political impressions and choices on first-hand knowledge. The result is a highly- mediated political environment in which attitudes toward politicians, policies, and political events are formed from mediated information; vote choices are based in part on mediated information; and political careers are sustained or lost based on heavily-mediated personas. There is rather wide agreement on all of these points.

News matters (Iyengar and Kinder 1987).

The literature on media and politics is rich. It ranges from investigation of media effects to the political economy of media to the impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in developing societies, and these examples provide only a small taste. This literature, however, too often overlooks or under- treats the gendered aspects of political communication. Inadequate attention to the gendered aspects of the political media environment poses several risks. As this

Chapter Eight 375 Conclusion dissertation has demonstrated, the male experience of the universe of political communication cannot be treated as universal.

8.1 Review and Discussion of Hypotheses and Results

The dissertation has provided evidence that news not only provides imbalanced coverage of men and women politicians, but that certain patterns of sex-specific political coverage have direct negative effects on how citizens perceive women leaders and how women politicians themselves approach their media relations.

The rest of this section revisits the hypotheses set out in Chapter One, and assesses each according to the empirical evidence presented in the preceding chapters.

Hypothesis One: There are systematic differences in television news coverage of female and male politicians in Canada, and these differences can result in less beneficial coverage for female politicians relative to their male counterparts.

This hypothesis was derived from the gendered mediation thesis, a theory that investigates the gendered implications of ostensibly gender-neutral news coverage. The gendered mediation approach makes a compelling argument that news is a predominantly masculine discourse. Two assumptions underpin this claim:

1) news reflects the culture in which it is rooted, and that culture conceives of politics in masculine terms and assigns stereotypically-masculine traits to the archetypical politician; and

2) news is male-dominated, in terms of both staffing and ethos. Given the examination of Canadian television news outlets presented in Chapter Five, plus the chapter’s analysis of the sociology of newswork and the

Chapter Eight 376 Conclusion

political economy of the news business, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that in Canada, as elsewhere, news is an enterprise dominated by men/masculinity.

The crucial point made by the gendered mediation thesis is that what we see on news may look gender neutral, because news media have toned down overtly sexist coverage, on the whole. However, the type of coverage that we perceive as gender neutral is in fact based on masculine news frames, takes the male politician as the norm, and exaggerates women politicians and their behaviour when they are novel or surprising. The crux of the matter is we cannot equate gender neutral coverage with applying traditional masculine assumptions and frames to men and women politicians equally. The two are not the same.

Based on the insights of the gendered mediation thesis, Chapter Four tested a series of specific hypotheses about how women politicians’ coverage tends to differ from that of their male colleagues using a content analysis of 163 stories from CBC’s national televised English-language coverage of the 2000

Canadian federal election campaign. Quantitative data analyses were complemented with textual analysis of a selection of the CBC’s stories over the course of the campaign. In many cases, hypotheses were confirmed. Coverage of the woman leader, Alexa McDonough, and women candidates contained a far greater proportion of attack-style behaviour than that of the male leaders and candidates. Thirty-three percent of McDonough’s stories showed her engaging in attack-style speech and behaviour (Figure 4.2). The leader with the second largest portion of attack-style coverage was former Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell

Day, and only 11 percent of his stories showed him on the offensive. For all the

Chapter Eight 377 Conclusion leaders, mean sound bite lengths increased when they went on the attack (Figure

4.3), but unlike the three male leaders, McDonough’s mean sound bite length virtually doubled. Clearly, the relative portion of attack-style coverage of

McDonough in CBC’s coverage of the 2000 federal election far outstripped that of Chrétien, Clark, and Day, respectively. The explanation, according to the gendered mediation approach, is that female aggression contradicts deeply- ingrained expectations about how women do and perhaps should act, making the behaviour unexpected and sensational and, therefore, newsworthy.

The gendered mediation thesis also predicts that coverage of women politicians will be more filtered than that of their male counterparts, because women tend to function in news media as passive rather than speaking subjects, or as purveyors of meaning rather than creators of meaning (Rakow and Kranich

1991). This hypothesis was confirmed by analyses of the extent to which anchors and reporters provided analytical coverage, as opposed to straightforward descriptive coverage, of McDonough compared to the three male party leaders. In story lead-ins and wrap-ups, Alexa McDonough received more filtered analytical coverage than her male counterparts (Tables 4.7 and 4.9). Moreover, when analytical coverage of McDonough was shown, anchors and reporters offered very little evidence to substantiate their claims about her speech and actions

(Tables 4.8, 4.10, and 4.12). The relative paucity of substantiating evidence in analytical reportage about McDonough’s campaign activities and policies was evident in all components of news stories, from lead-ins to voice-overs to wrap-

Chapter Eight 378 Conclusion ups, suggesting there was a persistent pattern in how the woman leader was covered in 2000.

Results were not as clear cut for other indicators. In terms of visibility,

McDonough was consistently the least visible leader, whether we look at the number of stories each leader received, the number of headlined stories, the number of sound bites and the number of clips. However, caution is warranted in interpreting these results as evidence of sex imbalances in coverage. McDonough and her party were not contenders in the 2000 race; nor has the NDP, moreover, ever been a contender for power at the national level, unlike Joe Clark and the

PCs. The differences on all these indicators were small. Nonetheless, the fact that they were consistent suggests that visibility differences for the female leader were systematic. On the other hand, to the extent that candidates other than leaders were shown at all in CBC’s 2000 campaign coverage, it is certainly worth pointing out that the visibility of female candidates was roughly proportional to women’s share of candidacies in the 2000 campaign, as Chapter Four notes clearly. Put differently, women candidates (i.e., leaving leaders out of the equation) received their ‘fair share’ of coverage.

McDonough did not receive family-oriented coverage in 2000, contrary to past findings that news tends to emphasize women politicians’ familial connections more than those of their male counterparts (e.g., Devitt 2002; Everitt

2003; Jamieson 1995; Muir 2005b; Piper-Aiken 1999; Robinson and Saint-Jean

1991 and 1995; Ross 2002). Yet, it is clear from Chapter Seven’s analysis of women politicians’ media strategies that women in Canada, as elsewhere (e.g.,

Chapter Eight 379 Conclusion van Zoonen 1998b, 2000a, 2000b, 2005, and 2006), often play down their personal lives to media for fear of negative coverage or because of a desire to shield children from public scrutiny. While McDonough did not receive personalized ‘wife’ and ‘mother’ coverage, it is not as though she was portrayed as a power player, at least according to visual representations of symbols of power. Of the leaders, her coverage was the least likely to present her in shots where any of the following were in view: the Parliament buildings, Parliament

Hill, the Canadian Flag, or the House of Commons.

The data analysis presented in Chapter Four also indicated quite clearly that on some measures of news content, women politicians’ coverage was roughly comparable to (if not better than) that of their male colleagues. There were no significant sex differences in the mean lengths of leaders’ sound bites, their ratios of sound bites to clips, and the nature of their issue coverage (at least none that can be attributed to gender). In fact, McDonough received the highest volume of issue-oriented coverage and the least mentions of opinion polls of all the leaders, suggesting that her stories were more likely to focus on substantive issues rather horserace coverage.

Overall, then, the evidence is mixed. The results of Chapter Four drive home the lesson that news is complex, and analyzing coverage is complex. Sex differences in coverage are not always present, and if present, not always straightforward. Yet, as noted above, results were unambiguous that McDonough and the female candidates in 2000 received more attack-style coverage and more

Chapter Eight 380 Conclusion filtered coverage. The results presented in Figures 4.1 and 4.2 and Table 4.16 are clear.

Who is responsible? This is a question raised immediately by evidence of sex-differentiated coverage. Much of the work on women and political communication seems to assume, if only implicitly, that media are responsible – that media distort the ‘true’ behaviour of women through processes of selection and interpretation. It is important to recognize that newsmakers’ role in processes of mediation are not malicious, for they do not purposefully ignore or trivialize women politicians. Nonetheless, newsmakers must be assigned a fitting share of responsibility for sex-differentiated coverage. Sceptics may argue that news is a reflection of a society’s collective beliefs and, therefore, cannot be held responsible. Yet, news is not merely a reflection of society, a claim that suggests news plays a “passive and secondary role” in politics (Benson 2004: 278). News

(and media more generally) is dynamic and creative, for it also generates new meanings through interpretive processes such as framing (e.g., Gamson 1988,

1992; Entman 1991, 1993). Work on the sociology of news (e.g., Bennett 2003;

Benson 2004; Schudson 1989) demonstrates convincingly that news operates according to its own imperatives, and principal among these is maximizing audience share in order to attract advertising revenues, as discussed in detail in

Chapter Five. In the context of sex-differentiated coverage, newsmakers’ guilt rests in the unconscious use of stereotypes to dramatize politics and conflict in order to sell news. Newsmakers are part of a society where sex-role stereotypes define women as warm, compassionate, maternal, and objects of beauty.

Chapter Eight 381 Conclusion

Newsmakers use these stereotypes to present women politicians and to highlight

‘deviant’ women who defy conventional definitions of ‘feminine’ behaviour. The result is at the same time creative and reinforcing. News media actively participate in the constant evolution of sex-role stereotypes about what a ‘woman’ is and does, and at the same time, news media reinforce dominant gender stereotypes that work against women in all spheres of life.

When we ask who is responsible for sex-differentiated coverage, scholars of women and political communication tend to overlook the other group of actors in the equation: the women politicians. We cannot write about women politicians as though they do not participate in their own mediation. We cannot portray women politicians as mere victims of media complicity in perpetuating gender stereotypes. When Kim Campbell joked about her weight, can we blame media for doing the same? Similarly, Liberal Cabinet Minister Anne McLellan remarked on Belinda Stronach’s impeccable shoe collection after Stronach joined the

Liberal caucus in May 2005. Can we blame media for trivializing women or describing what Stronach wears? Would Jean Chrétien have welcomed floor- crosser Scott Brison into his caucus with a compliment on his silk ties and shiny cuff links? Likely not, but media probably would have reported the incident.

These are interesting and thorny questions, but the overarching point is that women participate in their own mediation. All political figures make choices that affect their mediation.

One of the main theoretical contributions this dissertation makes to the gendered mediation framework and to work on women and political

Chapter Eight 382 Conclusion communications more generally is my explicit recognition and decided engagement with the analytical distinction between provision and presentation.

Media content is a combination of real-world events and then how these real- world events are selected and presented by newsmakers. We know that men and women differ. Though we may not know why, research from political science to psychology to management has shown that women tend to speak differently, present themselves differently, prioritize different issues, have different issue positions, debate differently, and make decisions differently. The point is that we know men and women often think, speak, and act differently – whether for reasons connected to biology, socialization, or both – and these differences must surely be a factor in sex-differentiated news coverage.

In fact, Chapter Seven illustrates quite clearly that women politicians frequently act differently than their male colleagues toward and in front of news media, and this is in part because they think media treat them differently – in some cases, unfairly. The relationship between politicians and journalists is not straightforward or static. It is dynamic and symbiotic – each actor needs the other, yet each also has its own goals. The relationship is one of constant negotiation, as

Ross (2002) has aptly pointed out, and women politicians face unique challenges that affect their self presentations to news. An example illustrates the point well.

Audrey McLaughlin often received coverage claiming she was bland.

Hypothetically, she could have ‘spiced up’ her persona by going on the offensive in media scrums or televised debates, but the ensuing coverage would have exaggerated this attack-style behaviour, not only because it is out of character for

Chapter Eight 383 Conclusion

McLaughlin, but because this is what media tend to do when women go on the offensive. Sheila Copps’ behaviour tended to be the opposite of McLaughlin’s.

Copps was out-spoken and assertive. Media regularly portrayed her as ‘loud’,

‘shrill’, and sometimes downright ‘bitchy’ (Copps 1986, 2004). If Copps had revised her persona, and started acting more subdued in Question Period or in press scrums, would she have seen an improvement in coverage? Not necessarily, because media had categorized her as loud, shrill, and aggressive. Women can either be ‘nice’ or they can be ‘aggressive’, and very few women seem to enjoy flexibility in terms of the range of traits they can present. Thus, many women politicians find themselves in a particular ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situation. If they are boring, they are ignored; if they are assertive, they get attack-style coverage, and there are numerous other examples of media “double binds” (Mandel 1981) that women face. While this is a generalized pattern, there are certainly exceptions. Some women have effective hard-hitting styles, such as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (Conservative) and former

Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (Pakistan People’s Party).

Hypothesis Two: In the newsroom, a journalist’s sex has little impact on the manner in which female politicians are presented in individual news stories. News biases do not occur at the individual level, but at the structural level as a result of culturally-constructed gender-role norms, the political economy of the news business, and the sociology of newswork.

Chapter Five provides strong confirmatory evidence for the first component of this hypothesis. There were very few sex-of-reporter differences in

Chapter Eight 384 Conclusion how parties, leaders, and issues were covered in CBC’s reportage of the 2000

Canadian federal election campaign. Journalism, like politics, is a profession that has constituted itself according to a narrow set of norms, many of which have masculine overtones: adversarialism, objectivity, impartiality, and truth-seeking – the “fetishization of facts and factuality”, according to van Zoonen (1998).

Reflecting a masculine preoccupation with winning, news is written and spoken in a masculine language that focuses on conflict, drama, and competition (e.g.,

Covert 1981; Gidengil and Everit 1999, 2003b; Sampert and Trimble 2003;

Trimble and Sampert 2004; van Zoonen 1998). This is perhaps why we see so much horserace coverage of politics and elections. Journalism also has a distinct occupational culture that has been variously described by women as a “pub and club culture” (Smith 1976), an “old boy network” (Chambers, Steiner, and

Fleming 2004: 98), a “male ordered culture” (Ross 2001), and an “after-hours culture” (Chambers, Steiner, and Fleming 2004: 98). Men and women journalists alike are socialized to these prevailing modes of newswork in professional programs as well as in the early stages of their careers, and there are few openings to challenge dominant modes of news selection, interpretation, and presentation.

Part of the reason, I argue, why we see so few sex differences in reporting

– despite the periodic evidence that women journalists do see their journalistic work differently – is due to the powerful forces that guide the selection, interpretation, and presentation of news, particularly the sociology of newswork and the political economic organization of the news industry.

The implication is that a women’s way of doing newswork will only

Chapter Eight 385 Conclusion become possible when women have influence over the work routines of the profession, the informal culture of journalism, the economic imperatives of the news business, and the very definitions of newsworthiness that pervade the profession. In the long term, therefore, gender biases could disappear from news if there were more women in newsrooms, particularly women at the top levels and particularly if women reached a critical mass at the top levels, but this change could only be gradual. The forces that define journalism as a profession operate at the meta-level and, therefore, tend to be resistant to rapid change. While women’s numbers have increased in the ranks of professional journalism in recent decades

– even reaching numerical parity in the CBC – the distribution of decision-making roles is still uneven, a pattern that characterizes every mainstream television news outlet in the country, as Chapter Five demonstrates convincingly.

While large-scale forces tend to discourage deviation from the standard journalistic routines and styles, we do see glimpses of a uniquely female style of newswork, presumably when opportunities for autonomy materialize. In other words, some women journalists do report politics differently than their male colleagues. My data analyses in Chapter Five suggest that for some measures of news content, the differences between men and women reporters – in this case,

CBC reporters – were significant, albeit not overwhelmingly large. There is evidence that women tend to focus less on the horserace aspect of elections, but this may be because women are disproportionately assigned to non-competitive parties who are not real contenders in the race. While women do not utilize the horserace frame as much (for whatever reason), they do not shy from attack-style

Chapter Eight 386 Conclusion reportage. This is clear. There are also no differences in issue reporting, despite previous suggestions that women tend to get relegated to soft (less important) news issues while men get assigned to hard news issues, such as finance, foreign affairs, and defence. Irrespective of the policy field, the primary sex-of-reporter difference in issue coverage seems to be that women are more likely to make issues a focal point of their reportage generally. The one unambiguous finding is that women journalists are more likely to include sources and, in particular, women sources in their political reportage.

Several of my interviews with Canadian women politicians corroborate the claim that some women journalists approach their newswork differently than their male colleagues. Various women politicians, including former Prime Minister

Kim Campbell and former NDP leader Alexa McDonough, mentioned that there were periodic occasions where they felt supported or defended by women journalists. On the other hand, some scholars have suggested that women journalists can be even harder on female politicians than male journalists (e.g.,

Gidengil and Everitt 2003a, 2003b; Ross 2002). This would explain why some women politicians from Canada to the UK to South Africa to Australia express outright disdain for the treatment they have received from female journalists, as my work and the work of others (Ross 2002; Ross and Sreberny 2000) suggest. In our personal interview, Kim Campbell made the observation that “women voters and reporters are equally to blame for using stereotypes about women leaders.

Women exempt themselves from the stereotypes, but they do not necessarily

Chapter Eight 387 Conclusion exempt other women from these same stereotypes.”1 In an occupation historically dominated by men and a “pub and club” culture, there must be times when women journalists feel pressure to be tougher than their male colleagues in order to prove their worth as hard-hitting serious journalists. This may be another dynamic that would be altered with a dramatic increase in the proportion of women in decision-making positions in the news industry.

Hypothesis Three: Certain forms of gendered news coverage negatively affect citizens’ evaluations of news stories and perceptions of female politicians, particularly attack-style coverage. In other words, gendered coverage can have negative consequences for female politicians.

While Chapters Four and Five focussed on news content and the mechanics of the news business, Chapters Six and Seven moved onto the question of impact. Chapter Six analyzed the impact of attack-style news coverage using a unique media response study whereby 56 participants in the Canadian Election

Study (CES) viewed and rated the 163 news stories that were content analyzed in

Chapters Four and Five. Chapter Four demonstrated that Alexa McDonough received by far the greatest proportion of attack-style coverage of the four national party leaders (Figures 4.2 and 4.3), and Chapter Six tested the impact of this attack-style coverage on viewers’ assessments of party leaders’ news stories.

Three effects were tested: 1) A general “videomalaise”, 2) a sex-of-politician effect, and 3) a sex-of-viewer effect. Overall, conflictive behaviour has no impact on news ratings. I found no evidence that conflict produces a general

‘videomalaise’ among viewers. Yet, looking at politicians individually, viewers

1 Telephone interview with Kim Campbell. 22 September 2005.

Chapter Eight 388 Conclusion do react to attack-style behaviour, although in different ways depending on the politician. Chrétien and Clark’s ratings jumped when they were shown on the offensive in news of the 2000 campaign (Figure 6.4). In fact, simulated ratings show that Chrétien gained a substantial three-quarters of a point on the five-point rating scale when he was shown on the attack. Day’s ratings did not change significantly, and McDonough’s ratings declined among the 56 respondents when stories depicted her on the attack. When leaders were not shown on the attack,

McDonough had the highest news ratings of the four leaders. When leaders were depicted on the offensive, McDonough’s ratings were behind those of Clark and

Chrétien. It seems that McDonough was punished by viewers for counter- stereotypical behaviour, reflecting a recurring pattern in research on women politicians (e.g., Butler and Geis 1990; Iyengar et al. 1996) and women in the business world (Eagly, Makhijani, and Klonsky 1992; Hagen and Kahn 1975;

Janoff-Bulman and Wade 1996; Rudman 1998; Rudman and Glick 1999, 2001;

Rudman and Fairchild 2004; Rudman and Goodwin 2004).

In the case of McDonough’s decline in ratings, the loss appeared to be greatest among women participants in the audience response study (Figure 6.5).

There were sex-of-viewer effects nearly across the board, as Figure 6.5 shows.

Yet, overall, the decline in McDonough’s mean rating among women participants was the largest drop in ratings across all the simulated values. This suggests that women’s response to aggressivity was harsher when the source of the behaviour was a woman, as opposed to a man, which corresponds with work that Laurie

Rudman and her colleagues have done on women leaders in the corporate sphere

Chapter Eight 389 Conclusion

(Rudman 1998; Rudman and Glick 1999, 2001; Rudman and Fairchild 2004;

Rudman and Goodwin 2004).

Hypothesis Four: Women politicians are keenly aware of sex-differentiated media treatment and attempt to compensate for news imbalances with conscious media strategies. In other words, gendered news affects women politicians’ self- presentations to citizens through media.

Chapter Seven demonstrated unmistakably that many women politicians have a sense that media treat them differently, and often unfairly, simply because they are female. Gender is not the only factor politicians worry about in this context. Both men and women interviewees also identified partisanship, ideology, ethnicity, religion, and region as factors affecting their coverage, sometimes negatively. In some cases, women politicians focused more on factors other than gender when discussing challenges in attaining visibility as well as high-quality coverage. Each politician was slightly different. Women on the government side of the House of Commons have a point of view that is distinct from women in opposition; women from the English core (Ontario) have a point of view distinct from women in the peripheral regions (Atlantic and Western Canada); and women on the centre and centre-left (Liberal and NDP) have a different point of view than those on the centre-right (Conservative). Many factors contextualize a politician’s media experiences. In addition, male MPs have their own challenges in dealing with religious and ethnic difference, as the experiences of Stockwell Day

(“Fundamental Day”) and Gurmant Grewal (“The Indo-Canadian Member from…”) illustrate. Marginalized people generally share the same types of

Chapter Eight 390 Conclusion hurdles, largely because media tend to oversimplify and exaggerate difference, a process which I have argued is parallel to outgroup homogeneity bias. The parallels between gendered coverage and that of other marginalized groups will be explored in greater detail in the next section.

While Chapter Seven does a good job of recognizing the multiple hurdles politicians face in attaining positive news coverage, particularly those from marginalized groups and especially those with multiple marginalized identities, such as Rosemary Brown, there are commonalities in women politicians’ understandings of media as well as their strategies for negotiating media terrain.

Women self-censor. Of course, all politicians self-censor their speech, dress, and behaviour, because that is what impression management and self-presentation is all about. All politicians don a public mask, of sorts. Yet, women self-censor their behaviour specifically to avoid gender-based coverage. This is one indicator that women participate in their mediation, making the analytical distinction between provision and presentation integral to further progress in theoretical and empirical work on gender, media, and politics. Some women avoid being seen with family members or romantic partners because they want to dodge ‘wife’ and ‘mother’ coverage that calls attention to the conflict between their public and private roles.

Other women do it in order to avoid reminding media and voters that they are single – and therefore potential lesbians – or divorced – and therefore flighty and unreliable. Women self-censor to avoid debate/conflict with other women, which is often presented using a “cat fight” frame, according to Alexa McDonough.2

2 Personal interview with Alexa McDonough. 25 February 2005.

Chapter Eight 391 Conclusion

Women also take pro-active strategies to improve their chances of media visibility and, more importantly, positive media visibility. Several women have gained a great deal from campaign schools. Some women talk about the importance of staying ‘on message’ in order to communicate the intended message without speaking off-the-cuff. Kim Campbell’s experience in the 1993

Canadian federal election campaign suggests that women’s impromptu remarks can be distorted by media. In the 1993 campaign, Jean Chrétien seemed to be granted more leeway by journalists. This was not just Campbell’s personal opinion about a political rival; several reporters made note of the fact as well, as

Chapter Seven discussed. Ultimately, many women politicians assert that they face particular challenges with media because they are women, which results in a more constrained media environment compared to that experienced by their male colleagues.

This is the first book-length analysis of women, media, and politics in

Canada. It is also the first to weave into a coherent whole detailed analyses of media content, audience reactions to media content, the gendered news workforce, and the effects of all three on women politicians’ understandings of and self presentations to media. In other words, it is the sole study to adopt a gender approach to the triangular and multi-directional relationships between politicians, journalists, and audiences. The study utilizes a powerful combination of quantitative data collected by the CES before, during, and after the 2000 campaign: the three-wave CES survey; data derived from content analysis of the structural and substantive features of CBC’s coverage of the 2000 campaign – the

Chapter Eight 392 Conclusion most detailed study of its kind performed to date in Canada; and the study of how audiences respond to the very same news. This combination of data is extremely rare in any context. In addition, the dissertation draws on a wide variety of qualitative data including a series of personal interviews with federal MPs complemented by analyses of political autobiographies and secondary interviews with politicians (from news sources and documentaries). The resulting combination of quantitative and qualitative data provides the contextual richness associated with qualitative work as well as the more global overview associated with numerical data.

Ultimately, the dissertation has examined all the major actors in the television-news universe, and has found evidence that TV news do present men and women differently and that, currently, women journalists are in no position to challenge dominant (masculine) modes of selecting, interpreting, and presenting news. Most importantly, the dissertation establishes that sex differences in coverage are consequential on two counts: first, the differences harmed audience ratings of the female leader in the 2000 campaign, and, second, women politicians believe that the sex-specific ways they are covered tend to constrain their abilities to communicate to voters through media, and tend not to benefit their careers, on the whole.

In addition to the very specific theoretical contribution I make to the gendered mediation framework in the form of the provision/presentation distinction, this dissertation makes important contributions to work on political communications more broadly. I have addressed fundamental questions about the

Chapter Eight 393 Conclusion structural aspects of newswork, the processes involved in media effects, and the role politicians play in their own mediation. I have grappled with the long- standing question about whether media distortions occur at the individual or at the systemic level. I have demonstrated conditions under which news content can influence citizens’ political dispositions. I have problematized past research that fails to compare, whether it is women politicians to their male counterparts or women politicians’ news coverage to their actual behaviours. All of these issues matter, because media’s importance to democratic politics is difficult to overstate.

Increasingly, work on elections and political behaviour focuses on information, and demonstrates that there are systematic gender biases in the quantity and quality of information provided by news media. Indeed, at its most general level, this dissertation contributes to ongoing debates about the quality of information provided to citizens via television news, and it finds the medium lacking in many respects. Given the title of my dissertation and the explicit approach outlined in the introductory chapter, I conceptualize the relationship between politicians, newsworkers, and citizens/viewers as triangular and dynamic, suggesting that all three sets of actors bear responsibility for media’s informational deficiencies and that all three have a unique role to play in transforming the media system.

8.2 Implications

Two sets of implications naturally stem from this work: 1) implications for future research; and 2) practical implications for women in politics.

Chapter Eight 394 Conclusion

The conclusion of every project suggests the genesis of one or more new directions. Unanswered questions, ambiguous findings, and insufficient cases can motivate researchers to seek further analyses, and this dissertation does not deviate from this well-worn pattern. Among the obvious dangling questions is the provision/presentation distinction that I have proposed. Very rarely do scholars compare the real-world behaviour of women politicians to their news coverage.

Gidengil and Everitt have done this with their analyses comparing televised leaders’ debates with post-debate news coverage, and they have found that women’s aggressive behaviours are exaggerated (Gidengil and Everitt 1999,

2000, and 2003a). This is a good start, but we must analyze more widely.

Arguably, leaders’ debates are the most highly-scripted events of Canadian federal election campaigns. Leaders have practiced for weeks, they are firmly ‘on message’, and every movement is calculated. Analyses must be extended to men and women politicians’ real-world behaviour on the campaign trail, in press conferences, in the House of Commons, and other venues. We need to connect women’s behaviour in Question Period – which has been analyzed by Manon

Tremblay (1998) – to the coverage of Question Period on the nightly news. This would be a good way to study the provision/presentation distinction, because

Question Period is the only component of House business that is covered habitually. Also, there would be an added bonus of studying politics and its news coverage in a non-election context.

Another obvious direction for future analyses is cross-national comparative work that places Canada in a broader context. Literature on women

Chapter Eight 395 Conclusion and political communications is remarkably consistent, for work on the US, the

Netherlands, Germany, Finland, Canada, the UK, New Zealand, and other locales has produced similar patterns of findings. Yet, comparability of research designs, theoretical frameworks, measurements, and indicators is a persistent challenge.

For example, it can be difficult to compare highly-quantitative political science work (such as many of the analyses presented here) with studies coming from a cultural studies perspective (Hébert 2006). There are obvious disjunctures. In addition, there are also institutional and cultural differences that must be taken into account when comparing country case studies. Yet, the field’s diversity is at the same time its strength, because we tend to ask similar questions and often reach similar conclusions, but using a diversity of methods, assumptions, and approaches. That said, there is much room for comparative work.

Within this call for more comparative work, there is also a call for a dismantling of the artificial distinction between the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ worlds. Is Canada a good comparison with India, for example, on issues of women and political communications? The cultures are quite different, but the matrix of institutions is not. India is a Westminster system, it is a federal country, power is highly centralized at the federal level, and India has had a female prime minister (Indira Gandhi). If one were to select comparative cases for India, would

Venezuela or The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) be more appropriate simply because all three are ‘developing’? The work on women and political communication that exists, and which is heavily represented in my dissertation, focuses overwhelmingly on countries of the industrialized West. Where work is

Chapter Eight 396 Conclusion being done on women and political communications in the so-called ‘developing world’, it is poorly integrated with work on the ‘developed world’. This is an unnecessary restriction. Indeed, cultural differences prevail across countries of the

‘developed world’, making US-Scandinavia comparisons and Canada-Eastern

Europe comparisons, for example, problematic. More work needs to be done on women and political communications in the South, and this work needs to be integrated with work being done in the North.

Finally, the research agenda could also quite easily be, and naturally should be, extended to work on other historically-marginalized groups, such as members of ethnic and religious minorities. A substantial literature exists on media coverage of minority groups, a large portion of it focussing on media treatment of African-American politicians in the US (e.g., Gibbons 1993; Swain

1993; Schaffner and Gadson 2004; Terkildsen and Damore 1999; Zilber and

Niven 2000a and 2000b). The literatures on gender/media and minorities/media rarely ‘talk’ to one another, however. Greater integration of the two literatures would produce obvious benefits: 1) highlighting the systemic nature of imbalanced coverage of societal outgroups; 2) emphasizing the media negotiation challenges faced by those who do not fit the mould of the archetypical politician; and 3) drawing attention to the intersection of identities and forcing greater attention to minority women as a particular group in studies of political communication.

The other set of implications is much more immediate and in many ways more pressing. This dissertation has practical implications for women in politics.

Chapter Eight 397 Conclusion

The ways that women politicians’ coverage differs from that of their male colleagues negatively affect women’s appeal to voters and their own abilities to design and implement successful communications to media and ultimately to citizens. Put simply, media coverage and media relations as they are currently constituted can act as a hindrance on women politicians’ electability and political

‘upward mobility’, so to speak. This is worrisome because the representation of women (and other marginalized groups) at all levels of government is consequential. For example, we know that women legislators can bring unique perspectives to their work. Electing women in sufficient numbers is a crucial first step towards substantive representation of women’s interests and perspectives according to the critical mass hypothesis (Mandel 1981). Women can only make a substantial difference to political discourse and law and public policy when they are elected to governing bodies in more than token numbers. A critical mass of women is required to make substantive change, and research suggests that women do make a difference.

Based on her analysis of men and women’s legislative behaviour in

Canada’s 35th Parliament (1994-1997), Tremblay (1998) reports that there are real consequences as a result of having more female legislators, because women’s approach to policy as well as the way women do business in the House and on

Parliamentary committees is often different from that of their male colleagues.

According to Tremblay’s analysis, 60 percent of the female MPs in the 35th

Parliament said that women’s issues should be given high priority, while about 41 percent of male MPs said the same. Similarly, Tremblay (1998) found that the

Chapter Eight 398 Conclusion proportion of private members’ bills related to women’s issues was much greater for women MPs than for male MPs, and in House debate, a greater proportion of women spoke on women’s issues compared to their male colleagues. In terms of the differences in men and women’s legislative behaviour, corroborating evidence has been reported for the 34th Canadian Parliament (1988-1993) (Young 1997); the Ontario provincial context (Byrne 1997); the US Congress (e.g., Boxer 1994;

Dodson 1998, Dolan 1997; Swers 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003; Tatolovich and Schier

1993); US state legislatures (e.g., Carroll 2001; Kathlene 1994; Reingold 1992;

Rosenthal 2000; Thomas 1991 and 1997; Thomas and Welch 1991); and US municipal government (e.g., Beck 2001; Fox and Schuhmann 1999).

In addition to substantive representation, there is also the issue of symbolic or descriptive representation (Pitkin 1967). Women legislators stand for or symbolically represent the female portion of the population. This is an important part of representation because it is fair, and because it allows citizens to see themselves reflected in legislatures in roughly equal proportion to their share of the population. The presence of women in more than token numbers also normalizes their existence as legislators and provides role models for all women, particularly young women, who might not otherwise consider political office a natural or feasible choice for their own futures. Indeed, women politicians show other women that politics is not a male domain. As Chapter Two pointed out, there is a role model effect to consider when analyzing the news visibility of women office holders and candidates, because high visibility of women increases the political engagement of adolescent females (Campbell and Wolbrecht 2006).

Chapter Eight 399 Conclusion

Visibility increases the likelihood that young women will learn of female candidacies, and visibility also implies that women’s candidacies are viable and important, depending, as always, on the quality of coverage. In short, my analyses suggest that media pose unique challenges to women politicians’ electability and career advancement, which is worrisome given that women’s representation in legislatures matters for substantive and symbolic reasons.

8.3 Prescriptions

I avoided calling this section ‘Policy Prescriptions’, because policy solutions to the issues addressed in this project are likely to fail. Media regulation has become a contentious topic in this country and others. In Canada, there is heated debate about Canadian content regulations and concentration of ownership, to give two examples (e.g., Carlin 2003; Nesbitt-Larking 2001; Taras 2001; Schultz 1999;

Soderlund and Hildebrandt 2005; Winseck 1998). The CBC has already adopted its own Gender Guidelines, a document that aims to ensure language used to report women is gender-neutral (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 1998). The

Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) and the Canadian Association of

Broadcasters (CAB) have adopted similar guidelines on sex-role portrayal.

Beyond these voluntary measures, it is not clear that a policy solution to force media to report on women politicians differently would be feasible (or even desirable). There are various issues to consider. First, there is the provision/presentation distinction. If women act differently in politics, it is natural for media to report them differently. Second, the gendered mediation thesis is

Chapter Eight 400 Conclusion correct in its claim that blatantly sexist reportage is a thing of the past, for the most part. The problem lies in using the same frames, language, and assumptions about politics – which are based on the constitution of the political world as a man’s world – to report women. Surely we do not want to regulate media to the point where journalists are prohibited from using game frames and phrases such as ‘hammers home’ and ‘slam dunk’ to report women. Likewise, we cannot force media to overhaul its occupational culture and organizational structures overnight.

This is not consonant with the idea of a free and independent media, which is a component of democracy.

One of the themes connecting all of the work in this project is a focus on collectively-held, deeply-ingrained gender-role stereotypes. Likely, this is the real culprit, if such a culprit exists. Stereotypes provide expectations about what individuals are like based on their group membership, and stereotypes also have a prescriptive element, because they tell people what types of behaviours are appropriate for their group. Stereotypes are part of the reason why content tends to be sex-differentiated. Indeed, counter-stereotypical behaviour – such as a woman leader attacking a political rival – is newsworthy because it is unexpected, dramatic, and titillating. Audiences respond negatively to counter-stereotypical behaviour, as Chapter Six demonstrated. Women politicians themselves often see culturally-constituted stereotypes as straightjackets, particularly since they occupy historically-masculine leadership roles. The bad news is that stereotypes are notoriously resistant to change at both the aggregate and individual levels (e.g.,

Bargh 1999; Darley and Gross 1983; Dovidio et al. 1997; Fazio et al. 1995;

Chapter Eight 401 Conclusion

Greenwald, McGhee, and Schwartz 1998; Johnston 1996; Moreno and

Bodenhausen 1999; Stangor 1994). At the aggregate level, stereotypes are part of our collective culture. At the individual level, people are resistant to new information that contradicts existing knowledge and beliefs, a point Festinger

(1957) made forcefully five decades ago (see also Darley and Gross 2001). What this means is that until our collectively-held beliefs are more accepting of the notion that women are natural beings in the political world whose private and public roles have no necessary tension, the problems described in this dissertation will likely continue to occur.

This is a bleak prognosis, to be sure. However, this does not mean that prescriptions are not possible. Put simply, women politicians are not powerless, and they have not seen themselves as powerless, as Chapter Seven highlights nicely. Initiatives like campaign schools that provide specific training on media relations seems to help women politicians. Successful self-presentation to media does not seem to be intuitive, but, instead, requires expertise. Resources for women candidates and office holders to produce their own communication materials, particularly in the form of candidate-sponsored advertisements, could also help. Part of the problem with self-presentation for politics is that one rarely self-presents directly to voters. Self-presentation is done through media, which is unpredictable and sometimes results in negative coverage. If women had better access to candidate-controlled, versus media-controlled, communications, they might be able to represent themselves more genuinely to voters. Whatever strategy is chosen, it is clear that some responsibility rests with parties for

Chapter Eight 402 Conclusion ensuring the women they nominate and who sit in their caucuses have access to the resources, financial and otherwise, required for making the most of their public personas. In the end, media constitute an important political actor that is difficult to regulate and impossible to ignore. Change in collectively-held assumptions about who is and is not suited for the political world moves at a snail’s pace. In the meantime, women politicians, their male allies, and their political parties will have to collaborate in efforts to assist women politicians navigate the political media terrain “backwards in high heels”,3 while at the same time taking every opportunity to challenge prevailing (masculine) norms about the traits and behaviours of the archetypical politician.

3 Audrey McLaughlin, former leader of the federal New Democratic Party. Quoted in Sharpe (1994: 33).

References 403

REFERENCES

Adatto, Kiku. 1990. Sound bite democracy: Network evening news Presidential campaign coverage, 1968 and 1988. Research paper R-2. The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government. Harvard University.

Aday, Sean, and James Devitt. 2001. Style over substance: Newspaper coverage of Elizabeth Dole’s presidential bid. Press/Politics 6(2): 52-73.

Ahlers, Douglas. 2006. News consumption and the new electronic media. Harvard International Journal of Press/politics 11(1): 29-52.

Aldridge, Meryl. 2001. Lost expectations? Women journalists and the fall-out from the ‘Toronto newspaper war’. Media, Culture and Society 23: 607- 624.

Alexander, D., and K. Anderson. 1993. Gender as a factor in the attribution of leadership traits. Political Research Quarterly 46(3): 527-545.

Alia, V. 1999. Un/Covering the North: News, media, and Aboriginal people. Vancouver: Univ. of British Columbia Press.

Allard, Carole-Marie. 1987. Ottawa: les femmes emménagent. Commerce (October): 102-106.

Althaus, Scott L. 1998. Information effects in collective preferences. American Political Science Review 92: 545-58.

Altschull, J. Herbert. 1997. Boundaries of journalistic autonomy. In Social meanings of news: A text-reader. ed. D. Berkowitz, 259-268. Sage: Thousand Oaks, CA.

Anderson, Cameron D., and Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant. 2005. Conceptions of political representation in Canada: An explanation of public opinion. Canadian Journal of Political Science 38(4): 1029-1058.

Anderson, Karrin Vasby. 2002. Hillary Rodham Clinton as ‘Madonna’: The role of metaphor and oxymoron in image restoration. Women’s Studies in Communication 25(1): 1-24.

Andersen, Robert, James Tilley, and Anthony F.Heath. 2005. Political knowledge and enlightened preferences: Party choice through the electoral cycle. British Journal of Political Science 35: 285-302.

References 404

Ansalobehere, Stephen, Roy Behr, and Shanto Iyengar. 1993. The media game. New York: Macmillan.

Ansolabehere, Stephen, and Shanto Iyengar. 1994. Riding the wave and claiming ownership over issues: The joint effects of advertising and news coverage in campaigns. Public Opinion Quarterly 58 (3): 335-357.

Ansalobehere, Stephen, Shanto Iyengar, Adam Simon, and Nicholas Valentino. 1994. Does attack advertising demobilize the electorate? American Political Science Review 88(4): 829-838.

Ansalobehere, Stephen, and Shanto Iyengar. 1995. Going negative: How political advertisements shrink and polarize the electorate. New York: Free Press.

Antecol, Michael, and James W. Endersby. 1999. Newspaper consumption and beliefs about Canada and Quebec. Political Communication 16: 95-112.

Argyle, Michael, Veronica Salter, Hilary Nicholson, Marilyn Williams, and Philip Burgess. 1970. The communication of inferior and superior attitudes by verbal and non-verbal signals. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 9: 222-231.

Argyle, Michae, F. Alkema, and R. Gilmour. 1971. The communication of friendly and hostile attitudes by verbal and nonverbal signals. European Journal of Social Psychology 1: 385-402.

Atkin, C.K., L. Bowen, O.B. Nayman, and K.G. Sheinkopf. 1973. Quality versus quantity in televised political ads. Public Opinion Quarterly 37: 209-224.

Banducci, Susan, and Jeffrey Karp. 2000. Gender, leadership and choice in multiparty systems. Political Research Quarterly 53: 815-848.

Banwart, Mary Christine, and Mitchell S. McKinney. 2005. A gendered influence in campaign debates? Analysis of mixed-gender United States senate and gubernatorial debates. Communication Studies 56(4): 353-373.

Bargh, J. A. 1999. The cognitive monster: The case against the controllability of automatic stereotype effects. In Dual-process theories in social psychology. eds. S. Chaiken and Y. Trope, 361-382. New York: Guilford.

Baron, R.A., and D. Hyrne. 1977. Social psychology: Understanding human interaction. Boston: Allen & Bacon.

Bartels, Larry. 1996. Uninformed votes: Information effects in Presidential elections. American Journal of Political Science 40: 194-230.

References 405

Bartels, Larry. 2002. The impact of candidate traits in American presidential elections. In Leaders’ personalities and the outcomes of democratic elections. ed. Anthony King, 44-69. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Bashevkin, Sylvia. 1993. Toeing the lines: Women and party politics in English Canada. 2nd ed. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press.

Bashevkin, Sylvia. 1996. Political parties and the representation of women. In Canadian parties in transition. 2nd ed. ed. A. B. Tanguay and A.-G. Gagnon, 181-199. Don Mills, Ont.: Oxford Univ. Press.

Bashevkin, Sylvia. 1998. Women on the defensive: Living through Conservative times. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

Basil, Michael, Caroline Schooler, and Byron Reeves. 1991. Positive and negative political advertising: Effectiveness of advertisements and perceptions of candidates. In Television and political advertising, vol. 1, Psychological processes, ed. F. Biocca. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Bathla, Sonia. 1998. Women, democracy and the media: Cultural and political representation in the Indian press. New Delhi: Sage.

Bathla, Sonia. 2000. Covering women in the Indian press: A Brahmanical cultureal paradigm. In Gender, politics and communication. eds. Annabelle Sreberny and Liesbet van Zoonen, 183-204. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Bean, Clive. 1993. The electoral influence of party leader images in Australia and New Zealand. Comparative Political Studies 26: 111-132.

Bean, Clive, and Anthony Mughan. 1989. Leadership effects in parliamentary elections in Australia and Britain. American Political Science Review 83(4): 1165-1179.

Bechhofer, Frank, and Lindsay Paterson. 2000. Principles of research design in the social sciences. New York: Routledge.

Beck, Susan Abrams. 2001. Acting as women: The effects and limitations of gender in local governance. In The impact of women in public office. ed. Susan J. Carroll, 49-67. Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univ. Press.

Behr, Roy L., and Shanto Iyengar. 1985. Television news, real-world cues, and changes in the public agenda. Public Opinion Quarterly 49:38-57.

References 406

Bélanger, Eric. 2003. Issue ownership by Canadian political parties 1953-2001. Canadian Journal of Political Science 36 (3): 539-558.

Belenky, M., B. Clinchy, N. Goldberger, and J. Tarule. 1986. Women’s ways of knowing: The development of self, voice, and mind. New York: Basic Books.

Bem, Sandra Lipsitz. 1974. The measurement of psychological androgyny. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 42: 155-162.

Bem, Sandra Lipsitz. 1981. Gender schema theory: A cognitive account of sex typing. Psychological Review 88(4): 354-364.

Bem, Sandra Lipsitz. 1983. Gender schema theory and its implications for child development: Raising gender-aschematic children in a gender-schematic society. Signs 8(4): 598-616.

Bem, Sandra Lipsitz. 1993. The lenses of gender: Transforming the debate on sexual inequality. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.

Benhabib, Sylvia, and D. Cornell, eds. 1987. Feminism as critique: On the politics of gender. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minesota Press.

Bennett, W. Lance. 2003. News: The politics of illusion. 5th ed. New York: Addison Wesley Longman.

Benson, Rodney. 2004. Bringing the sociology of media back in. Political Communication 21: 275-292.

Berelson, B. 1952. Content analysis in communication research. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.

Berelson, B., Paul F. Lazarsfeld, and W. McPhee. 1954. Voting. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

Berg, B.L. 1995. Qualitative research methods for the social sciences. 2nd ed. Needham Heights: Allyn and Bacon.

Best, Deborah L., and John E. Williams. 1990. Measuring sex stereotypes: A thirty-nation study. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Black, Jerome. 2002. Representation in the Parliament of Canada: The case of ethnoracial minorities. In Citizen politics: Research and theory in Canadian political behaviour. eds. J. Everitt and B. O’Neill, 355-373. Toronto: Oxford Univ. Press.

References 407

Black, Jerome, and Lynda Erickson. 2000. Similarity, compensation, or difference? A comparison of female and male office-seekers. Women and Politics 21(4): 1-38.

Black, Jerome, and Lynda Erickson. 2003. Women candidates and voter bias: Do women politicians need to be better? Electoral Studies 22: 81-100.

Blais, André, Neil Nevitte, Elisabeth Gidengil, and Richard Nadeau. 2000. Do people have feelings toward leaders about whom they say they know nothing? Public Opinion Quarterly 64: 452-463.

Blais, André, Elisabeth Gidengil, Richard Nadeau, and Neil Nevitte. 2001. Measuring party identification: Britain, Canada, and the United States. Political Behavior 23(1): 5-22.

Blais, André, Elisabeth Gidengil, Richard Nadeau, and Neil Nevitte. 2002a. Anatomy of a Liberal victory: Making sense of the vote in the 2000 Canadian election. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press.

Blais, André, Elisabeth Gidengil, Richard Nadeau, and Neil Nevitte. 2002b. Do party supporters differ? In Citizen politics: Research and theory in Canadian political behaviour. eds. J. Everitt and B. O’Neill, 184-201. Don Mills, ON: Oxford Univ. Press.

Blais, André, Elisabeth Gidengil, Richard Nadeau, and Neil Nevitte. 2003. Campaign dynamics in the 2000 Canadian election: How the leader debates salvaged the Conservative party. PS: Political Science and Politics 36(1): 45-50.

Bland, J.M., and D.G. Altman. 2000. The odds ratio. British Medical Journal 320: 1468.

Blumler, Jay G., and Michael Gurevitch. 1988. The political effects of mass communication. In Culture, society and the media. eds., M. Gurevitch, T. Bennett, J. Curran, and J. Woolacott, 236-267. London: Routledge.

Blumler. J.G. and E. Katz, eds. 1974. The uses of mass communications. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Blumler Jay G., and D. Kavanagh. 1999. The third age of political communication: Influences and features. Political Communication 16(3): 209-230.

References 408

Bleske, Glen L. 1997. Ms. Gates takes over: An updated version of a 1949 case study. In Social meanings of news. ed. D. Berkowitz. London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Boardman, Anthony E., and Aidan R. Vining. 1996. Public service broadcasting in Canada. Journal of Media Economics 9(1): 47-61.

Bower, R. T. 1985. The changing television audience in America. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.

Borooah, Vani K. 2002. Logit and probit: Ordered and multinomial models. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Boxer, Barbara. 1994. Strangers in the Senate. Washington, DC: National Press Books.

Braden, Maria. 1996. Women politicians and the media. Lexington, KY: The Univ. Press of Kentucky.

Brady, Henry E., and Richard Johnston. 1987. What’s the primary message: Horse race or issue journalism? In Media and momentum: The New Hampshire primary and nomination politics. eds. Gary R. Orren and Nelson W. Polsby, 127-186. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House.

Branscombe, N. R., P. Crosby, and J.A. Weir. 1993. Social inferences concerning male and female homeowners who use a gun to shoot an intruder. Aggressive Behavior 19: 113–124.

Brants, Kees. 1998. Who’s afraid of infotainment? European Journal of Communications 13(3): 315-335.

Brennan, R.L., and D.J. Prediger. 1981. Coefficient kappa: Some uses, misuses, and alternatives. Educational and Psychological Measurement 41: 687- 699.

Brewer, John, and Albert Hunter. 2005. Foundations of multimethod research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Bridge, M. Junior. 1995. What's news? In Women and Media: Content/Careers/Criticism. ed. Cynthia M. Lont, 15-29. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Brodie, Janine. 1977. The recruitment of Canadian women provincial legislators, 1950-1975. Atlantis 2: 6-17.

References 409

Brodie, Janine. 1985. Women and politics in Canada. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson.

Broverman, J.K., S.R. Vogel, D.M. Broverman, F.E. Clarkson, and P.S. Rosenkrantz. 1972. Sex-role stereotypes: A current appraisal. Journal of Social Issues 28(2): 59-78.

Brown, Allen. 1996a. A note on public service broadcasting. Journal of Media Economics. 9(1): 1-2.

Brown, Allen. 1996b. Economics, public service broadcasting, and social values. Journal of Media Economics. 9(1): 3-15.

Brown, Mary Ellen, and Darlaine C. Gardetto. 2000. Representing Hillary Rodham Clinton: Gender, meaning, and news media. In Gender, politics and communication. eds. Annabelle Sreberny and Liesbet van Zoonen, 21-52. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Brown, Rosemary. 1989. Being Brown: A very public life. Toronto: Random House.

Brown, Steven, Ronald Lambert, Barry Kay, and James Curtis. 1988. In the eye of the beholder: Leader images in Canada. Canadian Journal of Political Science 21: 729-755.

Budesheim, Thomas Lee, David A. Houston, and Stephen J. DePaola. Persuasiveness of in-group and out-group political messages: The case of negative political campaigning. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70(3): 523-534.

Burgoon, Judee K., David B. Buller, and W. Gill Woodall. 1996. Nonverbal communication: The unspoken dialogue. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Burns, Nancy, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Sidney Verba. 2001. The private roots of public action. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.

Burrell, Barbara C. 1994. A woman’s place is in the House: Campaigning for Congress in the feminist era. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.

Burt, Sandra. 1986. Different democracies? A preliminary examination of the political worlds of Canadian men and women. Women and Politics 6: 57- 79.

References 410

Burt, Sandra, and Elizabeth Lorenzin. 1997. Taking the women’s movement to Queen’s Park: Women’s interests and the New Democratic Government of Ontario. In In the presence of women: Representation and Canadian governments. eds. Jane Arscott and Linda Trimble, 202-227. Toronto: Harcourt Brace & Company.

Butler, Doré, and Florence L. Geis. 1990. Nonverbal affect responses to male and female leaders: Implications for leadership evaluations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58: 48-59.

Butler, Judith. 1999. Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge.

Byrne, Lesley Hyland. 1997. Feminists in power: Women cabinet ministers in the New Democratic (NDP) government of Ontario, 1990-1995. Policy Studies Journal 25(4): 601-612.

Bystrom, Dianne, and J.L. Miller. 1999. Gendered communication styles and strategies in campaign 1996: The videostyles of women and men candidates. In The electronic election: Perspectives on the 1996 campaign communication. eds. L.L. Kaid, and D.G. Bystrom, 293-302. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Bystrom, Dianne, T. Robertson, and M.C. Banwart. 2001. Framing the fight: An analysis of media coverage of female and male candidates in primary races for governor and U.S. Senate in 2000. American Behavioural Scientist 44(12): 1999-2013.

Bystrom, Dianne, Mary Christine Banwart, Lynda Lee Kaid, and Terry Robertson. 2004. Gender and candidate communication: VideoStyle, WebStyle, and NewsStyle. New York: Routledge.

Bystydzienski, Jill. 1992. Influence of women’s culture on public policies in Norway. In Women Transforming Politics. ed. J. Bystydzienski. Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univ. Press.

Campbell, Anne. 2002. A mind of her own: The evolutionary psychology of women. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Campbell, A., P.E. Converse, W.E. Miller, and D.E. Stokes. 1960. The American voter. New York: Wiley.

References 411

Campbell, David, and Christina Wolbrecht. 2006. See Jane run: Women politicians as role models for adolescents. Journal of Politics 68(2): 233- 247.

Campbell. Kim. 1996. Time and chance: The political memoirs of Canada’s first woman prime minister. Toronto: Doubleday.

Campbell, K.K. 1989. Men cannot speak for her: A critical study of early feminist rhetoric. New York: Greenwood.

Canada. 1991. Broadcasting Act.

Canadian Association of Broadcasters. Canadian association of broadcasters sex- role portrayal code for radio and television programming. Canada: Canadian Association of Broadcasters. http://www.cab-acr.ca/.

Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. 1990. Sex role portrayal code for television and radio programming. Canada: Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. http://www.ccnr.ca/.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.1998. Gender guidelines. Ottawa: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 2002a. Employment equity statistics. Ottawa: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. http://cbc.radio- canada.ca/htmen/employment_equity/stats .htm.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 2002b. CBC annual report to HRDC for 2002: Employment equity. Ottawa: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. http://www.cbc.radio-canada.ca/ docs/equity/pdf/ee-exec2002e.pdf.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 2003a. CBC annual report to HRSD for 2003: Employment equity. Ottawa: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. http://www.cbc.radio-canada.ca/ docs/equity/pdf/ee-exec2003e.pdf.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 2003b. CBC equity newsletter. 10(2): 1-4. http://www.cbc. radio-canada.ca/docs/equity/pdf/ee-news18e.pdf.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 2003c. Equity statistics as of December 31 2003. Ottawa: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. http://www.cbc.radio- canada.ca/docs/equity/pdf/ee-stats2003e.pdf.

References 412

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 2004. Annual report 2002-2003. Ottawa: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 2005. Annual report 2003-2004. Ottawa: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Carey, J.W. 1974. The problem of journalism history. Journalism History 1(1): 3- 5, 27.

Carli, L. L. 1990. Gender, language, and influence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 59: 941-951.

Carli, L. L., S. LaFleur, and C.C. Loeber. 1995. Nonverbal behavior, gender, and influence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 68: 1030–1041.

Carlin, Vincent A. 2003. No clear channel: The rise and possible fall of media convergence. In How Canadians communicate. eds. David Taras, Frits Pannekoek, and Maria Bakardjieva, 51-69. Calgary AB: Univ. of Calgary Press.

Carlson, Tom. 2001. Gender and political advertising across cultures: A comparison of male and female political advertising in Finland and the US. European Journal of Communication 16(2): 131-154.

Carroll, Susan J. 2001. Representing women: Women state legislators as agents of policy-related change. In The impact of women in public office. ed. Susan J. Carroll, 3-21. Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univ. Press.

Carroll, Susan J., and Ronnee Schreiber. 1997. Media coverage of women in the 103rd Congress. In Women, media, and politics. ed. P. Norris, 131-149. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Carstairs, Sharon, and Tim Higgins. 2004. Dancing backwards: A social history of Canadian women in politics. Winnipeg, Man.: Heartland Associates.

Carter, C., G. Branston, and S. Allen, eds. 1998. News, gender and power. London: Routledge.

Carty, R.K. 1992. Canadian political party systems: A reader. Peterborough: Broadview.

Carty, R.K., and D. Munroe Eagles. 2005. Politics is local: National politics at the grassroots. Toronto: Oxford Univ. Press.

References 413

Carty, R.K., D. Munroe Eagles, and Anthony Sayers. 2003. Candidates and local campaigns: Are there just four Canadian types? Party Politics 9(5): 619- 636.

Carty, R.K., William Cross, and Lisa Young. 2000. Rebuilding Canadian party politics. Vancouver: Univ. of British Columbia Press.

Chambers, Deborah, Linda Steiner, and Carole Fleming. 2004. Women and journalism. London and New York: Routledge.

Charity, Arthur. 1995. Doing public journalism. New York: Guilford.

Charmaz, Kathy. 2001. Qualitative interviewing and grounded theory analysis. In Handbook of interview research: Content and method. eds. Jaber F. Gubrium, and James A. Holstein, 675-694. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Chidley, Joe, and Diane Turbide. 1996. CBC cuts announced. Maclean’s, 30 September 1996.

Chiose, Simona. 2001. Trina McQueen: Tales of a TV trailblazer. Playback 29 October. http://www.playbackmag.com/articles/magazine/20011029/trina.htm/.

Christmas, Linda. 1997. Chaps of both sexes? Women decision-makers in newspapers: Do they make a difference? London: Women in Journalism/BT Forum. http://www.leisurejobs.net/wij/chaps/index.cfm.

Claringbould, Inge, Annelies Knoppers, and Agnes Elling. 2004. Exclusionary practices in sport journalism. Sex Roles 51(11/12): 709-718.

Clark, Cal, and Janel Clark. 1993. The gender gap 1988: Compassion, pacifism and indirect feminism. In Women and politics: Outsiders or insiders? ed. Lois Lovelace Duke, 32-45. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Clarke, Harold, Lawrence LeDuc, Jane Jenson, and Jon Pammett. 1979. Political choice in Canada. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson.

Clarke, Harold, Jane Jenson, Lawrence LeDuc, and Jon Pammett. 1984. Absent mandate: The politics of discontent in Canada. Toronto: Gage

Clarke, Harold, Jane Jenson, Lawrence LeDuc, and Jon Pammett. 1991. Absent mandate: Interpreting change in Canadian elections. 2nd ed. Toronto: Gage

References 414

Clarke, Harold, Jane Jenson, Lawrence LeDuc, and Jon Pammett. 1996. Absent mandate: Canadian electoral politics in an era of restructuring. 3d ed. Vancouver: Gage

Cochran, W.G. 1954. Some methods for strengthening the common x2 tests. Biometrics 10: 417-451.

Cohen, Akiba A., and Gadi Wolfsfeld, eds. 1993. Framing the intifada: People and media. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Cohen, B.C. 1963. The press and foreign policy. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.

Cohen, J. 1960. A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales. Educational and Psychological Measurement 20(1): 37-46.

Cohen, J. 1968. Weighted kappa: Nominal scale agreement with provision for scaled disagreement of partial credit. Psychological Bulletin 70: 213-220.

Collins, Richard. 1990. Culture, communication and national identity. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Compas. 2000a. Campaign week one: NDP and PC collapse on the horizon, and hints of weakness in the Liberal fortress. Toronto and Ottawa: Compas Inc., 27 October.

Compas. 2000b. Federal election vote poll. Toronto and Ottawa: Compas Inc., 10 November.

Cook, E.P. 1993. The gendered context of life: Implications for women’s and men’s career life-plans. Career Development Quarterly 41: 227-237.

Cook, Timothy. 1989. Making laws and making news. Washington, DC: Brookings.

Copps, Sheila. 1986. Nobody’s baby: A survival guide to politics. Toronto: Deneau.

Copps, Sheila. 2004. Worth fighting for. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart

Corner, John, and Dick Pels. Eds. 2003. Media and the restyling of politics. London: Sage.

Cott, Nancy F. 1987. The grounding of modern feminism. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.

References 415

Covert, C.L. 1981. Journalism history and women’s experience: A problem in conceptual change. Journalism History 4: 2-6.

Craft, Stephanie, and Wayne Wanta. 2004. Women in the newsroom: influence of female editors and reporters on the news agenda. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 81(1): 124-138.

Crean, Susan. 1987. Piecing the picture together: Women and the media in Canada. Canadian Women Studies 8: 15-21.

Creswell, John W. 2002. Research design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Cross, William. 2004. Political parties. Vancouver, BC: Univ. of British Columbia Press.

Cross, William, and Lisa Young. 2004. The contours of political party membership in Canada. Party Politics 10(4): 427-444.

Cross, William, and Lisa Young. 2006. Are Canadian political parties empty vessels? Membership, engagement and policy capacity. Choices 12(4): 14-28.

CTV Television News. http://www.ctv.ca.

Cundy, D.T. 1994. Televised news, trait inferences, and support for political figures. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 38(1): 49-63.

Curran, James. 2000. Rethinking media and democracy. In Mass media and society. 3d ed. eds. J. Curran and M. Gurevitch, 120-148. London: Arnold.

Dahlerup, Drude. 1988. From a small to a large minority: Women in Scandinavian politics. Scandinavian Political Studies 11(4): 275-298.

Dalton, Russell J., Ian McAllister, and Martin P. Wattenberg. 2000. The consequences of partisan dealignment. In Parties without partisans: Political change in advanced industrial democracies. eds. R.J. Dalton and M.P. Wattenberg, 37-63. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Darley, John M., and Pagel H. Gross. 1983. A hypothesis-confirming bias in labeling effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 44: 20-33.

Davis, J. 1982. Sexist bias in eight newspapers. Journalism Quarterly 59: 456- 460.

References 416

Davis, Rebecca Howard. 1997. Women and power in parliamentary democracies: Cabinet appointments in Western Europe, 1968-1992. Lincoln, NB: Univ. of Nebraska Press.

Day, Shelagh. 1993. Speaking for ourselves. In The Charlottetown Accord, the referendum and the future of Canada. eds. Kenneth McRoberts and Patrick J. Monahan, 58-72. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press.

De Vaus, David, and Ian McAllister. 1989. The changing politics of women: Gender and political alignments in 11 nations. European Journal of Political Research 17: 241-262.

Delli Carpini, Michael X., and Scott Keeter. 1996. What Americans know about politics and why it matters. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.

DeMaris, Alfred. 1993. Odds versus probabilities in logit equations: A reply to Roncek. Social Forces 71(4): 1057-1065.

Desserud, Don. 1997. Women in New Brunswick politics: Waiting for the third wave. In In the presence of women: Representation in Canadian governments. eds. Jane Arscott and Linda Trimble, 254-277. Toronto: Harcourt Brace.

Deveau, Scott. 2005. Youthful surfers make waves among Canada’s advertisers. Globe and Mail. 9 August 2005.

Devine, Patricia G. 2001. Implicit prejudice and stereotyping: How automatic are they? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81(5): 757-759.

Devitt, James. 2002. Framing gender on the campaign trail: Female gubernatorial candidates and the press. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 79(2): 445-463.

Devlin, Sandra. 2005. Was Peter MacKay’s quivering lip really news? Guardian. 28 May: C1.

Dewey, M. E. 1983. Coefficients of agreement. British Journal of Psychiatry 143: 487-489.

Dobrowolsky, Alexandra. 2004. Shifting representations of citizenship: Canadian politics of “women” and “children”. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society 11(2): 154-180.

References 417

Dobrzynska, Agnieszka, André Blais and Richard Nadeau. 2003. Do the media have a direct impact on the vote? The case of the 1997 Canadian election. International Journal of Public Opinion Research 15(1): 27-43.

Docherty, David C. 1997. Mr. Smith goes to Ottawa: Life in the House of Commons. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Dodson, Debra L. 1998. Representing women’s interests in the U.S. House of Representatives. In Women and Elective Office: Past, Present, and Future. eds. Sue Thomas and Clyde Wilcox. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Dolan, Julie. 1997. Support for women’s interests in the 103rd Congress: The distinct impact of Congressional women. Women & Politics 18(4): 81-94.

Dolan, Kathleen, and Lynne E. Ford. 1995. Women in the state legislatures: Feminist identity and legislative behaviours. American Politics Quarterly 23: 96-108.

Dornan, Christopher, and Jon H. Pammett, eds. 2001. The Canadian General Election of 2001. Ottawa: Dundurn.

Dovidio, J.F., K. Kawakami, C. Johnson, B. Johnson, and A. Howard. 1997. On the nature of prejudice: Automatic and controlled processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 33: 510-540. Dow, B.J., and M. Boor Tonn. 1993. Feminine style and political judgment in the rhetoric of Ann Richards. Quarterly Journal of Speech 79: 286-332.

Duerst-Lahti, Georgia. 2006. Reconceiving theories of power: Consequences of masculinism in the executive branch. In Gendering American politics: Perspectives from the literature. eds. Karen O’Connor, Sarah E. Brewer, and Michael Philip Fisher, 307-314. New York: Pearson.

Duerst-Lahti, Georgia, and Rita Mae Kelly. 1995. On governance, leadership, and gender. In Gender power, leadership, and governance. eds. Georgia Duerst-Lahti and Rita Mae Kelly, 11-38. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.

Eagly, Alice H. 1987. Sex differences in social behavior: A social-role interpretation. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Eagly, Alice H., and Wood, W. 1982. Inferred sex differences in status as determinants of gender stereotypes about social influence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 43: 915-928.

References 418

Eagly, Alice H., and Valerie J. Steffen. 1984. Gender stereotypes stem from the distribution of women and men into social roles. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 46: 735-754.

Eagly, A.H., R.D. Ashmore, M.G. Makhijani, and L.C. Longo. 1991 What is beautiful is good, but . . .: A meta-analytic review of research on the physical attractiveness stereotype. Psychological Bulletin 110(1): 109–28.

Eagly, Alice H., Mona G. Makhijani, and Bruce G. Klonsky. 1992. Gender and the evaluation of leaders: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin 111: 3- 22.

Edwards, J. 1988. Women of the world: The great foreign correspondents. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Eichenberg, Richard C. 2003. Gender differences in public attitudes toward the use of force by the United States, 1990-2003. International Security 28(1): 110-141.

Eichenberg, Richard C. 2005. Victory has many friends: U.S. public opinion and the use of military force, 1981-2005. International Security 30(1): 140- 177.

Elkin, F. 1972. Communications media and identity formation in Canada. In Communications in Canadian society. ed. B.D. Singer, 216-230. Toronto: Copp Clark.

Elshtain, Jean Bethke. 1974. Moral woman and immoral man: A consideration of the public-private split and its political ramificiations. Politics and Society 4: 453-473.

Entman, Robert M. 1991. Framing U.S. coverage of international news. Journal of Communication 41(4): 6-28.

Entman, Robert M. 1993. Framing: Towards clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication 43(4): 51-58.

Erickson, Lynda. 1997. Parties, ideology, and feminist action: Women and political representation in British Columbia politics. In In the presence of women: Representation in Canadian governments. eds. Jane Arscott and Linda Trimble, 106-127. Toronto: Harcourt Brace.

Erickson, Lynda, and Brenda O’Neill. 2002. The gender gap and the changing woman voter in Canada,” International Political Science Review 23(4): 373-393.

References 419

Ericson, Richard, Patricia Baranek, and Janet Chan. 1987. Visualizing deviance: A study of news organization. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press.

Ericson, Richard, Patricia Baranek, and Janet Chan. 1992. Representing order. In Seeing ourselves: Media power and policy in Canada. 2d ed. eds. H. Holmes and D. Taras, 232-249. Toronto: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Escobar-Lemmon, Maria, and Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson. 2005. Women ministers in Latin American government: When, where, and why? American Journal of Political Science 49(4): 829-844.

Esser, F. 1999. 'Tabloidization' of news - A comparative analysis of Anglo- American and German press journalism. European Journal of Communication 14(3): 291-324.

Etterna, James S., D. Charles Whitney, and Daniel B. Wackman. 1997. Professional mass communicators. In Social meanings of news. ed. D. Berkowitz. London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Everitt, Joanna. 1998. The gender gap in Canada: Now you see it, now you don’t. Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 35(2): 191-219.

Everitt, Joanna. 2002. Gender gaps on social welfare issues: Why do women care? In Citizen politics: Research and theory in Canadian political behaviour. eds. J. Everitt and B. O’Neill, 110-125. Don Mills, ON: Oxford Univ. Press.

Everitt, Joanna. 2003. Media in the maritimes: Do female candidates face a bias? Atlantis 27(2): 90-98.

Everitt, Joanna. 2005. Gender, media, and politics: A critical review essay. Political Communication 22: 387-416.

Fairclough, Ellen. 1995. Saturday’s child: Memoirs of Canada’s first female cabinet minister. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press.

Fazio, R.H., J.R. Jackson, B.C. Dunton, and C.J. Williams. 1995. Variability in automatic activation as an unobtrusive measure of racial attitudes: A bona fide pipeline? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69: 1013- 1027.

Fellman, Gordon. 1998. Rambo and the Dalai Lama: The compulsion to win and its threat to human survival: Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

References 420

Festinger, Leon. 1957. A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press.

Finkel, Steven E., and John Geer. 1998. A spot check: Casting doubt on the demobilizing effect of attack advertising. American Journal of Political Science 42: 573-595.

Fiske, S.T., and P.W. Linville. 1980. What does the schema concept buy us? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 6: 543-557.

Fleras, Augie, and John Lock Kunz. 2001. Media and minorities: Representing diversity in a multicultural Canada. Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing.

Fletcher, Frederick J. 1981. The newspaper and public affairs. Ottawa: Royal Commission on Newspapers.

Fletcher, Frederick J. 1987. Mass media and parliamentary elections in Canada. Legislative Studies Quarterly 12: 341-372.

Foddy, M., and M. Smithson. 1999. Can gender inequalities be eliminated? Social Psychology Quarterly 62: 307-324.

Fountaine, Susan, and Judy McGregor. 2002. Reconstructing gender for the 21st century: News media framing of political women in New Zealand. Refereed paper presented at the annual conference of the Australian New Zealand Communications Association. Brisbane. http://www.bond.edu.au/hss/communication/ANZCA/papers/JMcGregorS FountainePaper.pdf.

Fournier, Patrick. 2002. The uninformed Canadian voter. In Citizen politics: Research and theory in Canadian political behaviour. eds. J. Everitt and B. O’Neill, 92-110. Don Mills, ON: Oxford Univ. Press.

Fox, John. 1991. Regression diagnostics. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Fox, Richard Logan. 1997. Gender dynamics in Congressional elections. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Fox, Richard Logan, and Robert A. Schuhmann. 1999. Gender and local government: a comparison of women and men city managers. Public Administration Review 59(3): 231-242.

Franks, C.E.S. 1987. The Parliament of Canada. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press.

References 421

Fraser, B. 1990. Perspectives on politeness. Journal of Pragmatics 14(2): 219- 236.

Fraser, B., and W. Nolan. 1981. The association of deference with linguistic form. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 27: 93-111.

Freedman, Paul, and Kenneth M. Goldstein. 1999. Measuring media exposure and the effects of negative campaign ads. American Journal of Political Science 43: 189-208.

Frey, L.R., C.H. Botan, P.G. Friedman, and G.L. Kreps. 1991. Investigating communication: An introduction to research methods. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Frizzell, Alan, and Anthony Westell. 1989. The media and the campaign. In The Canadian General Election of 1988. eds. A. Frizzell, J.H. Pammett, and A. Westell, 75-90. Ottawa: Carleton Univ. Press.

Frizzell, Alan, and Anthony Westell. 1994. The press and the Prime Minister. In The Canadian General Election of 1993. ed. A. Westell. Ottawa: Carleton Univ. Press.

Funk, Carolyn L. 1997. Implications of political expertise in candidate trait evaluations. Political Research Quarterly 50(3): 675-697.

Gallagher, Margaret. 1995. An unfinished story: Gender patterns in media employment. UNESCO.

Gamson, William. 1988. Political discourse and collective action. International Social Movement Research 1: 219-244.

Gamson, William. 1992. Talking politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.

Gamson, William, and A. Modigliani. 1989. Media discourse and public opinion on nuclear power: A constructionist approach. American Journal of Sociology 95: 1-37.

Garramone, Gina M. 1984. Voter responses to negative political ads. Journalism Quarterly 61: 250-259.

Gerbner, G., and L. Gross. 1976. Living with television: The violence profile. Journal of Communication 26: 172-199.

Gerbner, G., O.R. Holsti, K. Krippendorff, W.J. Paisley, and P.J. Stone, eds. 1969. The analysis of communication content. New York: Wiley.

