The Framing of Feminists and Feminism in News and Public Affairs Programs in U.S. Electronic Media

Abstract

This research analyzes the representation of feminists and feminism in media (in part by comparing such representation to that of women) via content analysis of 35,000 hours of ABC, CNN, PBS, and NPR news and public affairs content. Feminists appear rarely and are often demonized. Although they are shown in a personalized and trivialized fashion, though, feminists are so represented less often than "regular" women. Feminists are less often victims, more often have agency, and more often are associated with the goals of the women's movement than regular women. