Israeli media coverage of international male and female politicians: Gender and ethnopolitical aspects

Abstract

In 2015, the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth began a campaign against Sweden’s Foreign Minister, Margot Wallström, who is considered a prominent critic of Israeli policy in Palestine. The campaign included various aspects of media bias on both the gender and the ethnopolitical levels and thus raised the question of a possible relationship between these two types of biases. Studies in relation to political communication and gender have traditionally focused on the media coverage of domestic male and female politicians. The present study attempts to examine the gender media coverage of prominent international political actors. It performs a mixed content analysis of 529 news items from three Israeli online newspapers, reports, and articles, which cover world-renowned public figures (among them, Wallström). Each news item is coded into three gender-coverage frames. Additionally, a critical reading of the journalistic texts is conducted. The findings reveal that the combination of the two types of biases, the gender and the political, escalates the media sensation and stereotyping.

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