References 422

Gerbner, George, Larry Gross, Michael Morgan, and Nancy Signorielli..1980. Television violence, victimization and power. American Behavioral Scientist May: 705-716.

Germond, Jack W., and Jules Witcover. 1996. Why Americans don’t go to the polls. National Journal 28(47): 2562-2564.

Gewirtz, S., M. Dickson, and S. Power. 2004. Unravelling a ‘spun’ policy: A case study of the constitutive role of ‘spin’ in the education policy process. Journal of Education Policy 19(3): 321-342.

Ghanem, S. 1997. Filling in the tapestry: The second level of agenda-setting. In Communication and democracy: Exploring the intellectual frontiers in agenda-setting theory. eds. M E. McCombs, D.L. Shaw, and D. Weaver, 3-14. Mahwah, NJ: Laurence Erlbaum Associates.

Gibbons, Arnold. 1993. Race, politics, and the white media: The Jesse Jackson campaigns. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

Gidengil, Elisabeth. 1995. Economic man – Social woman? The case of the gender gap in support for the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement, Comparative Political Studies 3: 384-408.

Gidengil, Elisabeth, and Joanna Everitt. 1999. Metaphors and misrepresentation: Gendered mediation in news coverage of the 1993 Canadian leaders’ debates. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 4(1): 48-65.

Gidengil, Elisabeth, and Joanna Everitt. 2000. Filtering the female: Television news coverage of the 1993 Canadian leaders’ debates. Women and Politics 21(4): 105-131.

Gidengil, Elisabeth, and Joanna Everitt. 2003a. Conventional coverage/unconventional politicians: Gender and media coverage of Canadian leaders’ debates, 1993, 1997, 2000. Canadian Journal of Political Science 36(3): 559-577.

Gidengil, Elisabeth, and Joanna Everitt. 2003b. Talking tough: Gender and reported speech in campaign news coverage. Political Communication 20(3): 209-232.

Gidengil, Elisabeth, and Joanna Everitt. 2006. Gender, media coverage, and the dynamics of leader evaluations: The case of the 1993 Canadian election. In Capturing campaign effects. eds. Henry E. Brady and Richard Johnston, 336-355. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.

References 423

Gidengil, Elisabeth, André Blais, Richard Nadeau, and Neil Nevitte. 2000. Are leaders becoming more important to vote choice in Canada? Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington. published?

Gidengil, Elisabeth, André Blais, Richard Nadeau, and Neil Nevitte. 2003. Women to the left? Gender differences in political beliefs and policy preferences. In Women and electoral politics in Canada. eds. M. Tremblay and L. Trimble, 140-159. Don Mills, Ont.: Oxford Univ. Press.

Gidengil, Elisabeth, André Blais, Neil Nevitte, and Richard Nadeau. 2004. Citizens. Vancouver: Univ. of British Columbia Press.

Gidengil, Elisabeth, Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant, André Blais, and Neil Nevitte. 2005. Gender, knowledge, and social capital. In Gender and social capital. eds. B. O’Neill and E. Gidengil. New York: Routledge.

Gilens, M. 1988. Gender and support for Reagan: A comprehensive model of presidential support. American Journal of Political Science 32: 19-49.

Gilligan, Carol. 1982. In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.

Gilligan, Carol. 1987. Moral orientation and moral development. In Women and moral theory. eds., E.F. Kttay and D.T. Meyers, 19-33. Savage, MD: Bowman and Littlefield.

Gillis, Stacy, Gillian Howie, and Rebecca Munford. Eds. 2004. Third wave feminism: a critical exploration. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Gingras, François-Pierre. 1995. Daily male delivery: Women and politics in the daily newspapers. In Gender and politics in contemporary Canada. ed. F.- P. Gingras, 191-208. Toronto: Oxford Univ. Press.

Gist, Marilyn. 2000. Minorities in media imagery. Newspaper Research Journal 11(3): 52.63.

Gitlin, Todd. 1980. The whole world is watching. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.

Gitlin, Todd. 1994. Inside prime time. London: Routledge.

Glaser, Barney, and Anselm Strauss. 1967. The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. New York: Aldine.

References 424

Glasgow, Garrett. 2000. Uncertainty and candidate personality traits. American Politics Research 28(1): 26-49.

Glasser, Theodore L. 1999. The idea of public journalism. New York: Guilford.

Glick, P., and S.T. Fiske. 1999. Sexism and other “isms”: Interdependence, status, and the ambivalent content of stereotypes. In Sexism and stereotypes in modern society. eds. W.B. Swan, J.H. Langlois, and L.A. Gilbert, 193- 221. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Global Television News. http://www.canada.com/globaltv.

Goddu, Jenn. 1999. ‘Powerless, public-spirited Women,’ ‘angry feminists,’ and ‘the Muffin Lobby’: Newspaper and magazine coverage of the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, and REAL Women of Canada. Canadian Journal of Communication 24(1): 105-126.

Goffman, Erving. 1959. The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Goldenberg, Edie N., and Michael W. Traugott. 1987. Mass media effects on recognizing and rating candidates in U.S. Senate elections. In Campaigns in the news: Mass media and congressional elections. ed. J.P. Vermeer, 109-132. Westport: Greenwood Press.

Goldstein, Joshua S. 2001. War and gender: How gender shapes the war system and vice versa. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.

Goodyear-Grant, Elizabeth. 2003. Why do women know less? Motivation, opportunity, and citizens’ stores of political knowledge. unpublished article.

Goodyear-Grant, Elizabeth, Antonia Maioni, and Stuart Soroka. 2004. The role of the media: A campaign saved by a horserace. Policy Options 25(8): 86-91.

Gordon, Ann, David M. Shafie, and Ann N. Crigler. 2003. Is negative advertising effective for female candidates: An experiment in voters’ uses of gender stereotypes. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 8(3): 35-53.

Gormly, Eric K. 2004. Writing and producing television news. 2nd ed. Ames, IA: Blackwell.

References 425

Graber, Dorris. 1993. Mass media and American politics. 4th ed. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.

Gray, Judy H., and Iain L. Densten. 1998. Integrating quantitative and qualitative analysis using latent and manifest variables. Quality & Quantity 32: 419- 431.

Green, Donald Philip, and Jonathan S. Krasno. 1988. Salvation for the spendthrift incumbent: Reestimating the effects of campaign spending in House elections. American Journal of Political Science 32(4): 884-907.

Greenwald, A.G., D. McGhee, and J.L.K. Schwartz. 1998. Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The Implicit Association Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74: 1464-1480.

Grey, Deborah. 2004. Never retreat, never explain, never apologize: My life, my politics. Toronto: Key Porter Books.

Grey, Sandra. 2001. Does size matter? Critical mass and women MPs in the New Zealand House of Representatives. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Political Studies Association, Manchester, UK.

Gurin, Patricia. 1985. Women’s gender consciousness. Public Opinion Quarterly 49(2): 143-163.

Habermas, Jürgen. 1989. Structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Hackett, Robert A. 2001. News media’s influence on Canadian party politics: Perspectives on a shifting relationship. In Party politics in Canada. 8th ed. ed. H.G. Thorburn and A. Whitehorn. Toronto: Prentice Hall.

Haddock, G., and M.P. Zanna. 1994. Preferring “housewives” to “feminists”: Categorization and the favorability of attitudes toward women. Psychology of Women Quarterly 18: 25-52.

Hagen, R. L., and A. Kahn. 1975. Discrimination against competent women. Journal of Applied Psychology 5: 363-376.

Hall, Judith. 1984. Nonverbal sex differences: Communication accuracy and expressive style. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.

Hébert, Emmanuelle. 2006. Nouvelles télévisuelles et élections canadiennes en 2000 : Quelques apprentissages sur la construction du genre et la représentation de la catégorie « femmes politiques ». Paper presented at

References 426

the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association. York University, Toronto, ON, Canada.

Heckman, Susan. 1987. The feminization of epistemology: Gender and the social sciences. Women & Politics 3: 65-83.

Heilman, Madeline E. 2001. Description and prescription: How gender stereotypes prevent women’s ascent up the organizational ladder. Journal of Social Issues 57(4): 657-674.

Heilman, M.E., and L.R. Saruwatari. 1979. When beauty is beastly: The effects of appearance and sex on evaluations of job applicants for managerial and nonmanagerial jobs. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 23(3): 360-372.

Heilman, M.E., and M.H. Stopeck. 1985. Being attractive, advantage or disadvantage? Performance-based evaluations and recommended personnel actions as a function of appearance, sex, and job type. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 35(2): 202-215.

Hellweg, Susan. 1979. An examination of voter conceptualizations of the ideal political candidate. Southern Speech Communication Journal 44: 373-85.

Henderson, Ailsa. 2004. Regional political cultures in Canada. Canadian Journal of Political Science 37(3): 595-615.

Henley, Nancy, and Jo Freeman. 1995. The sexual politics of interpersonal behaviour. In Women: A feminist perspective. 5th ed. ed. J. Freeman, 79- 91. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield.

Henningham, J.P., and A. Delano. 1998. British journalists. In The global journalist: News people around the world. ed. D. Weaver, 143-160. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Hitchon, Jacqueline C., and Chingching Chang. 1995. Effects of gender schematic processing on the reception of political commercials for men and women candidates. Communication Research 22(4): 430-58.

Hitchon, Jacqueline C., Chingching Chang, and Rhonda Harris. 1997. Should women emote? Perceptual bias and opinion change in response to political ads for candidates of different genders. Political Communication 14: 49- 69.

Hogg, Robert V., and Elliot A. Tanis. 2001. Probability and statistical inference. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

References 427

Holbert, R. Lance. 2005. Television news viewing, governmental scope, and postmaterialist spending: Assessing mediation by partisanship. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 49(4): 416-434.

Holian, D.B. 2004. He's stealing my issues! Clinton's crime rhetoric and the dynamics of issue ownership. Political Behavior 26 (2): 95-124.

Holsti, Ole, R. 1969. Content analysis for the social sciences and humanities. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Homer, M. S. 1972. Toward an understanding of achievement related conflicts in women. Journal of Social Issues 28: 157-175.

Hoskins, Colin, Stuart McFadyen, and Adam Finn. 2001. Refocusing the CBC. Canadian Journal of Communication 26: 17-30.

Howe, Paul. 2006. Political knowledge and electoral participation in the Netherlands: Comparisons with the Canadian case. International Political Science Review 27(2): 137-166.

Huddy, Leonie. 1994. The political significance of gender stereotypes. In Research in micropolitics: New directions in political psychology. eds., Michael X. Delli Carpini, Leonie Huddy, and Robert Y. Shapiro, 169-193. Greenwich: JAI Press.

Huddy, Leonie, and Nayda Terkildsen. 1993a. The consequences of gender stereotypes for women candidates at different levels and types of office. Political Research Quarterly 46: 503-525.

Huddy, Leonie, and Nayda Terkildsen. 1993b. Gender stereotypes and the perception of male and female candidates. American Journal of Political Science 37: 119-147.

Inglehart, Ronald. 1990. Culture shift in advanced industrial society. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.

Inglehart, Ronald. 1995. Value change on six continents. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.

Inglehart, Ronald. 1997. Modernization and postmodernization: Cultural, economic, and political change in 43 societies. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.

References 428

Inglehart, Ronald, and Pippa Norris. 2003. Rising tide: Gender equality and cultural change around the world. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.

Inglehart, Ronald, and Christian Welzel. 2005. Modernization, cultural change and democracy. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.

Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). 1999. Participation of women in political life. Reports and Documents No. 35. Geneva: Inter-Parliamentary Union.

International Federation of Journalists. http://www.ifj.org.

Iyengar, Shanto. 1991. Is anyone responsible? How television frames political issues. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

Iyengar, Shanto, Mark Peters, and Donald Kinder. 1982. Empirical demonstrations of the ‘not-so-minimal’ consequences of television news programs. American Political Science Review 81: 848-858.

Iyengar, Shanto, and Donald Kinder. 1987. News that matters: Television and American opinion. Chicago: The Univ. of Chicago Press.

Iyengar, Shanto, Nicholas Valentino, Stephen Ansolabehere, and Adam F. Simon. 1997. Running as women: Gender stereotyping in women's campaigns. In Women, media and politics. ed. Pippa Norris, 77-98. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Johnson, B. T., and A.H. Eagly. 2000. Quantitative synthesis of social psychological research. In Handbook of research methods in social and personality psychology. eds. H. T. Reis and C. M. Judd, 496-528. London: Cambridge Univ. Press.

Iyengar, Shanto, Helmut Norpoth, and Kyu S. Hahn. 2004. Consumer demand for election news: The horserace sells. The Journal of Politics 66(1): 157-175.

Jackman, M.R. 1994. The velvet glove: Paternalism and conflict in gender, class, and race relations. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.

Jahnke, Christine K. 1992. Beauty pageant: How to avoid gender issues in your campaign. Campaigns & Elections 12(5): 41-42.

Jamieson, Kathleen Hall. 1995. Beyond the double bind: Women and leadership. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Jamieson, Kathleen Hall. 1996. Packaging the president: A history and criticism of presidential campaign advertising. New York: Oxford University Press.

References 429

James, Curtis. 2000. Low-income, low priority. Marketing 26 October: 36-38.

Janoff-Bulman, R, and M.B. Wade. 1996. The dilemma of self-advocacy for women: Another case of blaming the victim? Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 15: 143-152.

Jantzi, Leanna. 2005. Traitor? Yes. Whore? No. Abbotsford Times. 31 May: 12.

Jeffrey, Liss. 1989. Waiting for the results. Scan (March/April): 7-10.

Jeffrey, Liss. 1995. Progress in Canada towards women's equality and the media: Access to expression and decision making 1980-94. Paper prepared for UNESCO International Symposium: Women and the Media: Access to Expression and Decision Making. Toronto, Ontario.

Jennings, M. Kent.1988. Preface. In The politics of the gender gap: The social construction of political influence. ed. C.M. Mueller, 1-13. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Johansen, Peter, David H. Weaver, and Christopher Dornan. 2001. Journalism education in the United States and Canada: Not merely clones. Journalism Studies 2(4): 469–483.

Johnson-Cartee, K.S., and G.A. Copeland. 1991. Negative political advertising: Coming of age. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Johnston, L. 1996. Resisting change: Information-seeking and stereotype change. European Journal of Social Psychology 26(5): 799-825.

Johnston, Richard. 1992. Party identification measures in the Anglo-American democracies: A national survey experiment. American Journal of Political Science 36: 542-559.

Johnston, Richard. 2002. Prime ministerial contenders in Canada. In Leaders’ personalities and the outcomes of democratic elections. ed. Anthony King, 158-183. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Johnston, Richard, André Blais, Henry E. Brady, and Jean Crête. 1992. Letting the people decide: Dynamics of a Canadian election. Montréal: McGill- Queen’s Univ. Press.

Jones, Jeffrey P. 2005. Entertaining politics: New political television and civic culture. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

References 430

Jones, Stanley E., and Curtis D. LeBaron. 2002. Research on the relationship between verbal and nonverbal communication: Emerging integrations. Journal of Communication. 52(3): 499-521.

Joslyn, Richard. 1984. Mass media and elections. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Just, M.R., A.N. Crigler, D.E. Alger, T. Cook, and M. Kern. 1996. Crosstalk: Citizens, candidates, and the media in a presidential campaign. Chicago, IL: Univ. of Chicago Press.

Kahn, Kim Fridkin. 1992. Does being male help? An investigation of the effects of candidate gender and campaign coverage on evaluations of US Senate candidates. Journal of Politics 54: 497-517.

Kahn, Kim Fridkin. 1993. Gender differences in campaign messages: The political advertisements of men and women candidates for U.S. Senate. Political Research Quarterly 46(3): 481-502.

Kahn, Kim Fridkin. 1994a. The distorted mirror: Press coverage of women candidates for statewide office. Journal of Politics 56(1): 154-174.

Kahn, Kim Fridkin. 1994b. Does gender make a difference? An experimental examination of sex stereotypes and press patterns in statewide campaigns. American Journal of Political Science 38: 162-195.

Kahn, Kim Fridkin. 1996. The political consequences of being a woman. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.

Kahn, Kim Fridkin, and Edie N. Goldenberg. 1991. Women candidates in the news: An examination of gender differences in US Senate campaign coverage. Public Opinion Quarterly 55(2): 180-199.

Kahn, Kim Fridkin, and Edie N. Goldenberg. 1997. The media: Obstacle or ally of feminists? In Do the media govern? Politicians, voters, and Reporters in America. eds. Shanto Iyengar and Richard Reeves, 156-164. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Kahn, Kim Fridkin, and Ann Gordon. 1997. How women campaign for the US Senate: Substance and Strategy. In Women, media, and politics. ed. Pippa Norris, 59-76. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Kahn, Kim Fridkin, and Patrick J. Kenney. 1999. Do negative campaigns suppress or mobilize turnout? Clarifying the relationship between negativity and participation. American Political Science Review 93(4): 877-889.

References 431

Kaid, Lynda Lee. 1997. Effects of the television spots on images of Dole and Clinton. American Behavioral Scientist 40: 1085-1094.

Kaid, Lynda Lee, and Dianne G. Bystrom. Eds. 1999. Electronic election: Perspectives on the 1996 campaign communication. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum

Kaid, Lynda Lee, and D.K. Davidson. 1986. Elements of videostyle: Candidate presentation through television advertising. In New perspectives on political advertising. eds. L.L. Kaid, D. Nimmo, and K.R. Sanders, 184- 209. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Univ. Press.

Kaid Lynda Lee, and A.J. Wadsworth. 1989. Political television commercials: an experimental study of type and length. Communication Research 5: 55-70.

Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. 1977a. Men and women of the corporation. New York: Basic.

Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. 1977b. Some effects of proportions on group life: Skewed sex ratios and responses to token women. American Journal of Sociology 82(5): 965-990.

Kathlene, Lyn. 1994. Power and influence in state legislative policymaking: The interaction of gender and position in committee hearing debates. American Political Science Review 88: 560-576.

Katz, Elihu, and Paul F. Lazarsfeld. 1955. Personal influence: The part played by people in the flow of mass communications. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.

Kaufmann, K.M. 2004. Disaggregating and reexamining issue ownership and voter choice. Polity 36(2): 283-299.

Keller, Evelyn Fox. 1984. Reflections on gender and science. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.

Kinder, Donald, Mark Peters, Robert Abelson, Susan Fiske. 1980. Presidental prototypes. Political Behaviour 2: 315-337.

King, Gary, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba. 1994. Designing social inquiry: Scientific inference in qualitative research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

King, Gary, Michael Tomz, and Jason Wittenberg. 2000. Making the most of statistical analyses: Improving interpretation and presentation. American Journal of Political Science 44(2): 341-355.

References 432

Klapper, J. 1960. The effects of mass communication. New York: The Free Press.

Kleinnijenhuis, Jan, Anita M.J. van Hoof, and Dirk Oegema. 2006. Negative news and the sleeper effect of distrust. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 11(2): 86-104.

Kosicki, Gerald M. 1993. Problems and opportunities in agenda-setting research. Journal of Communications 43: 100-127.

Kraus, S. 1996. Winners of the first 1960 televised debate between Kennedy and Nixon. Journal of Communication 46(4): 78–96.

Krippendorff, K. 1980. Content analysis. An introduction to its methodology. Beverly Hills: Sage.

Krippendorff, Klaus. 2004. Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology. 2d ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Kropf, Martha E., and John A. Boiney. 2001. The electoral glass ceiling? Gender, viability, and the news in U.S. Senate campaigns. Women and Politics 23(1/2): 79-103.

Krosnick, Jon A., and Donald R. Kinder. 1990. Altering the foundations of support for the president through priming. American Political Science Review 84: 497-512.

Kuklinski, J.H, P.J. Quirk, J. Jerit, D. Schwieder, and R.F. Rich. 2000. Misinformation and the currency of democratic citizenship. Journal of Politics 62(3): 790-816.

Lake, C. 1984. Impact of gender on campaigns: A study of men and women candidates in 1982. Prepared for the National Women’s Political Caucus, Washington, D.C.

Lambert, Ronald E., James E. Curtis, Barry J. Kay and Steven D. Brown. 1988. The social sources of political knowledge. Canadian Journal of Political Science 21(2): 359-374.

Langer, John. 1998. Tabloid television: Popular journalism and the “other news”. New York: Routledge.

Larson, Stephanie Greco. 2001. American women and politics in the media: A review essay. PS: Political Science and Politics 34(1): 227-230.

References 433

Lau, Richard R., Lee Sigelman, Caroline Heldman, and Paul Babbit. 1999. The effects of negative political advertisements: A meta-analytic assessment. American Political Science Review 93(4): 851-875.

Law, I. 2002. Race in the news. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Lawless, Jennifer. 2004. Women, war, and winning elections: Gender stereotyping in the post-September 11th era. Political Research Quarterly 57(3): 479-490.

Lawrence, Regina. 2000. Game-framing the issues: Tracking the strategy frame in public policy news. Political Communication 17: 93-114.

Lawson, Erica. 2002. Images in black: Black women, media and the mythology of an orderly society. In Back to the drawing board: African-Canadian Feminisms. eds. Njoki Nathani Wane, Katerina Deliovsky, and Erica Lawson, 199-223. Toronto: Sumach.

Laycock, David. 2001. The new right and democracy in Canada: Understanding Reform and the Canadian Alliance. Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press.

Lazarsfeld, Paul, F., B. Berelson, and H. Gaudet. 1944. The people’s choice. New York: Columbia Univ. Press. 2d ed. 1948, with preface by Paul F. Lazarsfeld.

Leeper, Mark Stephen. 1991. The impact of prejudice on female candidates: An experimental look at voter inference. American Politics Quarterly 19: 248-261.

LeGates, Marlene. 2001. In their time: a history of feminism in Western society. New York: Routledge.

Lemish, D., and C.E. Tidhar. 1999. Still marginal: Women in Israel’s 1996 television election campaign. Sex Roles 41(5/6): 389-412.

Levi, Margaret. 1997. A model, a method, and a map: Rational choice in comparative and historical analysis. In Comparative politics: Rationality, culture, and structure. eds., Mark Irving Lichbach and Alan S. Zuckerman, 19-41. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.

Levin, Irwin. 1999. Relating statistics and experimental design. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

References 434

Lewis, Douglas. 1982. The Question Period weapon in Canada. The Parliamentarian 63(4): 344-347.

Lewis, Kathryn E., and Margaret Bierly. 1990. Toward a profile of the female voter: Sex differences in perceived physical attractiveness and competence of political candidates. Sex Roles 22(1-2) 1-12.

Liebler, Carol M., and J. Bendix. 1996. Old-growth forests on network news: News sources and the framing of an environmental controversy. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 73(1): 53-65.

Liebler, Carol M., and Susan J. Smith. 1997. Tracking gender differences: A comparative analysis of network correspondents and their sources. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 41: 58-68.

Linehan, M., and R. Seifert. 1983. Sex and contextual differences in the appropriateness of assertive behaviour. Psychology of Women Quarterly 8: 79-88.

Lippmann, Walter. 1919. Liberty and the news. reprinted 1995. New Brunswick: Transaction.

Lippmann, Walter. 1922. Public opinion. New York: Harcourt Brace.

Lombard, M., J. Snyder-Duch, and C.C. Bracken. 2002. Content analysis in mass communication: Assessment and reporting of intercoder reliability. Human Communication Research 28: 587-604.

Lombard, M., J. Snyder-Duch, and C.C. Bracken. 2003. Correction. Human Communication Research 29: 469-472.

Lorimer, Rowland, and Mike Gasher. 2001. Mass communication in Canada. 4th ed. Don Mills, ON: Oxford Univ. Press.

Maas, Willem. 1998. Question Period and Canadian democracy. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association. Ottawa.

MacDermid, Robert. 1990. Regionalism in Ontario. In Canadian politics: An introduction to the discipline. eds., Alain-G. Gagnon and James Bickerton, 360-390. Peterborough, ON: Broadview.

MacIvor, Heather. 2003. Women and politics in Canada. Peterborough, ON: Broadview.

References 435

Mandel, Ruth. 1981. In the running: The new woman candidate. New York: Ticknor & Fields.

Mann, Thomas E., and Raymond E. Wolfinger. 1980. Candidates and parties in Congressional elections. American Political Science Review 71: 617-632.

Martin, Jane Roland. 1994. Methodological essentialism, false difference, and other dangerous traps. Signs 19(3): 630-657.

Matland, Richard E. 1994. Putting Scandinavian equality to the test: An experimental evaluation of gender stereotyping of political candidates in a sample of Norwegian voters. British Journal of Political Science 24: 273- 292.

Matland, Richard and David King. 2002. Women as candidates in Congressional elections. In Women transforming Congress. ed. Cindy Simon Rosenthal, 119-145. Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press.

Marleau, Robert, and Camille Montpetit. Eds. 2000. House of Commons procedure and practice. Canada: House of Commons.

Marlowe, C.M., S.L. Schneider, and C.E. Nelson. 1996. Gender and attractiveness biases in hiring decisions: Are more experienced managers less biased? Journal of Applied Psychology 81(1): 11-21.

Marshall, Catherine, and Gretchen B. Rossman. 1995. Designing qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

McCombs, Maxwell E. 1993. The evolution of agenda-setting research: Twenty- five years in the marketplace of ideas. Journal of Communication 43: 58- 67.

McCombs, Maxwell E. 1994. News influences on our pictures of the world. In Media effects: Advances in theory and research. eds. J. Bryant and D. Zillmann, 1-16. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

McCombs, Maxwell E., D.L. Shaw, and D. Weaver. 1997. Communication and democracy: Exploring the intellectual frontiers in agenda-setting theory. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

McCurley, Carl, and Jeffrey J. Mondak. 1995. Inspected by #1184063113: The influence of incumbents competence and integrity in U.S. House elections. American Journal of Political Science 39: 864-885.

References 436

McDermott, Monika L. 1997. Voting cues in low-information elections: Candidate gender as a social information variable in contemporary United States elections. American Journal of Political Science 41(1): 270-83.

McDermott, Monika L. 1998. Race and gender cues in low-information elections. Political Research Quarterly 51: 895-918.

McDonald, Marci. 1995. Gartner replaces Wallin. Maclean’s,18 September 1995.

McDonald, Marci. 1997. Canada’s star news anchors. Maclean’s, 26 May 1997.

McGinley, Hugh, Richard LeFevre, and Pat McGinley. 1975. The influence of a communicator’s body position on opinion change in others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 31: 686-690.

McGuire, William J. 1986. The myth of massive media impact: Savagings and salvagings. In Public communication and behaviour. vol. 1. ed. George Comstock, 173-257. Boston: Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch.

McKenzie, Judith. 1999. Pauline Jewitt: A passion for Canada. Montréal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s Univ. Press.

McKinney, M.S., L.L. Kaid, D. Bystrom, and D.B. Carlin. Eds. 2005. Communicating politics: Engaging the public in democratic life. New York: Peter Lang.

McLaughlin, Audrey. 1992. A woman’s place: My life and politics. Toronto: Macfarlane Walter & Ross.

McTeer, Maureen. 2004. In my own name. Toronto: Vintage.

MediaWatch. 1994. Front and centre: Minority representation on television. Toronto: MediaWatch.

MediaWatch. 1998. Women strike out. Toronto: MediaWatch.

MediaWatch. 1999. Toronto: MediaWatch.

Mehrabian, Albert. 1981. Silent messages. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Menard, Scott. 2001. Applied logistic regression analysis. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Mendelsohn, H. and G.J. O’Keefe. 1976. The people choose a president: Influences on voter decision making. New York: Praeger.

References 437

Mendelsohn, Matthew. 1993. Television’s frames in the 1988 Canadian election. Canadian Journal of Communication 18(2): 149-171.

Mendelsohn, Matthew. 1996. Television news frames in the 1993 Canadian election. In Seeing ourselves: Media power and policy in Canada. 1st ed. eds. H. Holmes and D. Taras, 8-22. Toronto: Harcourt Brace.

Mendelsohn, Matthew, and Richard Nadeau. 1999. The rise and fall of candidates in Canadian election campaigns. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 4(2): 63-76

Merton, Robert. 1948. Patterns of influence: a study of interpersonal influence and of communications behavior in a local community. In Communication Research. eds. Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Frank Stanton, 180-215. New York: Harper and Brothers.

Meyers, Marion. 1994. News of battering. Journal of Communication 44(2): 47- 63.

Meyers, Marion. 1997. News coverage of violence against women: Engendering blame. London: Sage.

Miljan, Lydia, and Barry Cooper. 2003. Hidden agenda: How journalists influence the news. Vancouver: Univ. of British Columbia Press.

Miller, Arthur H., Martin P. Wattenberg, and Oksana Malanchuk. 1986. Schematic assessments of presidential candidates. American Political Science Review 80(2): 521-540.

Miller, John, and Caron Court. 2004. Who’s telling the news: 2004 newsroom diversity census report. Toronto: Ryerson Univ. School of Journalism and Canadian Association of Newspaper Editors. http://www.cane.ca/english/me_mem_ryerson04.htm.

Miller, Phyllis, and Randy Miller. 1995. The invisible woman: Female sports journalists in the workplace. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 72(4): 883-889.

Miller, Susan. 1977. News coverage of Congress: The search for the ultimate spokesman. Journalism Quarterly 54: 459-465.

Miller, William L. 1991. Media and voters: the audience, content, and influence of press and television at the 1987 general election. Oxford: Clarendon.

References 438

Mills, Kay. 1997. What difference do women journalists make? In Women, media, and politics. ed. P. Norris, 41-55. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Milner, Henry. 2002. Civic literacy in comparative context: Why Canadians should be concerned. Policy Matters. 2(2).

Mindich, David T.Z. 1998. Just the facts: How “objectivity” came to define American journalism. New York: New York Univ. Press.

Mondak, Jeffrey J. 1995. Competence, integrity, and the electoral success of Congressional incumbents. Journal of Politics 57: 1043-1069.

Monière, Denis, et Julie Fortier. 2000. Radioscopie de l’information télévisée au Canada. Montréal: Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal.

Moon, Jeremy, and Imogen Fountain. 1997. Keeping the gates? Women and ministers in Australia, 1970-1996. Australian Journal of Political Science 32 : 455-466.

Moreno, Kristen N., and Galen V. Bodenhausen. 1999. Resisting stereotype change: The role of motivation and attentional capacity in defending social beliefs. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 2(1): 5-16.

Mosco, Vincent. 2003. The transformation of communication in Canada. In Changing Canada: Political economy as transformation. eds. W. Clement and L.F. Vosko, 287-310. Montréal: McGill-Queen’s Univ. Press.

Mueller, Carol M. 1986. Nurturance and mastery: Competing qualifications for women’s access to high public office? In Women and politics: Activism, attitudes, and office-holding. eds. Gwen Moore and Glenna D. Spitze. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Mueller, Carol. Ed. 1988. The politics of the gender gap: The social construction of political influence. London: Sage.

Muir, Kathie. 2005a. Media darlings and falling stars: Celebrity and the reporting of political leaders. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture 2(2): 54-71.

Muir, Kathie. 2005b. Political cares: Gendered reporting of work and family issues in relation to Australian politicians. Australian Feminist Studies 20(46): 77-90.

References 439

Mullen, B., and L. Hu. 1989. Perceptions of ingroup and outgroup variability: A meta-analytic integration. Basic and Applied Social Psychology 10: 233- 252.

Murphy, Sheila. 2004. Women and war: An analysis of the role of gender in television war coverage. Paper presented at the annual meeting of The American Political Science Association. Chicago, IL. 1-5 September.

Mutz, Diana, C, and Byron Reeves. 2005. The new videomalaise: Effects of televised incivility on political trust. American Political Science Review 99(1): 1-16.

Nadeau, Richard, and André Blais. 1990. Do Canadians distinguish between parties? Perceptions of party competence. Canadian Journal of Political Science 23(2): 317-333.

Nadeau, Richard, Elisabeth Gidengil, Neil Nevitte, and André Blais. 1998. Do trained and untrained coders perceive electoral coverage differently? Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston.

National Film Board of Canada. 1991. Sisters in the struggle. Montréal, QC: National Film Board of Canada.

National Film Board of Canada. 2000. Kim Campbell, through the looking glass. Montréal, QC: National Film Board of Canada.

Nesbit, D.D. 1988. Videostyle in senate campaigns. Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press.

Nesbitt-Larking, Paul W. 2001. Politics, society, and the media: Canadian perspectives. Peterborough, ON: Broadview.

Neuendorf, Kimberly A. 2002. The content analysis guidebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Nevitte, Neil. 1995. The dynamics of Canadian political culture(s). In Introductory readings in Canadian government and politics. eds. Robert Krause and R.H. Wagenberg. 2nd ed. Toronto: Copp Clark.

Nevitte, Neil. 1996. The decline of deference: Canadian value change in cross- national perspective. Peterborough, ON: Broadview.

References 440

Nevitte, Neil, André Blais, Elisabeth Gidengil, and Richard Nadeau. 2000. Unsteady state: The 1997 Canadian federal election. Toronto: Oxford Univ. Press.

Niven, David, and Jeremy Zilber. 2001a. Do women and men in Congress cultivate different images? Evidence from Congressional web sites. Political Communication 18: 395-405.

Niven, David, and Jeremy Zilber. 2001b. How does she have time for kids and Congress? Views on gender and media coverage from House offices. Women and Politics 23(1/2): 147-165.

Noddings, Nel. 1984. Caring: A feminine approach to ethics and moral education. Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press.

Norris, Pippa. 1988. The gender gap: A cross-national trend? In The politics of the gender gap. ed. C.M. Mueller, 217-234. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Norris, Pippa. 1996. Women politicians: Transforming Westminster? Parliamentary Affairs 49(1): 93-101.

Norris, Pippa. 1997a. Introduction: Women, media, and politics. In Women, media, and politics. ed. P. Norris, 1-18. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Norris, Pippa. 1997b. Women leaders worldwide: A splash of color in the photo op. In Women, media, and politics. ed. P. Norris, 149-165. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Norris, Pippa. 2000. A virtuous circle: Political communications in postindustrial societies. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.

Norris, Pippa, John Curtice, David Sanders, Margaret Scammell, and Holli A. Semetko. 1999. On message: Communicating the campaign. London: Sage.

Norris, Pippa, and Ronald Inglehart. 2003. Rising tide: Gender equality and cultural change around the world. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.

O’Brian, D. 1983. The news as environment. Journalism Monographs 85.

O’Neill, Brenda. 1998. The relevance of leader gender to voting in the 1993 Canadian national election. International Journal of Canadian Studies 17: 105-130.

References 441

O’Neill, Brenda. 2002. Sugar and spice? Political culture and the political behaviour of Canadian women. In Citizen politics: Research and theory in Canadian political behaviour. eds. J. Everitt and B. O’Neill, 40-55. Don Mills, ON: Oxford Univ. Press.

Oakley, Ann. 2000. Experiments in knowing: Gender and method in the social sciences. New York: The New Press.

Okin, Susan Moller. 1979. Women in western political thought. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.

Pammett, Jon H. 1994. Tracking the votes. In The Canadian general election of 1993. eds. Alan Frizzell, J.H. Pammett, and A. Westell. Ottawa: Carleton Univ. Press.

Panagopoulos, Costas. 2004. Boy talk/girl talk: Gender differences in campaign communications strategies. Women & Politics 26(3/4): 131-155.

Pantin, Laurence. 2001. When women run newsrooms, women are in the news. Women’s Enews. http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm?aid=504

Pateman, Carole. 1989. The disorder of women. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Payne, Gregory J. 1988. Shaping the race issue: A special kind of journalism. Political Communication and Persuasion 5(1): 146-160.

Peiser, Wolfram. 2000. Setting the journalist agenda: Influences from the journalists’ individual characteristics and from media factors. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 77: 243-257.

Penner, Erin, Kelly Blidook, and Stuart Soroka. forthcoming. The nature of legislative representation in Canada, part I. Journal of European Public Policy.

Perrault, W.D., and L.E. Leigh. 1989. Reliability of nominal data based on qualitative judgments. Journal of Marketing Research 26: 135-148.

Peters, Bettina. 2001. Equality and quality: Setting standards for women in journalism. Brussels: International Federation of Journalists.

Peterson, V. S., and A. Runyan. 1999. Global gender issues. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview.

Petrocik, J.R. 1996. Issue ownership in presidential elections, with a 1980 case study. American Journal of Political Science 40 (3): 825-850.

References 442

Petrocik, J.R, W.L. Benoit, and G.J. Hansen. 2003. Issue ownership and presidential campaigning, 1952-2000. Political Science Quarterly 118 (4): 599-626.

Pitkin, Hanna. 1967. The concept of representation. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.

Plutzer, Eric, and John Zipp. 1996. Identity politics, partisanship, and voting for women candidates. Public Opinion Quarterly 60: 30-57.

Popkin, Samuel L. 1991. The reasoning voter: Communication and persuasion in presidential campaigns. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

Popping, R. 1988. On agreement indices for nominal data. In Sociometric research: Volume 1, data collection and scaling. eds. Willem E. Saris and Irmtraud N. Gallhofer, 90-105. New York: St. Martin's.

Potter, James W. 1986. Gender representation in elite newspapers. Journalism Quarterly 62: 636-40.

Potter, James W., and D. Levine-Donnerstein. 1999. Rethinking validity and reliability in content analysis. Journal of Applied Communication Research 27(3): 258-284.

Power, Gerard J., Sheila T. Murphy, and Gail Coover. 1996. Priming prejudice: How stereotypes and counter-stereotypes influence attribution of responsibility and credibility among ingroups and outgroups. Human Communication Research 23(1): 36-58.

Powers, T. A., and D.C. Zuroff. 1988. Interpersonal consequences of overt self- criticism: A comparison with neutral and self-enhancing presentations of self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 54: 1054- 1062.

Pritchard, David, and Sarah Brzezinski. 2004. Racial profiling in the newsroom: A case study. Paper presented at the Minorities and Communication Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication annual conference. Toronto.

Quattrone, G.A., and E.E. Jones. 1980. The perception of variability within in- groups and out-groups: Implications for the law of small numbers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 38: 141-152.

Rakow, Lana F., and Kimberlie Kranich. 1991. Women as sign in television news. Journal of Communication 41(1): 8-23.

References 443

Rebick, Judy. 2005. Ten thousand roses: The making of a feminist revolution. Toronto: Penguin.

Reese, Stephen D., and Jane Ballinger. 2001. The roots of a sociology of news: Remembering Mr. Gates and social control in the newsroom. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 78: 641-658.

Reingold, Beth. 1992. Concepts of representation among female and male state legislators. Legislative Studies Quarterly 17(4): 509-537.

Reynolds, Andrew. 1999. Women in the legislatures and executives of the world: Knocking at the highest glass ceiling. World Politics 51(4): 547–72.

Ridgeway, Celia L. 2001. Gender, status, and leadership. Journal of Social Issues 57(4): 637-655.

Riffe, Daniel, and A.A. Freitag. 1997. A content analysis of content analyses: Twenty-five years of Journalism Quarterly. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 74(4): 873-882.

Riffe, Daniel, Stephen Lacy, and Frederick G. Fico. 1998. Analyzing media messages: Using quantitative content analysis in research. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Riffe, Daniel, Stephen Lacy, and Frederick G. Fico. 2005. Analyzing media messages: Using quantitative content analysis in research. 2d ed. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Robbins, Jordan M., and Joachim I. Krueger. 2005. Social projection to ingroups and outgroups: A review and meta-analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Review 9(1): 32-47.

Robertson, T., A. Conley, K. Scymcznska, and A. Thompson. 2002. Gender and the media: An investigation of gender, media and politics in the 2000 election. New Jersey Journal of Communication 10: 104-117.

Rodriguez, Victoria E. 2003. Women in contemporary Mexican politics. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press.

Robinson, Gertrude. 1975. Women journalists in Canadian dailies: A social and professional profile. In McGill Working Papers in Communications. Montréal: McGill Univ..

References 444

Robinson, Gertrude. 1978. Women, media access and social control. In Women and the news. ed. L.K. Epstein. New York: Hastings House.

Robinson, Gertrude, and Armande Saint-Jean (with Christine Rioux). 1991. Women politicians and their media coverage: A generational analysis. In Women in Canadian politics: Toward equity in representation. ed. K. Megyery, 127-169. Ottawa & Toronto: Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing & Dundurn.

Robinson, Gertrude, and Armande Saint-Jean. 1996. From Flora to Kim: Thirty years of representation of Canadian women politicians. In Seeing ourselves: Media power and policy in Canada. 2d ed. eds. H. Holmes and D. Taras, 23-56. Toronto: Harcourt Brace.

Robinson, Gertrude, and Armande Saint-Jean. 1998. Canadian women journalists: The ‘other half’ of the equation. In The global journalist: News people around the world. ed. D. Weaver with W. Wu, 351-372. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Robinson, John P. 1971. The audience for national TV news programs. Public Opinion Quarterly 35(3): 403-405.

Robinson, Michael, J. 1975. “American political legitimacy in an era of electronic journalism: Reflections on the evening news.” In Television as social force: New approaches to TV Criticism. ed. D. Cater and R. Adler, 97- 139. New York: Praeger.

Robinson, Michael, J., and Margaret A. Shehan. 1983. Over the wire and on tv. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Roese, N.J., and G.N. Sande. 1993. Backlash effect in attack politics. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 23: 632-653.

Rodgers, Shelly, and Esther Thorson. 2003. A socialization perspective on male and female reporting. Journal of Communication 53(4): 658-675.

Rosen, Jay. 1994. Making things more public: On the political responsibility of the media intellectual. Critical Studies in Mass Communication 11: 363- 388.

Rosenberg, Shawn W., Shulamit Kahn, and Thuy Tran. 1991. Creating a political image: Shaping appearance and manipulating the vote. Political Behavior 13(4): 345-367.

References 445

Rosenthal, Cindy Simon. 2000. Gender styles in state legislative committees: Raising their voices in resolving conflict. Women & Politics 21(2): 21-45.

Rosenthal, Robert, Judith A. Hall, M. Robin DiMatteo, Peter L. Rogers, and Dane Archer. 1979. Sensitivity to nonverbal communication: The PONS test. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.

Rosenwasser, Shirley, and Norma Dean. 1989. Gender role and political office: Effects of perceived masculinity/femininity of candidate and political office. Psychology of Women Quarterly 13: 77-85.

Rosenwasser, Shirley M., R.R. Rogers, S. Fling, K. Silverspickens, and J. Butemeyer. 1987. Attitudes toward women and men in politics: Perceived male and female candidate competencies and participant personality- characteristics. Political Psychology 8(2): 191-200.

Rosenwasser, Shirley M., and Jana Seale. 1988. Attitudes toward a hypothetical male or female presidential candidate – A research note. Political Psychology 9: 591-598.

Ross, Karen. 2001. Women at work: Journalism as en-gendered practice. Journalism Studies 2(4): 531-544.

Ross, Karen. 2002. Women, politics, media: Uneasy relations in comparative perspective. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton.

Ross, Karen, and Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi. 1997. Playing house – Gender, politics, and the news media in Britain. Media, Culture and Society 19(1): 101-109.

Ross, Karen, and Annabelle Sreberny. 2000. Women in the House: Media representations of British politicians. In Gender, politics and communication. eds. A. Sreberny and L. van Zoonen, 79-100. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Rouvalis, C., and B. Schackner. 2000. Women covering war: Female correspondents recall their historic role reporting from Vietnam. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. March 30. http://www.post- gazette.com/magazine/20000330namwomen2.asp

Rubin, Irene S., and Herbert J. Rubin. 2004. Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Ruddick, S. 1986. Maternal thinking: Toward a politics of peace. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

References 446

Rudman, Laurie A. 1998. Self-promotion as a risk factor for women: The costs and benefits of counterstereotypical impression management. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74(3): 629-645.

Rudman, Laurie A., and Peter Glick. 1999. Feminized management and backlash toward agentic women: The hidden cost to women of a kinder, gentler image of middle managers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77(5): 1004-1010.

Rudman, Laurie A., and Peter Glick. 2001. Prescriptive gender stereotypes and backlash toward agentic women. Journal of Social Issues 57(4): 745-762.

Rudman, Laurie A., and Kimberly Fairchild. 2004. Reactions to counterstereotypic behavior: the role of backlash in cultural stereotype maintenance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 87(2): 157- 176.

Rudman, Laurie A., and Stephanie Goodwin. 2004. Gender differences in automatic in-group bias: Why do women like women more than men like men? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 87(4): 494-509.

Rush, Ramona. 1989. Communications at the crossroads: The gender gap connection. In Communications at the crossroads: The gender gap connection. eds. R. Rush and D. Allen, 3-19. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Rush, Ramona. 2004. Three decades of women and mass communication research: The ratio of recurrent and reinforced residuum hypothesis revisited. In Seeking equity for women in journalism and mass communication education: A 30-year update. eds. R. Rush, C. Oukrop and P. Creedon, 263-273. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Rush, Ramona, Carol Oukrop, L. Bergen and J. Andsager. 2004. Where are the old broads? Been there, done that . . . 30 years ago: An update of the original study of women in journalism and mass communication education, 1972 and 2002. In Seeking equity for women in journalism and mass communication education: A 30-year update. eds. R. Rush, C. Oukrop and P. Creedon, 97-128. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Rush, Ramona, Carol Oukrop, and Katherine Sarikakis. 2005. A global hypothesis for women in journalism and mass communications: The ratio of recurrent and reinforced residuum. Gazette: The International Journal for Communication Studies 67(3): 239-253.

References 447

Sampert, Shannon, and Linda Trimble. 2003. ’Wham, bam, no thank you ma’am’: Gender and the game frame in national newspaper coverage of election 2000. In Women and electoral politics in Canada. eds. M. Tremblay and L. Trimble, 211-227. Don Mills, ON: Oxford Univ. Press.

Sanbonmatsu, Kira. 2002. Gender stereotypes and vote choice. American Journal of Political Science 46(1): 20-34.

Sanbonmatsu, Kira. 2003. Gender-related political knowledge and the descriptive representation of women. Political Behavior 25(4): 367-388.

Sanbonmatsu, Kira. 2004. Political knowledge and gender stereotypes. American Politics Research 31(6): 575-594.

Sapiro, Virginia. 1982. If U.S. Senator Baker were a woman: An experimental study of candidate image. Political Psychology 3: 61-83.

Sapiro, Virginia. 1983. The political integration of women: Roles, socialization, and politics. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press.

Sapiro, Virginia, and Pamela Johnston Conover. 1993. Gender, feminist consciousness, and war. American Journal of Political Science 37(4): 1079-1099.

Scarrow, Howard, A. 1965. Distinguishing between political parties – The case of Canada. Midwest Journal of Political Science 9(1): 61-76.

Schaffner, Brian F., and Mark Gadson. 2004. Reinforcing stereotypes? Race and local television news coverage of Congress. Social Science Quarterly 85(3): 604-623.

Schlenker, B.R. 1980. Impression management: The self-concept, social identity, and interpersonal relations. Monterey: Brooks/Cole.

Schlenker, B.R. 2003. Self-presentation. In Handbook of self and identity. eds. M.R. Leary and J.P. Tangney, 492-518. New York: Guilford.

Schlesinger, P. 1978. Putting ‘reality’ together: BBC news. London: Constable.

Schokkenbroek, C. 1999. News stories - structure, time and evaluation. Time & Society 8(1): 59-98.

Schrott, P.R., and D.J. Lanoue. 1992. How to win a televised debate: Candidate strategies and voter-response in Germany, 1972-87. British Journal of Political Science 22: 445-467.

References 448

Schudson, Michael. 1978. Discovering the news: A social history of American newspapers. New York: Basic Books.

Schudson, Michael. 1988. What is a reporter? The private face of public journalism. In Media, myths, and narratives: Television and the press. ed. J.W. Carey, 228-245. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Schudson, Michael. 1989. The sociology of news production. Media, Culture & Society 11(3): 263-282.

Schudson, Michael. 1992. Watergate in American memory: How we remember, forget and reconstruct the past. New York: Basic Books.

Schultz, Brad. 2005. Broadcast news producing. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Schultz, Richard. 1999. Still standing: The CRTC 1976-1996. In Changing the rules: Canadian regulatory regimes and institutions. eds. B. Doern, M. Hill, M. Prince, and R. Schultz, 29-56. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press.

Schwartz, Shalom H., and Tammy Rubel. 2005. Sex differences in value priorities: Cross-cultural and multimethod studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 89(6): 1010-1028.

Serini, Shirley A., Angela A. Powers, and Susan Johnson. 1998. Of horse race and policy issues: A study of gender in coverage of a gubernatorial election by two major metropolitan newspapers. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 75: 194-204.

Shanks, J. Merrill, and Warren E. Miller. 1991. Policy direction and performance evaluation: Complementary explanations of the Regan elections. British Journal of Political Science 20: 143-235.

Shapiro, Robert, and Harpreet Mahajan. 1986. Gender differences in policy preferences: A summary of trends from the 1960s to the 1980s. Public Opinion Quarterly 50: 42-61.

Sharpe, Sydney. 1994. The gilded ghetto: Women and political power in Canada. Toronto: HarperCollins.

Shames, Shauna. 2003. The ‘un-candidates’: Gender and outsider signals in women’s political advertisements. Women & Politics 25(1/2): 115-147.

Siegel, A. 1983. Politics and the media in Canada. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson.

References 449

Sigelman, C.K., D.B. Thomas, L. Sigelman, and F.D. Ribich. 1986. Gender, physical attractiveness, and electability: An experimental investigation of voter biases. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 16(3): 229-248.

Simeon, Richard, and David Elkins. 1974. Regional political cultures in Canada. Canadian Journal of Political Science 7(3): 397-437.

Simeon, Richard, and David Elkins. 1980. Provincial political cultures in Canada. In Small worlds: Provinces and parties in Canadian political life. eds. David Elkins and Richard Simeon, 31-76. Toronto: Methuen.

Singer, Eleanor. 1993. Reporting on risk: How the mass media portray accidents, diseases, disasters, and other hazards. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Singleton, Royce, Jr., Bruce C. Straits, Margaret M. Straits, and Ronald J. McAllister. 1988. Approaches to social research. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Skidmore, P. 1998. Gender and the agenda: news reporting of child sex abuse. In News, Gender and Power. eds., C. Carter, G. Branston, and S. Allen, 204- 218. London: Routledge.

Skinner, David, Mike J. Gasher, and James Compton. 2001. Putting theory to practice: A critical approach to journalism studies. Journalism 2(3): 341- 360.

Skjeie, Hege. 1991. The rhetoric of difference: On women’s inclusion into political elites. Politics and Society 19(2): 233-263.

Smith, Kevin B. 1997. When all’s fair: Signs of parity in media coverage of female candidates. Political Communication 14: 71-82.

Smith, K.C., S.E. Ulch, J.E. Cameron, J.A. Cumberland, M.A. Musgrave, and N. Tremblay. 1989. Gender-related effects in the perception of anger expression. Sex Roles 20: 487-499.

Smith, R. 1976. Sex and occupational roles in Fleet Street. In Dependence and Exploitation in Work and Marriage. eds. D.L. Barker and S. Allen. London: Longman.

Smith, Tom W. 1984. Gender and attitudes toward violence. Public Opinion Quarterly 48: 384-396.

References 450

Smith-Hansen, Sandra S. 1977. Effect of nonverbal behaviors on judged levels of counselor warmth and empathy. Journal of Counseling Psychology 24: 87-91.

Soderlund, Walter C., and Kai Hildebrandt. Eds. 2004. Canadian newspaper ownership in the era of convergence: Rediscovering social responsibility. Edmonton AB: Univ. of Alberta Press.

Spence, J.T., R.L. Helmreich, and J. Stapp. 1975. Ratings of self and peers on sex-role attributes and their relationship to self-esteem and conceptions of masculinity and femininity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 32: 29-39.

Spence, J.T., and R.L. Helmreich.1978. Masculinity and femininity: Their psychological dimensions, correlates, and antecedents. Austin, TX: Univ. of Texas Press.

Spencer, B.A., and G.S.Taylor. 1988. Effects of facial attractiveness and gender on causal attributions of managerial performance. Sex Roles 19(5/6): 273- 285.

Spencer, David R., and Catherine M. Bolan. 1991. Election broadcasting in Canada: A brief history. In Election broadcasting in Canada. ed. F.J. Fletcher, 3-38. Ottawa & Toronto: Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing & Dundurn.

Sreberny-Mohammadi, Annabelle, and Karen Ross. 1996. Women MPs and the media: Representing the body politic. Parliamentary Affairs 49: 103-115.

Stangor, Charles, and J.E. Lange. 1994. Mental representations of social groups: Advances in understanding stereotypes and stereotyping. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 26: 357-416.

Stangor, Charles, and Mark Schaller. 1996. Stereotypes as individual and collective representations. In Stereotypes and Stereotyping. eds. C.N. Macrae, C. Stangor, and M. Hewstone, 3-40. New York: Guilford.

Steiner, Linda. 1998. Newsroom accounts of power at work. In News, gender and power. eds. C. Carter, G. Branston, and S. Allen. London and New York: Routledge.

Stephens, Mitchell. 1996. On shrinking soundbites. Columbia Journalism Review. September/October: http://archives.cjr.org/year/96/5/soundbites.asp.

References 451

Stolle, Dietlind, Marc Hooghe and Michele Micheletti. 2005. Politics in the super- market – A three nation pilot survey on political consumerism as a form of political participation. International Political Science Review 26(3): 245- 269.

Street, J. 2003. The celebrity politician: Political style and popular culture. In Media and the restyling of politics. eds. J. Corner and D. Pels, 85-98. London: Sage.

Studlar, Donley T., and Gary F. Moncrief. 1999. Women’s work? The distribution and prestige of portfolios in the Canadian provinces. Governance: An International Journal of Policy and Administration 12(4): 379-395.

Sutcliffe, John B., Martha F. Lee, and Walter C. Soderlund. 2005. Women and crisis reporting: Television news coverage of political crises in the Caribbean. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 10(3): 99-124.

Swain, Carol. 1993. Black faces, black interests: The representation of African Americans in Congress. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Swers, Michele L. 1998. Are women more likely to vote for women's issue bills than their male colleagues? Legislative Studies Quarterly 23(3): 435-448.

Swers, Michele L. 2001. Research on women in legislatures: What have we learned, where are we going? Women and Politics 23(1/2): 167-185.

Swers, Michele L. 2002. The difference women make: the policy impact of women in Congress. Chicago IL: Univ. of Chicago Press.

Swers, Michele L. 2003. Are women more likely to vote for women’s issue bills than their male colleagues? Legislative Studies Quarterly 23(3): 435-448.

Tannen, D. 1994. Gender and discourse. New York: Oxford University Press.

Taras, David. 2001. Power and betrayal in the Canadian media. updated ed. Peterborough, ON: Broadview.

Tashakkori, Abbas, and Charles Teddie. 2002. Handbook of mixed methods in social & behavioral research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Tatalovich, Raymond, and David Schier. 1993. The persistence of ideological cleavage in voting on abortion legislation in the House of Representatives, 1973-1988. American Politics Quarterly 21: 125-139.

References 452

Terkildsen, Nayda, and David F. Damore. 1999. The dynamics of racialized media coverage in congressional elections. Journal of Politics 61(3): 680- 699.

Terkildsen, Nayda, and Frauke Schnell. 1997. How media frames move public opinion: An analysis of the women’s movement. Political Research Quarterly 50(4): 879-900.

Thomas, Sue. 1991. The impact of women on state legislative policies. The Journal of Politics 53(4): 958-976.

Thomas, Sue, and Susan Welch. 1991. The impact of gender on activities and priorities of state legislators. Western Political Quarterly 44: 445-456.

Thomas, Sue. 1997. Why gender matters: The perceptions of women office- holders. Women & Politics 17(1): 27-54.

Thorndyke, P.W., and B. Hayes-Roth. 1979. The use of schemata in the acquisition and transference of knowledge. Cognitive Psychology 11: 82- 106.

Tinsley, H.E.A., and D.J. Weiss. 2000. Interrater reliability and agreement. In Handbook of applied multivariate statistics and mathematical modeling. eds. H.E.A. Tinsley and S.D. Brown, 95-124. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Tomz, Michael, Jason Wittenberg, and Gary King. 2003. CLARIFY : Software for interpreting and presenting statistical results, version 2.1. Stanford Univ., Univ. of Wisconsin, and Harvard Univ.. http://gking.harvard.edu/

Tremblay, Manon. 1998. Do female MPs substantively represent women? A study of legislative behaviour in Canada’s 35th Parliament. Canadian Journal of Political Science 31(3): 435-465.

Tremblay, Manon. 1999. Des femmes au Parliament: Un stratégie feministe? Montréal: Éditions du Remue-Ménage.

Tremblay, Manon, et Nathalie Bélanger. 1997. Femme chefs de parties politiques et caricatures editorials: l’election federale canadienne de 1993.” Recherches feministes 10(1): 35-75.

Trimble, Linda. 1997. Feminist politics in the Alberta legislature, 1972-1994. In In the presence of women: Representation and Canadian governments. eds. Jane Arscott and Linda Trimble, 128-153. Toronto: Harcourt Brace & Company.

References 453

Trimble, Linda. 2004. Memo to Belinda Stronach: You’re being framed. Globe and Mail. 21 January.

Trimble, Linda. 2005. Who framed Belinda Stronach? National newspaper coverage of the Conservative Party of Canada’s 2004 leadership race. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association. London, ON. 4 June.

Trimble, Linda. 2006. From Flora to Kim to Belinda: National newspaper coverage of women seeking the leadership of the Conservative Party. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association. Toronto, ON. 1 June.

Trimble, Linda, and Jane Arscott. 2003. Still counting: Women in politics across Canada. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview.

Trimble, Linda, and Shannon Sampert. 2004. Who’s in the game? The framing of the Canadian election 2000 by The Globe and Mail and the National Post. Canadian Journal of Political Science 37(1): 51-72.

Trenaman, J., and D. McQuail. 1961. Television and the political image. London: Methuen.

Tuchman, Gaye. 1973. Making news by doing work: Routinizing the unexpected. The American Journal of Sociology 79(1):110-131.

Tuchman. Gaye. 1978. Making news: A study in the Construction of Reality. New York: Free Press.

Van Deth, Jan W., and Elinor Scarbrough 1995. The impact of values. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Van Dijk, Teun. 1991. Racism and the press. New York: Routledge. van Zoonen, Liesbet. 1988. Rethinking women and the news. European Journal of Communication 3(1): 35-54. van Zoonen, Liesbet. 1994. Feminist media studies. London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. van Zoonen, Liesbet. 1998a. One of the girls? The changing gender of journalism. In News, gender and power. eds. C. Carter, G. Branston, and S. Allen. New York and London: Routledge.

References 454

van Zoonen, Liesbet. 1998b. ‘Finally I have my mother back’: Politicians and their families in popular culture. Press/Politics 3(1): 48-64. van Zoonen, Liesbet. 2000a. Broken hearts, broken dreams? Politicians and their families in popular culture. In Gender, politics and communication. eds. Annabelle Sreberny and Liesbet van Zoonen, 101-120. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. van Zoonen, Liesbet. 2000b. The personalization of politics: Opportunities for women. International Journal for Politics and Psychology 9(3–4): 19–35. van Zoonen, Liesbet. 2005. Entertaining the citizen: When politics and popular culture converge. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield. van Zoonen, Liesbet. 2006. The personal, the political and the popular: A woman’s guide to celebrity politics. European Journal of Cultural Studies 9(3): 287-301.

Verba, Sidney, Nancy Burns, and Kay Lehman Schlozman. 1997. Knowing and caring about politics: Gender and political engagement. The Journal of Politics 59(4): 1051-1072.

Vega, Arturo, and Juanita M. Firestone. 1995. The effects of gender on congressional behaviour and the substantive representation of women. Legislative Studies Quarterly 20: 213-222.

Verser, Rebecca, and Robert H. Wicks. 2006. Managing voter impressions: The use of images on presidential candidate web sites during the 2000 campaign. Journal of Communication 56: 178-197.

Vickers, Jill. 1997. Toward a feminist understanding of representation. In In the presence of women: Representation in Canadian governments. eds. J. Arscott and L. Trimble, 20-45. Toronto: Harcourt Brace.

Vipond, Mary. 2000. The mass media in Canada. Toronto: James Lorimer and Company.

Wagenberg, R. H., W.C. Soderlund, W.I. Romanow, and E.D. Brigg. 1988. Campaigns, images, and polls: Mass media coverage of the 1984 Canadian Election. Canadian Journal of Political Science 21(1): 117-128.

Wallin, Pamela. 1998. Pamela Wallin: Since you asked. Random House.

References 455

Wagenberg, R.H., W.C. Soderlund, W.I. Romanow, and E.D. Briggs. 1988. Campaigns, images, and polls: Mass media coverage of the 1984 Canadian Election. Canadian Journal of Political Science 21: 117-28.

Warren, Carol A.B. 2001. Qualitative interviewing. In Handbook of interview research: Content and method. eds. Jaber F. Gubrium, and James A. Holstein, 83-102. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Waterman, Richard W., Robert Wright, and Gilbert St. Clair. 1999. The image-is- everything presidency: Dilemmas in American leadership. Boulder, CO: Westview.

Wattenberg, Martin P. 1995. The rise of candidate-centered politics. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.

Wattenberg, Martin P., and Craig Leonard Brians. 1999. Negative campaign advertising: demobiliser or mobiliser? American Political Science Review 93(4): 891-899.

Watts, Richard J. 2003. Politeness. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.

Weaver, D. 1997. Women as journalists. In Women, media and politics. ed. P. Norris. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Weaver, D., and G. C. Wilhoit. 1996. The American journalist in the 1990s: U.S. news people at the end of an era. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Weber, R.P. 1985. Basic content analysis. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Weiss, Robert. 1994. Learning from strangers: The art and method of qualitative interview studies. New York: Free Press.

Westergren A., S. Karlsson, P. Andersson, O. Ohlsson, I.R. Hallberg. 2001. Eating diffiulties, need for assisted eating, nutritional status and pressure ulcers in patients admitted for stroke rehabilitation. Journal of Clinical Nursing 10: 257-269.

White, David Manning. 1950. The ‘gate keeper’: A case study in the selection of news. Journalism Quarterly 27: 383-396.

White, Theodore Harold. 1973. The making of the President, 1972. New York, Atheneum.

Whitlow, S. Scott. 1977. How male and female gatekeepers respond to news stories of women. Journalism Quarterly 54: 573-579.

References 456

Wilcox, Clyde, David Fite, and Mark Genest. 1990. Gender differences in foreign policy attitudes: A longitudinal analysis. American Politics Quarterly 18: 492-512.

Wilcox, Clyde, Lara Hewitt, and Dee Allsop. 1996. The gender gap in attitudes toward the Gulf War: A cross national perspective. Journal of Peace Research 33: 67-82.

Wiley, M.G, and A. Eskilson. 1985. Speech style, gender stereotypes, and corporate success: What if women talk more like men? Sex Roles 12: 993- 1007.

Williams, Leonard. 1998. Gender, political advertising, and the ‘air wars’. In Women and elective office. eds. S.Thomas and C. Wilcox. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Withers, Edward J., and Robert S. Brown. 2001. The broadcast audience: A sociological perspective. In Communications in Canadian society. 5th ed. eds. C. McKie and B.D. Singer, 121-151. Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing.

Woodley, Barbara. 1992. Portraits: Canadian Women in Focus. Toronto: Doubleday.

Woodruff, J. 1997. Covering politics – Is there a female difference? Media Studies Journal 11(2): 155-158.

Winseck, Dwayne Roy. 1998. Reconvergence: a political economy of telecommunications in Canada. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton.

Witt, Linda, Karen M. Paget, and Glenna Matthews. 1994. Running as a woman: Gender and power in American politics. New York: Free Press.

Wolf, Naomi. 1997. The beauty myth. Toronto: Vintage.

Yarnold, J. 1970. The minimum expectation in X goodness-of-fit tests and the accuracy of approximations for the null distribution. Journal of the American Statistical Association 65: 864-886.

Yoder, J.D. 1991. Rethinking tokanism: Looking beyond numbers. Gender & Society 5: 178-192.

References 457

Young, Lisa. 1997. Fulfilling the mandate of difference: Women in the Canadian House of Commons. In In the presence of women. eds. Jane Arscott and Linda Trimble, 82-105. Toronto: Harcourt Brace.

Young, Lisa. 2002. Representation of women in the new Canadian party system. In Political Parties, Representation and Electoral Democracy in Canada. ed. William Cross, 181-200. Don Mills, ON: Oxford Univ. Press .

Young, Lisa, and Elaine Campbell. 2001. Women and political representation. In Party politics in Canada. 8th ed. eds. H.G. Thorburn and A. Whitehorn, 61-75. Toronto: Prentice-Hall.

Young, Lisa, and William Cross. 2002. Women’s involvement in Canadian political parties. In Women and Electoral Politics in Canada. eds. Manon Tremblay and Linda Trimble, 92-109. Toronto: Oxford Univ. Press.

Young, Lisa, and Joanna Everitt. 2004. Advocacy groups. Vancouver: Univ. of British Columbia Press.

Zaller, John. 2002. The statistical power of election studies to detect media exposure effects in political campaigns. Electoral studies 21: 297-329.

Zelizer, Barbie. 1997. Has communication explained journalism? In Social meanings of news: A text-reader. ed. D. Berkowitz, 23-30. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Ziamou, Theodora. 2001. Women make the news: A crack in the ‘glass ceiling’? A report on the 8 March 2000 initiative. UNESCO. http://www.unesco.org/webworld/march8/2001/glass. shtml.

Zilber, Jeremy, and David Niven. 2000a. Congress and the news media: Stereotypes in the news media coverage of African-Americans in Congress. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 5(1): 32-49.

Zilber, Jeremy, and David Niven. 2000b. Racialized coverage of Congress: The news in black and white. New York: Praeger.

Zoch, Lynn M., and Judy VanSlyke Turk. 1998. Women making news: Gender as a variable in source selection and use. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 75: 762-775.

Tables and Figures 458

Figure 4.1: Vote Intentions through the 2000 Canadian Federal Election Campaign (Source: Environics)

60

50

40

30

20

10

% Respondents' Vote Intentions Vote Respondents' % 0 Oct. 5-23 Oct. 26-30 Oct. 31-Nov.6 Nov. 8-14 Nov. 16-22

Liberal Alliance PC NDP

Table 4.1: Distribution of Seats in Canadian House of Commons, 2000

At Dissolution After election Liberal 161 172

Alliance 58 66 PC 15 12

NDP 19 13 Bloc 44 38

Independent 4 0 Total 301 301 Cells contain the partisan affiliations of each MP at dissolution and after the 2000 election.

Tables and Figures 459

Table 4.2: Distribution of News Stories

Liberal 55 (34%)

Alliance 51 (31%) PC 30 (18%)

NDP 27 (17%) Total 163 (100%)

Cells contain the number and percentage of stories received by each party in the dataset.

Table 4.3: Headline News Stories

Liberal CA PC NDP

Headline 31 29 13 7 Story (56%) (57%) (43%) (26%)

Not Headline 24 22 17 20 Story (44%) (43%) (57%) (74%)

55 51 30 37 Total (100%) (100%) (100%) (100%)

Cells contain the number and percentage of headline stories received by each party. Chi2 = 8.59 df = 3 p = 0.04 Cramer’s V = 0.23

Tables and Figures 460

Table 4.4: Leader Sound Bites

Sum Mean Length N seconds seconds (minutes) 156 1274 Chrétien 8.16 (33%) (21.2)

168 1055 Day 6.26 (35%) (17.6)

78 649 Clark 8.31 (16%) (10.8)

67 578 McDonough 8.57 (14%) (9.6)

469 3585 Total 7.08 (100%) (59.8) Cells contain information about each leader’s sound bites in CBC’s 2000 campaign coverage: the leader’s mean sound bite length (in seconds), the leader’s number and percentage of sound bites, and the leader’s total sound bite speaking time (sum of all individual sound bites).

F = 10.15 (p>F = 0.00) Note: Pairwise comparison of means tests reveal that Day’s mean sound bite length (6.26 sec) is significantly different from all other leaders’ sound bite lengths, respectively. These are the only significant differences in the table. The mean sound bite lengths of the other three leaders are not significantly different.

Tables and Figures 461

Table 4.5: Leader Clips

Ratio N sound bites : clips

186 Chrétien 156:186 = 0.83 (34%)

191 Day 168:191 = 0.88 (35%)

91 Clark 78:91 = 0.86 (17%)

77 McDonough 67:77 = 0.87 (14%)

545 Total N/A (100%) Cells contain information about each leader’s clips: the leader’s number and percentage of clips as well as the leader’s ratio of sound bites to clips.

Table 4.6: Issue Coverage in News Stories

Liberal CA PC NDP

23 28 9 19 Soft Issues (42%) (55%) (30%) (70%)

6 6 6 2 Hard Issues (11%) (12%) (20%) (7%)

No Main 26 17 15 6 Issue/Uncodeable (47%) (33%) (50%) (22%)

55 51 30 27 Total (100%) (100%) (100%) (100%) Cells contain the distribution of each party’s stories into soft issue stories, hard issue stories, or stories that had no main issue or were uncodeable. Chi2 = 12.03 df = 6 p = 0.06 Note: 2 cells with expected frequencies < 5 Cramer’s V = 0.19

Tables and Figures 462

Table 4.7: Nature of News Story Lead-ins

Liberal CA PC NDP

27 29 19 15 Descriptive (51%) (59%) (79%) (71%)

22 18 4 5 Analytical (41%) (37%) (17%) (24%)

4 2 1 1 Evaluative (8%) (4%) (4%) (5%)

53 49 24 21 Total (100%) (100%) (100%) (100%) Cells contain counts of stories according to whether journalists’ lead-in comments were descriptive, analytical, or evaluative. Chi2 = 7.06 df = 6 p = 0.32

Table 4.8: Substantiation of Analytical Lead-ins

Liberal CA PC NDP

11 11 3 Evidence 0 (50%) (61%) (75%)

11 7 1 5 No Evidence (50%) (39%) (25%) (100%)

22 18 4 5 Total (100%) (100%) (100%) (100%) Cells contain the number of analytical lead-ins where reporters did offer corroborating evidence versus those where no evidence was offered. Chi2 = 6.87 df = 3 p = 0.08 Note: 4 cells with expected frequencies < 5 Cramer’s V = 0.37 p = 0.07, two-tailed Fisher’s exact test

Tables and Figures 463

Table 4.9: Nature of News Story Wrap-ups

Liberal CA PC NDP

8 8 3 0 Descriptive (23%) (30%) (23%)

19 14 9 3 Analytical (56%) (52%) (69%) (75%)

7 5 1 1 Evaluative (21%) (18%) (8%) (5%)

34 27 13 4 Total (100%) (100%) (100%) (100%) Cells contain counts of stories according to whether journalists’ wrap-up comments were descriptive, analytical, or evaluative. Chi2 = 3.00 df = 6 p = 0.81

Table 4.10: Substantiation of Analytical Wrap-ups

Liberal CA PC NDP

6 6 4 Evidence 0 (32%) (43%) (44%)

No 13 8 5 3 Evidence (68%) (57%) (56%) (100%)

19 14 9 3 Total (100%) (100%) (100%) (100%) Cells contain the number of analytical wrap-ups where reporters did offer corroborating evidence versus those where no evidence was offered. Chi2 = 2.51 df = 3 p = 0.47 Note: 3 cells with expected frequencies < 5 P = 0.56, two-tailed Fisher’s exact test

Tables and Figures 464

Table 4.11: Nature of Clip Voice-Overs

Chrétien Day Clark McDonough

107 108 58 49 Descriptive (57%) (56%) (64%) (64%)

71 72 31 24 Analytical (38%) (37%) (34%) (31%)

8 11 2 4 Evaluative (5%) (5%) (2%) (5%)

186 191 91 77 Total (100%) (100%) (100%) (100%) Cells contain counts of stories according to whether journalists’ voice-over comments were descriptive, analytical, or evaluative. Chi2 = 3.65 df = 6 p = 0.72 Note: 2 cells with expected frequencies < 5

Table 4.12: Substantiation of Analytical Voice-Overs

Chrétien Day Clark McDonough

39 52 14 8 Evidence (54%) (72%) (45%) (33%)

33 20 17 16 No Evidence (46%) (28%) (55%) (67%)

71 72 31 24 Total (100%) (100%) (100%) (100%) Cells contain the number of analytical voice-overs where reporters did offer corroborating evidence versus those where no evidence was offered. Chi2 = 14.28 df = 3 p = 0.00 Cramer’s V = 0.27

Tables and Figures 465

Table 4.13: Family Members Shown with Leaders (sound bites and clips)

Chrétien Day Clark McDonough

With 39 33 18 1 family (11%) (9%) (11%) (1%)

Without 303 326 151 143 family (89%) (91%) (89%) (99%)

342 359 169 144 Total (100%) (100%) (100%) (100%) Cells contain the combined number of sound bites and clips in which each leader was or was not shown with one or more members of his/her family. Chi2 = 15.20 df = 3 p = 0.00 Cramer’s V = 0.12

Table 4.14: Symbols of Power Shown with Leaders (sound bites and clips)

Chrétien Day Clark McDonough

Symbols 73 107 7 1 of Power (21%) (30%) (4%) (1%) No 269 252 162 143 Symbols (79%) (70%) (96%) (99%) of Power 342 359 169 144 Total (100%) (100%) (100%) (100%) Cells contain the combined number of sound bites and clips in which each leader was or was not shown with one or more symbols of political power. Chi2 = 85.51 df = 3 p = 0 .00 Cramer’s V = 0.29

Tables and Figures 466

Figure 4.2: Portion of Leaders' News Stories Combative

Verbal Attack

Aggressive Body Language

Both

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 Percentage of stories

Clark Day Chrétien McDonough

Tables and Figures 467

Figure 4.3: Mean Sound Bite Length, by Aggressivity

t = -5.25*** McDonough

Clark t = -1.67

Day t = -3.54***

t = -1.75 Chrétien

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 Mean sound bite length (sec.)

Attack Not Attack

Tables and Figures 468

Table 4.15: Total Sound Bite Speaking Time, by Aggressivity

Sum

seconds (minutes)

Chrétien attack 352 (7) not attack 916 (15)

Day attack 513 (8.5) not attack 542 (9)

Clark attack 283 (5) not attack 366 (6)

McDonough attack 363 (6) not attack 211 (3.5)

Table 4.16: Candidate Sound Bites

Mean Length Sum N (seconds) seconds (minutes)

Male 6.57 97 635 (10.6)

Female 8.58 17 147 (2.5)

t = -2.72 p>t = 0.01

Tables and Figures 469

Table 4.17: Candidate Sound Bites, by Tone

Mean Length Sum

seconds seconds (minutes)

Male negative 7.78 195 (3) not negative 7.39 273 (4.5)

Female negative 11.38 91 (1.5) not negative 6.5 9 (0.15)

t-test for male candidates: t = 0.58 p>t = 0.56 t-test for female candidates: n/a because the ‘not negative’ category is in fact a single sound bite.

Table 4.18: Synopsis of News Coverage Variables, by whether Sex Differences were Found

Structural Content Substantive Content

• Number of stories • Reference to opinion polls • Headline stories • Volume of Issue-oriented • Number of sound bites coverage • Number of clips • Evidence offered for analytical Sex commentary Differences • Personalized coverage -- family members • Attack-style behaviours (verbal and nonverbal) • Symbols of power • Lead Stories • Nature of issue coverage • Mean sound bite length No Sex Differences • Ratio of sound bites to clips

Tables and Figures 470

Table 5.1: Women’s Status in Televised Canadian National News

CBC CTV Global

President & CEO X X X News Editor-in-Chief X X X

Exec. Producer Flagship News Program X √ X Chief Assignment Editor X X X

Anchor Morning √ √ n/a Anchor Mid-day √ √ n/a Anchor Flagship X X X Anchor Weekend √ √ √

Ottawa Bureau Chief X X X Toronto Bureau Chief X X X Washington Bureau Chief X X X

London Bureau Chief √ X n/a Chief European Correspondent X n/a n/a Moscow Bureau Chief X √ n/a X √ n/a Beijing Bureau Chief Middle East Bureau Chief √ √ n/a

Chief Political Correspondent X X X X X n/a Senior Business Reporter Senior Health Reporter √ √ √ Senior Sports Reporter X X n/a

Note: Cells indicate the types of news positions women hold in the three major English national television networks in Canada (as of July 2005). An X signifies that a women does not hold the position, and a √ indicates a woman does hold the position.

Source: www.cbc.ca, www.ctv.ca, www.canada.com/national/globalnational

Tables and Figures 471

Figure 5.1: CBC's 2000 Election Coverage, by Reporter Sex

**1st Stories

**2nd Stories

**3rd Stories

*Liberal Stories

*Alliance Stories

*PC Stories Women Reporters (65 stories) *NDP Stories Men Reporters (98 stories)

*Headline Stories

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

percentage of stories

Note: each group of bars for the division of male- and female-reported stories is derived from tabular analysis. Statistically significant differences between male- and female-reported stories are indicated by an asterisk (*) next to the headings on the vertical axis. The test of statistical significance used in all analyses is the Pearson’s Chi-square.

Tables and Figures 472

Figure 5.2: "Hard" versus "Soft" Issues, by Reporter Sex

Soft Issues

Hard Issues Women Reporters (65 stories) Men Reporters (98 stories)

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

percentage of stories

Note: this figure illustrating the division of male- and female-reported stories is derived from tabular analysis. Statistically significant differences between male- and female-reported stories are indicated by an asterisk (*) next to the headings on the vertical axis. The test of statistical significance used in all analyses is the Pearson’s Chi-square. *p<.10 **p<.05

Tables and Figures 473

Figure 5.3: Evidence of 'Horserace' Coverage, by Reporter Sex

Campaign Stories

Issue Stories

Focus on Leaders

Focus on Parties Women Reporters (65 stories) Men Reporters (98 stories)

**Mention of Polls

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

percentage of stories

Note: each group of bars for the division of male- and female-reported stories is derived from tabular analysis. Statistically significant differences between male- and female-reported stories are indicated by an asterisk (*) next to the headings on the vertical axis. The test of statistical significance used in all analyses is the Pearson’s Chi-square.

Tables and Figures 474

Figure 5.4: Leaders' Verbal Attacks, by Reporter Sex

All Stories, Any Leader Attacks

**Liberal Stories, Chrétien Attacks Women Reporters *Alliance Stories, Day Men Reporters Attacks

**PC Stories, Clark Attacks

NDP Stories, McDonough Attacks

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

percentage of stories

Note: each group of bars for the division of male- and female-reported stories is derived from tabular analysis. Statistically significant differences between male- and female-reported stories are indicated by an asterisk (*) next to the headings on the vertical axis. The test of statistical significance used in all analyses is the Pearson’s Chi-square. *p<.10 **p<.05

Tables and Figures 475

Figure 5.5: Use of News Sources, by Reporter Sex

**Sources

Women Reporters (65 stories) **Citizens Men Reporters (98 stories)

**Experts

**Partisan Figures

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

percentage of stories

Note: each group of bars for the division of male- and female-reported stories is derived from tabular analysis. Statistically significant differences between male- and female-reported stories are indicated by an asterisk (*) next to the headings on the vertical axis. The test of statistical significance used in all analyses is the Pearson’s Chi-square. *p<.10 **p<.05

Tables and Figures 476

Figure 5.6: Use of Female News Sources, by Reporter Sex

**Female Sources

Female Citizens

**Female Experts Women Reporters (65 stories) Men Reporters (98 stories) **Female Partisan Figures

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

percentage of stories

Note: each group of bars for the division of male- and female-reported stories is derived from tabular analysis. Statistically significant differences between male- and female-reported stories are indicated by an asterisk (*) next to the headings on the vertical axis. The test of statistical significance used in all analyses is the Pearson’s Chi-square. *p<.10 **p<.05

Tables and Figures 477

Figure 6.1: Mean Story Ratings

Chrétien

Day

Clark

McDonough

12345 Mean Story Rating

Figure 6.2: Mean Story Ratings, by Sex of Viewer

Chrétien z = 4.11***

Day z = 0.503

Clark z = -2.56**

McDonough z = -4.79***

12345 Mean Story Rating

*** p <.001 ** p <.01 Men Women

Tables and Figures 478

Figure 6.3: Mean Story Ratings, by Leader Aggressivity

Chrétien z = -11.42***

Day z = 1.03

Clark z = -3.43***

McDonough z = -3.11**

12345 Mean Story Rating *** p <.001 ** p <.01 Leader Aggressive Leader Not Aggressive

Tables and Figures 479

Table 6.1: The Impact of Aggressive Behaviour on News Story Ratings (all stories, ordered logit regressions) Model 6.1.1 Model 6.1.2

Boomers 1.18*** 1.18*** 0.17*** 0.17*** [0.05] [0.05] Gen X 0.74*** 0.74*** -0.30*** -0.30*** [0.04] [0.04] Post-Gen X 0.91 0.91 -0.10 -0.10 [0.06] [0.06] University Degree 0.93** 0.93** -0.08** -0.08** [0.03] [0.03] Same Party Identification 1.41*** 1.42*** 0.35*** 0.35*** [0.09] [0.09] Leader Feeling 1.01*** 1.01*** 0.01*** 0.01*** [0.00] [0.00] Female Viewer 0.99 1.05 -0.01 0.05 [0.04] [0.06] Leader Aggressive 1.12 1.20 0.12 0.18 [0.25] [0.25] Female Viewer*Leader Aggressive 0.85* -0.16* [0.08]

N 9046 9046

Cells contain odds ratios (in bold), logit coefficients (in italics), and robust standard errors (in brackets). *** p <.01 ** p <.05 * p <.10

Tables and Figures 480

Table 6.2: The Impact of Aggressive Behaviour on News Story Ratings, by Leader (all stories, ordered logit regressions) Model 6.2.1 Model 6.2.2

Boomers 1.20*** 1.20*** 0.19*** 0.19*** [0.06] [0.06] Gen X 0.75*** 0.75*** -0.29*** -0.29*** [0.04] [0.04] Post-Gen X 0.92 0.92 -0.79 -0.78 [0.06] [0.06] University Degree 0.91*** 0.91*** -0.09*** -0.09*** [0.03] [0.03] Same Party Identification 1.73*** 1.73*** 0.55*** 0.55*** [0.09] [0.10] Leader Feeling 1.01*** 1.01*** 0.01*** 0.01*** [0.00] [0.00] Female Viewer 0.99 0.99 -0.01 -0.01 [0.04] [0.04] Day 0.99 1.06 -0.01 0.08 [0.21] [0.25] Clark 2.18*** 1.77** 0.78*** 0.75*** [0.48] [0.50] McDonough 2.75*** 3.39*** 1.01*** 1.21*** [0.55] [0.81] Day*aggressive 0.77 -0.26 [0.34] Clark*aggressive 1.85 0.03 [0.71] McDonough*aggressive 0.68 -0.28 [0.20]

N 9046 9046 Cells contain odds ratios (in bold), logit coefficients (in italics), and robust standard errors (in brackets). *** p <.01 ** p <.05 * p <.10

Tables and Figures 481

Table 6.3: The Impact of Aggressive Behaviour on News Story Ratings, by Sex (selected by party that = news story focus, ordered logit regressions) Liberal stories Alliance stories PC stories NDP stories

Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model 6.3.1 6.3.2 6.3.3 6.3.4 6.3.5 6.3.6 6.3.7 6.3.8

Boomers 0.75*** 0.75*** 1.61*** 1.61*** 0.88 0.88 1.51*** 1.51*** -0.29*** -0.29*** 0.48*** 0.47*** -0.13 -0.13 0.41*** 0.41*** [0.06] [0.06] [0.11] [0.11] [0.09] [0.09] [0.19] [0.19] Gen X 0.59*** 0.59*** 0.81** 0.81** 0.80 0.80 0.97 0.97 -0.53*** -0.53*** -0.21** -0.22** -0.23 -0.23 -0.03 -0.03 [0.06] [0.06] [0.08] [0.08] [0.13] [0.13] [0.12] [0.12] Post-Gen X 0.66*** 0.66*** 0.93 0.93 1.13 1.13 1.40** 1.40** -0.42*** -0.42*** -0.07 -0.08 0.13 0.12 0.34** 0.34** [0.05] [0.05] [0.11] [0.11] [0.24] [0.24] [0.21] [0.21] University Degree 0.99 0.99 0.79*** 0.79*** 1.04 1.04 1.09 1.08 -0.01 -0.01 -0.24*** -0.24*** 0.04 0.04 0.08 0.08 [0.05] [0.05] [0.05] [0.05] [0.09] [0.09] [0.11] [0.11] Same Party Identification 1.01*** 1.01*** 1.01*** 1.01*** 1.01*** 1.01*** 1.00** 1.00** 0.30*** 0.30*** -0.20*** -0.20*** 0.08 0.08 0.09 0.09 [0.00] [0.00] [0.00] [0.00] [0.00] [0.00] [0.00] [0.00] Leader Feeling 1.35*** 1.35*** 0.82*** 0.82*** 1.09 1.09 1.10 1.10 0.01*** 0.01*** 0.01*** 0.01*** 0.01*** 0.01*** 0.01** 0.01** [0.06] [0.06] [0.04] [0.04] [0.08] [0.08] [0.07] [0.07] Female Viewer 0.88** 0.87* 0.98 1.06 1.25* 1.31 1.50*** 1.71*** -0.13** -0.14* -0.02 0.06 0.22* 0.27 0.40*** 0.54** [0.06] [0.07] [0.06] [0.07] [0.16] [0.26] [0.14] [0.24] Leader Aggressive 3.94*** 3.89*** 0.78 0.89 1.92* 2.04* 0.63 0.70 1.37*** 1.36*** -0.25 -0.12 0.65* 0.71* -0.47 -0.36 [1.37] [1.27] [0.33] [0.36] [0.77] [0.75] [0.22] [0.24] Female Viewer * Leader Aggressive 1.03 0.73** 0.87 0.78* 0.03 -0.31*** -0.14 -0.25* [0.18] [0.12] [0.25] [0.12]

N 3050 3050 2827 2827 1665 1665 1504 1504

Cells contain odds ratios (in bold), logit coefficients (in italics), and robust standard errors (in brackets). *** p <.01 ** p <.05 * p <.10

Tables and Figures 482

Table 6.4: The Impact of Aggressive Behaviour on News Story Ratings, by Sex (selected by party that = news story focus, OLS regressions) Liberal stories Alliance stories PC stories NDP stories

Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model 6.4.1 6.4.2 6.4.3 6.4.4 6.4.5 6.4.6 6.4.7 6.4.8

Boomers -0.16*** -0.16*** 0.29*** 0.29*** -0.06 -0.06 0.18*** 0.18*** [0.04] [0.04] [0.04] [0.04] [0.05] [0.05] [0.06] [0.06] Gen X -0.31*** -0.31*** -0.12** -0.12** -0.14 -0.14 -0.03 -0.03 [0.06] [0.06] [0.06] [0.06] [0.08] [0.08] [0.06] [0.06] Post-Gen X -0.24*** -0.24*** -0.03 -0.03 0.02 0.02 0.13* 0.13* [0.04] [0.04] [0.07] [0.07] [0.11] [0.11] [0.06] [0.06] University Degree 0.00 0.00 -0.15*** -0.15*** -0.01 -0.01 0.02 0.02 [0.03] [0.03] [0.04] [0.04] [0.04] [0.04] [0.04] [0.04] Same Party Identification 0.17*** 0.17*** -0.11*** -0.11*** 0.03 0.03 0.04 0.04 [0.02] [0.02] [0.03] [0.03] [0.04] [0.04] [0.03] [0.03] Leader Feeling 0.01*** 0.01*** 0.01*** 0.01*** 0.01*** 0.01*** 0.00* 0.00* [0.00] [0.00] [0.00] [0.00] [0.00] [0.00] [0.00] [0.00] Female Viewer -0.07* -0.07 0.00 0.05 0.10 0.12 0.17*** 0.24*** [0.04] [0.04] [0.03] [0.04] [0.06] [0.10] [0.04] [0.06] Leader Aggressive 0.77*** 0.77*** -0.12 -0.04 0.36 0.39* -0.24 -0.18 [0.20] [0.19] [0.24] [0.23] [0.24] [0.21] [0.17] [0.17] Female Viewer * Leader Aggressive 0.00 -0.19** -0.06 -0.13* [0.09] [0.09] [0.16] [0.07]

N 3050 3050 2827 2827 1665 1665 1504 1504 R-squared 0.11 0.11 0.05 0.05 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.04 Cells contain OLS coefficients (in bold) and robust standard errors (in brackets). *** p <.01 ** p <.05 * p <.10

Tables and Figures 483

Figure 6.4: Predicted Story Ratings by Leader and Leader Aggressivity

*Chrétien

Day

*Clark

*McDonough

12345 Predicted Mean News Story Rating

Leader not aggressive Leader aggressive

An asterisk (*) next to simulated responses indicates a statistically significant difference (95% confidence intervals) in predicted news story ratings when leader aggressivity was set at a value of 1 versus at a value of 0. All simulated mean story ratings were obtained using the Clarify routine for Stata (King, Tomz, and Wittenberg 2000; Tomz, Wittenberg, and King 2003).

Tables and Figures 484

Figure 6.5: Predicted Story Ratings by Leader, Sex of Viewer, and Leader Aggressivity

*men Chrétien *women

men Day *women

*men Clark *women

*men McDonough *women

12345

Predicted Mean News Story Rating

Leader not aggressive Leader aggressive

An asterisk (*) next to men and women’s simulated responses indicates a statistically significant difference (95% confidence intervals) in predicted news story ratings when leader aggressivity was set at a value of 1 versus at a value of 0. All simulated mean story ratings were obtained using the Clarify routine for Stata (King, Tomz, and Wittenberg 2000; Tomz, Wittenberg, and King 2003).

Appendices 485

APPENDIX ONE

Coding Scheme for Canadian Election Study (CES) 2000 Canadian Federal Election CBC News Content Analysis Project v1 Story date and identification number: just enter date in format: eg: November 15, 2000 = 11152000 num enter story identification number here (not in v1) v2 Which party is the story mainly about?

1 Liberal Party 2 Conservative Party 3 NDP 4 Alliance 5 Bloc Québécois 6 other 7 none v2o [v2=6 ‘other’] manually enter the ‘other’ party the story is about v3 Coder initials

1 ‘bbs’ 2 ‘cc’

Which of the following appear in story v4a … interview with candidate? v4b … interview with expert v4c … interview with reporter v4d … special report v4e … ‘Reality check’ series v4f … opinion poll v4a-v4k: 1 ‘yes’ v4g … issue profile 0 ‘no’ v4h … press conference v4i … campaign trail mixed v4j … profile v4k … other v4ko [v4k = ‘yes’] manually enter ‘other’ here v5 What is the story mainly about?

Appendices 486

1 opinion poll 2 issue profile 3 press conference 4 campaign trail mixed 5 profile 6 other v5o [v5 = ‘other’] manually enter ‘other’ here v6 Is story initiated by…

1 party/leader 2 media 3 other v6o [v6 = ‘other’] manually enter ‘other’ here

Anchors, reporters, and political correspondents featured in story v7a Adrienne Arsenault v7b Keith Boag v7c Mike Duffy v7d Hanna Gartner v7e Laurie Graham v7f Peter Mansbridge v7g Leslie MacKinnon v7a – v7p: 1 ‘yes’ v7h Ann MacMillan 0 ‘no’ v7i Wendy Mesley? v7j Terry Milewski v7k Jason Moscovitz v7l Sasa Petricic v7m Allison Smith v7n Eric Sorensen v7o Julie van Dusen v7p other v7po [v7p = ‘yes’] manually enter ‘other’ anchor/reporter/etc here v8 Nature of the lead-in

1 descriptive 2 analytical 3 evaluative v8a [v8 = ‘analytical’] Is analysis supported with evidence?

Appendices 487

1 ‘supported’ 0 ‘unsupported’ 99 missing v8b [v8 = ‘evaluative’] Are evaluations positive, negative, or balanced in nature?

1 ‘positive’ 2 ‘negative’ 3 ‘balanced’ 99 missing v9 Can the tone of the lead-in statement be described as sceptical, sarcastic, or ironic?

1 ‘yes’ 0 ‘no’ v10 Does the anchor challenge/contradict what a leader has said in the past?

1 ‘yes’ 0 ‘no’

Visual aids appearing in lead-in: v11a … picture of leader v11b … party logo v11a – v11e: 1 ‘yes’ v11c … graphic 0 ‘no v11d … other v11do [v11d = ‘yes’] manually enter ‘other’ visual aid here v11e … none v12 Is/are visual aid(s):

1 positive 2 negative 3 neutral v13 Nature of by-line (check one):

1 descriptive 2 analytical 3 evaluative 4 non applicable

Appendices 488

v13a [v13 = ‘analytical’] Is analysis supported with evidence?

1 ‘supported’ 0 ‘unsupported’ 99 missing v13b [v13 = ‘evaluative’] Are evaluations positive, negative, or balanced in nature?

1 ‘positive’ 2 ‘negative’ 3 ‘balanced’ 99 missing

Type of visual aids used in story v14a … printed quotes/figures/newspaper headlines v14b … graphs v14c … polls v14a – v14f: 1 ‘yes’ v14d … pictorials 0 ‘no’ v14e … other v14eo … [v14e = ‘yes’] manually enter ‘other’ visual aids here v14f … none v15 For printed quotes, figures, newspaper headlines, etc., are they (check one):

1 descriptive 2 analytical 3 evaluative 99 missing v15a [v15 = ‘analytical’] Is analysis supported with evidence?

1 ‘supported’ 0 ‘unsupported’ 99 missing v15b [v15 = ‘evaluative’] Are evaluations positive, negative, or balanced in nature?

1 ‘positive’ 2 ‘negative’ 3 ‘balanced’ 99 missing

Appendices 489

v16 Nature of visual aids towards party/leader

1 positive 2 negative 3 neutral 4 balanced v17 In case of stand-alone visual aids, is the voice-over

1 descriptive 2 analytical: 3 evaluative 99 missing v17a [v17 = ‘analytical’] Is analysis supported with evidence?

1 ‘supported’ 0 ‘unsupported’ 99 missing v17b [v17 = ‘evaluative’] Are evaluations positive, negative, or balanced in nature?

1 ‘positive’ 2 ‘negative’ 3 ‘balanced’ 99 missing v18 Can its voice-over be described as sceptical, sarcastic, or ironic?

1 yes 2 no 99 missing v19 Does its voice-over make reference to past/current political scandals/gaffes?

1 yes 0 no v19sc [v19 = ‘yes’] manually enter scandal/gaffe here

Appendices 490

v20 Does its voice-over make reference to political/personal achievements?

1 yes 0 no v20ac [v20 = ‘yes’] manually enter achievements here

Sound Bite Coding: v21 How many sound-bites featured in the story? Just enter number v22 Sound-bite number Just enter number v23 Sound-bite length Enter number of seconds v24 Who is the primary speaker in sound-bite?

1 party leader 2 other partisan figure 3 expert 4 citizen 5 other 99 missing v24o [v24 = ‘other’] manually enter ‘other’ speaker here v25 If speaker is a party leader, who is talking

1 Jean Chrétien 2 Joe Clark 3 Alexa McDonough 4 Gilles Duceppe 5 Stockwell Day 6 other 99 missing v25o [v25 = ‘other’] manually enter ‘other’ party leader here

Appendices 491

v26 Is leader shown attacking another party/leader?

1 yes 0 no 99 v26a [v26 = ‘yes’] manually enter which party/leader is being attacked here v27 Gender of speaker:

0 male 1 female 99 missing v28 Ethnicity of speaker

1 Caucasian 2 Asian 3 Black 4 Native 5 Hispanic 6 other 98 do not know 99 missing v28o [v28 = ‘other’] manually enter ‘other’ ethnicity here v29 Linguistic background of speaker

1 Francophone 2 Anglophone 3 Allophone 98 do not know 99 missing v30 Which leader/party is speaker talking about?

1 Jean Chrétien/Liberal Party 2 Joe Clark/Conservative Party 3 Alexa McDonough/New Democratic Party 4 Gilles Duceppe/Bloc Québécois 5 Stockwell Day/Canadian Alliance 6 other 7 none 99 missing

Appendices 492

v30o [v30 = ‘other’] manually enter ‘other’ leader/party here v31 Nature of sound-bite towards leader/party

1 positive 2 negative 3 neutral 4 balanced 99 missing v32 General appearance of speaker:

1 neat 0 disheveled 99 missing v33 General attire of speaker:

0 casual 1 formal 99 missing v34 Is the speaker wearing bright colours?

1 yes 0 no 99 missing v35 Is the speaker’s face

1 shadowed 2 overexposed 3 neither 99 missing

Camera angles: number of times following camera angles are used v36a Eye level v36b From above v36c Overview v36a – v36g: enter circled number for each variable (0 if none) v36d Pan overview v36e From below v36f Underview v36g Pan underview

Appendices 493

v36h Does not apply 1 ‘yes’ 0 ‘no’ 99 missing

Camera shot length: number of times following camera shot lengths are used v37a Close-up v37b Close v37c Medium v37a – v37f: enter number circled for each variable (0 if none) v37d Long v37e Far v37f Moving from far-close/close-far: v37g Does not apply 1 ‘yes’ 0 ‘no’ 99 missing v38 Is the speaker alone in the sound-bite

1 yes 0 no 98 do not know 99 missing

If subject is not alone in sound-bite, is speaker surrounded by or featured with v39a … friendly crowd v39b … crowd v39c … unfriendly crowd v39d … his/her family v39a – v39i, v39j, v39k: 1 ‘yes’ v39e … members of the party 0 ‘no’ v39f …. other political figures (past and present) 99 missing v39g … other supporters v39h … citizens v39i … other party leaders v39io [v39i = ‘yes’] 1 Jean Chrétien 2 Joe Clark 3 Alexa McDonough 4 Gilles Duceppe 5 Stockwell Day 99 missing v39j … media personnel v39k … other v39ko [v39k = ‘yes’] manually enter ‘other’ here v40 Is the speaker talking to the camera?

1 yes 0 no

Appendices 494

99 missing v41 Does speaker obviously read from a prepared text?

1 yes 0 no 99 missing v42 Does speaker avoid eye contact with its audience?

1 yes 0 no 99 missing v43 Does the speaker raise his/her voice in the sound-bite?

1 yes 0 no 99 missing v44 Tone of speech

1 unsure/tentative 2 angry 3 sarcastic/sceptical/ironic 4 defensive 5 neutral 6 other 99 missing v44o [v44 = ‘other’] manually enter ‘other’ tone of speech here v45 Is the sound-bite from a staged event?

1 yes 0 no 98 do not know 99 missing v46 Does the sound-bite feature a media ‘scrum’?

1 yes 0 no 98 do not know 99 missing

Appendices 495

v47 If a ‘scrum’ is featured, are reporters’ questions hostile?

1 yes 0 no 98 do not know 99 missing

Primary location of the sound-bite v48a … nature/outdoors v48b … factory or business v48c … official ceremony v48a – v48g, v48h, v48i: 1 ‘yes’ v48d … gala/fundraiser 0 ‘no’ v48e … party event 99 missing v48f … transportation/vehicle v48g … public space v48gp … [v48g = ‘yes’] where in public space? 1 ‘outdoors’ 0 ‘indoors’ v48h … other v48ho … [v48h = ‘yes’] manually enter ‘other’ location here v48i … do not know

Symbols or props appearing in the sound-bite v49a … none v49b … 24 Sussex Drive v49c … exterior of Parliament Building v49d … interior of House of Commons, Senate, Supreme Court v49e … Parliament Hill v49f … Centennial Flame v49g … the Rockies v49h … a party’s airplane v49i … a party campaign bus v49j … Canadian flag v49k … a maple leaf v49a – v49x: 1 ‘yes’ v49l … a provincial flag 0 ‘no’ v49m … a party platform booklet 99 missing v49n … buttons, party or candidate posters v49o … sports equipment v49p … sports team gear v49q … poster/sign/placard v49r … limousine v49s … staged television screens v49t … safety equipment v49u … tools v49v … money v49w … music instrument

Appendices 496

v49x … other v49xo … [v49x = ‘yes’] manually enter ‘other’ symbol/prop here

Speaker’s position v50a … sitting v50b … standing v50a – v50e: 1 ‘yes’ v50c … lying down 0 ‘no’ v50d … bending 99 missing v50e … other v50eo [v50e = ‘yes’] manually enter ‘other’ position here

Speaker’s posture v51a … straight v51b … rigid v51a – v51e: 1 ‘yes’ v51c … slouching 0 ‘no’ v51d … fidgeting 99 missing v51e … other v51eo [v51e = ‘yes’] manually enter ‘other’ posture here

Speaker’s gestures v52a … pointing finger v52b … clenched/shaking fist v52a – v52h, v52i: 1 ‘yes v52c … moving hands 0 ‘no’ v52d … arms crossed 99 missing v52e … hand chopping v52f … head shaking indicating disagreement v52g … head nodding in ascent v52h … other v52ho … [v52h = ‘yes’] manually enter ‘other’ gestures here v52i … none v53 Is the speaker smiling?

1 yes 2 no 99 missing

Clip Coding: v54 How many clips featured in story? Just enter number here v55 Clip Number Just enter number here v56 Is this clip a continuation of the previous clip?

Appendices 497

1 yes 0 no 99 missing v57 Does this clip feature a ‘translation’, accurate or not, of a previous sound- bite?

1 yes 0 no 99 missing v58 Who is the primary figure in the clip?

1 party leader 2 other partisan figure 3 expert 4 citizen 5 other 6 none 99 missing v58pa [v58 = ‘other partisan figure’] manually enter ‘other partisan figure’ here v58o [v58 = ‘other’] manually enter ‘other’ figure here v59 If primary figure is a party leader, which leader is shown

1 Jean Chrétien 2 Joe Clark 3 Alexa McDonough 4 Gilles Duceppe 5 Stockwell Day 6 other 99 missing v59o [v59 = ‘other’] manually enter ‘other’ party leader here v60 Gender of primary figure in clip:

0 male 1 female 99 missing v61 Ethnicity of figure

Appendices 498

1 Caucasian 2 Asian 3 Black 4 Native 5 Hispanic 6 other 98 don’t know 99 missing v61o [v61 = ‘other’] manually enter ‘other’ ethnicity here v62 Format of voice-over?

1 descriptive 2 analytical 3 evaluative 99 missing v62a [v62 = ‘analytical’] Is analysis supported with evidence?

1 ‘supported’ 0 ‘unsupported’ 99 missing v62b [v62 = ‘evaluative’] Are evaluations positive, negative, or balanced in nature?

1 ‘positive’ 2 ‘negative’ 3 ‘balanced’ 99 missing v63 Can the tone of the voice-over be described as sceptical, sarcastic, or ironic?

1 yes 0 no 99 missing v64 Does voice-over make reference to past/current political scandals/gaffes

1 yes 0 no 99 missing

Appendices 499

v64sc [v64 = ‘yes’] manually enter scandal/gaffe here v65 Does voice-over make reference to political/personal achievements

1 yes 0 no 99 missing v65ac [v65 = ‘yes’] manually enter achievements here

Primary location of the clip v66a … nature/outdoors v66b … factory or business v66c … official ceremony v66a – v66f, v66g, v66h, v66i: 1 ‘yes’ v66d … gala/fundraiser 0 ‘no’ v66e … party event 99 missing v66f … public space v66fp … [v66f = ‘yes’] where in public space? 1 ‘outdoors’ 0 ‘indoors’ 99 missing v66g … transportation/vehicle v66h … other v66ho … [v66h = ‘yes’] manually enter ‘other’ location here v66i … do not know

Symbols or props appearing in the clip v67a … none v67b … 24 Sussex Drive v67c … exterior of Parliament Building v67d … interior of House of Commons, Senate, Supreme Court v67e … Parliament Hill v67f … Centennial Flame v67g … the Rockies v67h … a party’s airplane v67i … a party campaign bus v67j … Canadian flag v67k … a maple leaf v67a – v67x: 1 ‘yes’ v67l … a provincial flag 0 ‘no’ v67m … a party platform booklet 99 missing v67n … buttons, party or candidate posters v67o … sports equipment v67p … sports team gear v67q … poster/sign/placard

Appendices 500

v67r … limousine v67s … staged television screens v67t … safety equipment v67u … tools v67v … money v67w … music instrument v67x … other v67xo … [v67x = ‘yes’] manually enter ‘other’ symbol/prop here v68 Is the figure alone in the clip:

1 yes 0 no 98 do not know 99 missing

If figure is not alone in clip, is figure surrounded by or featured with v69a … friendly crowd v69b … crowd v69c … unfriendly crowd v69d … his/her family v69a – v69i, v69j, v69k: 1 ‘yes’ v69e … members of the party 0 ‘no’ v69f …. other political figures (past and present) 99 missing v69g … other supporters v69h … citizens v69i … other party leaders v69io … [v69i = ‘yes’] 1 Jean Chrétien 2 Joe Clark 3 Alexa McDonough 4 Gilles Duceppe 5 Stockwell Day 99 missing v69j … media personnel v69k … other v69ko … [v69k = ‘yes’] manually enter ‘other’ here

Activity or interaction occurring in clip v70a … press conference v70b … staged event v70c … debate v70a – v70m, v70n: 1 ‘yes’ v70d … shaking hands 0 ‘no’ v70e … personal touching 99 missing v70f … laughing with crowd

Appendices 501

v70g … babies and children v70h … eating v70i … signing autographs v70j … physical activity v70k … getting on/off/driving in transportation mean v70l … gaffe v70m … other v70mo …[v70m = ‘yes’] manually enter ‘other’ activity/event here v70n … do not know v71 General appearance of figure:

1 neat 0 disheveled 99 missing v72 General attire of figure:

0 casual 1 formal 99 missing v73 Is the figure wearing bright colours?

1 yes 0 no 99 missing v74 Is the figure’s face

1 shadowed 2 overexposed 3 neither 99 missing

Camera angles: number of times following camera angles are used v75a Eye level v75b From above v75c Overview v75a – v75g: enter circled number for each variable (0 if none) v75d Pan overview v75e From below v75f Underview v75g Pan underview v75h Does not apply 1 ‘yes’ 0 ‘no’ 99 missing

Appendices 502

Camera shot length: number of times following camera shot lengths are used v76a Close-up v76b Close v76c Medium v76a – v76f: enter number circled for each variable (0 if none) v76d Long v76e Far v76f Moving from far-close/close-far: v76g Does not apply 1 ‘yes’ 0 ‘no’ 99 missing

Wrap-Up Coding: v100 Nature of the wrap-up

1 descriptive 99 missing 2 analytical 3 evaluative v100a [v100 = ‘analytical’] Is analysis supported with evidence?

1 ‘supported’ 99 missing 0 ‘unsupported’ v100b [v100 = ‘evaluative’] Are evaluations positive, negative, or balanced in nature?

1 ‘positive’ 99 missing 2 ‘negative’ 3 ‘balanced’ v101 Can the tone of the wrap-up statement be described as sceptical, sarcastic, or ironic?

1 yes 0 no 99 missing v102 Does the reporter challenge/contradict what a leader has said in the rest of the story?

1 yes 0 no 99 missing

Appendices 503

APPENDIX TWO

News Issue Coding

NEWS ISSUES

The Canadian Election Study television content analysis scheme asked coders a variety of questions about the issues presented in television news coverage of the 2000 federal election campaign. Questions were asked about which issue was mentioned first, second, third, and so on in the story as well as about which issue was profiled mainly in the story. Analyses in Chapters Four and Five focus on the latter question, that is, which issue was the main focus of each story.

Coders were given a list of possible story issues, and were instructed to choose from among the options. The list of issues was as follows:

Economic issues Youth crime of fed. gov’t (general) Tougher sentencing Quebec issue Job creation and Death penalty Social issues (gen.) unemployment Rehabilitation Social programmes International trade Anti-gang biker law Daycare Health care (general) Gun control EI Health care – Funding Abortion (general) Poverty issues Health care – Referendum on abortion Other issues Privatization Ethics (general) Education Health care – User fees Patronage, corruption Environment Health care – two-tier Grand-Mère affair Aboriginals system Rules and guidelines Immigration Public Finances Electoral Process (gen.) Lifestyle issues (general) Election dates (fixed Moral/personal Spending mandate) beliefs of politicians Deficit Referenda Defence Debt (reimbursement) Electoral system Others Surplus (use of) Constitution (general) No dominant issue Taxes National unity Crime (general) Division of powers/role

It should be noted that not all stories were coded as having a ‘main’ or ‘primary’ issue. In fact, 46 of the 163 stories (28 percent of the 163 stories) had no single dominant issue. This is a sizeable portion of the stories.

Appendices 504

BROADER CATEGORIZATIONS OF NEWS ISSUES

From the above list of news issues, I constructed several broader groupings of issues (which are not mutually exclusive). These are listed below.

Health Care Issues:

Health care (general) Health care - Funding Health care - Privatization Health care - User fees Health care - two-tier system

Public Finance Issues:

Public finances (general) Spending Deficit Debt Surplus (use of) Taxes

Law and Order Issues:

Crime (general) Tougher sentencing Death penalty Rehabilitation Anti-gang biker law Gun control

*Note: youth crime was classified as a social issue, not a law and order issue.

Social Issues:

News topics classified as being about social issues were the following:

Social issues (general) Unemployment Education Social programmes insurance Environment Daycare Poverty issues Aboriginals

Appendices 505

Immigration Abortion Moral/personal Lifestyle issues Youth crime beliefs of politicians .

‘Hard’ Issues:

News topics classified as ‘hard’ issues were the following:

Economic issues (general) Job creation/unemployment International trade Public finances (general) Spending Deficit Debt Surplus (use of) Taxes Crime (general) Tougher sentencing Death penalty Rehabilitation Anti-gang biker law Gun control Election process (general) Election dates Referenda Electoral system Constitution (general) National unity Division of Powers Quebec issue Defence

Appendices 506

‘Soft’ Political News:

News topics classified as ‘soft’ news were the following:

Health care (general) abortion Unemployment Health care - Funding Ethics (general) Insurance Health care - Patronage, corruption Poverty issues Privatization Grand-Mère affair Education Health care - User Rules and guidelines Environment fees Social issues (general) Immigration Health care - two-tier Social programmes Lifestyle issues system Daycare Moral/personal Abortion (general) Youth Crime beliefs of politicians Referendum on

*Note: not all issues are classifiable as either ‘hard’ issues or ‘soft’ issues. Issues such as national unity, referenda, and aboriginals are examples of issues not classified into either category. For example, the issue ‘aboriginals’ could be about social issues such as life on reserves, education of aboriginal youth, and so on. On the other hand, the issue ‘aboriginals’ could also be about aboriginal self- government and other constitutional issues, which could reasonably be classified as belonging in the ‘hard’ issues category. These types of ambiguities mean that the classification of ‘hard’ issues and ‘soft’ issues does not cover all of the possible issue categories.

Appendices 507

APPENDIX THREE

Coding of Variables for CES Media Reception Study

DEPENDENT VARIABLE

News Ratings

For each story, participants provided ratings in response to the question of whether the story was “very good, quite good, neither good nor bad, quite bad, or very bad for the party” that was the main focus of the story.

1 = very bad, 2 = bad, 3 = neither good nor bad, 4 = good, 5 = very good

INDEPENDENT VARIABLES

Sex

1 = female, 0 = male

Generational Cohort

The following dummy variables were used for generational cohorts. For each dummy variable the pre-WWII cohort (born before 1945) is the reference category.

Boomer = those born 1945 – 1959 Gen X = those born 1960 – 1969 Post-Gen X = those born 1970 – 1982

University Degree

1 = has university degree, 0 = no university degree

Party Identification

Coded 1 if news story is about a party (or leader of party) with whom the participant identifies; coded 0 if party identification is not the same as the party/leader the news story is about (includes other party identification, no party identification, ‘don’t knows’, and refusals). Party identification variables are from the 2000 CES three-wave survey. The coding of the party identification variable takes into account the strength of party affiliation. Weak identifiers are coded as

Appendices 508

having no party identification (e.g., Clarke et al. 1979, 1984, 1991, 1996; Blais et al. 2001, 2002; Johnston 1992). Only viewers who reported a moderate or strong attachment to their preferred party are treated as genuine partisans, a practice that has become the convention in Canadian voting behaviour studies (e.g., Blais et al. 2001, 2002).

To give an example, respondents who moderately or strongly identify with the Liberal party are assigned scores of 1 for all stories about Jean Chrétien/the Liberals, and all other respondents are assigned a score of 0 for all Chrétien/Liberal stories, including identifiers who reported a weak affiliation with the party. Thus, those who receive a score of 0 for Chrétien/Liberal stories are those who are weak Liberal identifiers, who identify with some party other than the Liberals, including no party affiliation, as well as those who provided ‘don’t know’ responses or refused to respond to the CES party identification questions.

Likewise, for stories about Alexa McDonough/the NDP, respondents who moderately or strongly identify with the NDP are assigned a score of 1, and all other respondents (including the respondent in the previous example who was assigned a 1 for all the Liberal stories) are given a score of 0.

Leader Feelings

The original questions from the CES asked respondents to rate each leader on a scale of 0 – 100, where 0 indicated extreme dislike for the leader and 100 means the person really liked the leader.

This variable was recoded on a 0 – 1 scale, and ‘don’t knows’ were assigned a score of 0.5.

For the eight models reported in Table 6.3, regressions were performed on each party’s stories separately. These models only include ratings of the leader that the story was mainly about. For stories about Stockwell Day/the Alliance, it is how participants feel about Day that is included in the model. For stories about Jean Chrétien/the Liberals, it is feeling about Chrétien feeling that is included in the model.

Leader Aggressivity This variable is from the CES content analysis of CBC news of the 2000 federal election campaign (see Appendix One for the coding scheme), and indicates the extent to which a leader engaged in verbal and nonverbal aggressive behaviour in a news story. Leader aggressivity in each news story was coded in the following way:

0 = no verbal attack on a party/leader and no aggressive body language in the story

Appendices 509

0.5 = either verbal attack or aggressive body language 1 = both verbal attack on a party/leader and aggressive body language

In other words, the 0 to 1 coding represents a movement from no aggressive or conflictive behaviour to combined verbal and nonverbal conflictive behaviour.

Forms of body language coded as aggressive are finger pointing, fist clenching, and hand chopping.

Appendices 510

APPENDIX FOUR

Select List of Television News Journalists in the Three, Mainstream, English-Language Canadian Networks (National-Level News Programming), June 2005

CBC

President/CEO: Robert Rabinovitch Chief News Editor: Tony Burman Executive Producer of Flagship Program: Jonathan Whitten Chief Assignment Editor: Hamlin Grange

Anchor Morning News: Allison Smith Anchor Mid-Day News: Nancy Wilson Anchor Supper-Hour News: Ian Hanomansing Anchor Late News: Peter Mansbridge Anchor Weekend News: Carole Macdonald

Ottawa/Parliamentary Bureau Chief: Keith Boag Toronto Bureau Chief: Raj Ahluwalia Washington Bureau Chief: David Halton London Bureau Chief: Anne Macmillan Chief European Correspondent: Don Murray Moscow Bureau Chief: Nick Spicer Beijing Bureau Chief: Celine Galipeau Middle East Bureau Chief: Adrienne Arsenault

Chief Political Correspondent: Keith Boag Senior Business Reporter: Fred Langan Senior Health Reporter: Eve Savory Senior Sports Reporter: Brian Williams

CTV

President/CEO: Rick Brace Chief News Editor: Robert Hurst Executive Producer of Flagship Program: Wendy Freeman Chief Assignment Editor: Phil Hahn Anchor Morning News: Beverly Thomson & S. O’Regan Anchor Mid-Day News: Kate Wheeler Anchor Supper-Hour News: regional; always male-female duo Anchor Late News: Lloyd Robertson

Appendices 511

Anchor Weekend News: Sandie Rinaldo

Ottawa/Parliamentary Bureau Chief: Robert Fife Toronto Bureau Chief: Anthony Steward Washington Bureau Chief: Tom Clark London Bureau Chief: Tom Kennedy Moscow Bureau Chief: Ellen Pinchuk Beijing Bureau Chief: Steve Chao Middle East Bureau Chief: Janis Mackey Frayer

Chief Political Correspondent: Craig Oliver Senior Business Reporter: David Akin Senior Health Reporter: Avis Favaro

Global Television Network

President and CEO: Jim Sward Chief News Editor: Ian Haysom Executive Producer of Flagship Program: George Browne Chief Assignment Editor: John Darby

Anchor Morning News: n/a, local only Anchor Mid-Day News: n/a, local only Anchor Supper-Hour News: Kevin Newman Anchor Late News: n/a, local only Anchor Weekend News: Tara Nelson

Ottawa Bureau Chief: Jacques Bourbeau Toronto Bureau Chief: Ben Chin Washington Bureau Chief: Troy Reeb

Chief Political Correspondent: Jacques Bourbeau Senior Business Reporter: n/a Senior Health Reporter: Linda Boyle Senior Sports Reporter: n/a

Appendices 512

APPENDIX FIVE

Topic Guide Used for Interviews with Federal Politicians

The following is a near duplicate (see note at end of the Appendix) of the document sent to politicians and their assistants prior to interviews. ------Politicians and News Media: Topics for Discussion

• Place of News Media in the Political Career of a Member of Parliament (MP)

• Relationships Between MPs and Individual Journalists

• Perceptions of Different Types of News Media (print, television, radio)

Are there differences in coverage?

Which types of news coverage are more valuable or sought after?

• News Media in Campaigns and Elections

What role does news coverage play in getting elected?

How do MPs and candidates attain positive news coverage?

In what ways have you been satisfied/dissatisfied with your coverage? With coverage of MPs, candidates, and/or elections in general?

• News Media in Non-Election Periods

How is news coverage different (if at all) in non-election periods?

How would you characterize your news coverage or that of other Members in the House of Commons?

Is favourable coverage important in non-election periods, and if so, what efforts can MPs make to attain favourable coverage?

• Challenges

What are some of the challenges to attaining visibility in Canadian news media? To attaining positive news visibility?

Appendices 513

Please note that these topics and questions provide a guide for the interviews, and do not necessarily represent a firm agenda. In some cases, time limitations may prevent addressing all the topics/questions, which is perfectly acceptable. Additionally, other topics of discussion not included on this list may arise through the course of the conversation, which is completely at your discretion. Finally, please feel free to indicate if there are any topics you would prefer not to discuss (providing a reason for such eliminations is not necessary).

Interviewer: Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant [email protected]

PhD Supervisor: Dr. Elisabeth Gidengil [email protected]

------

*Note: In the original form of the interview guide sent to MPs, telephone numbers were provided for Goodyear-Grant and Gidengil so interviewees or their assistants could make contact if they had questions, concerns, or scheduling conflicts. These telephone numbers have been excluded from the Appendix.

Appendices 514

APPENDIX SIX

Certificates of Ethical Acceptability of Research Involving Humans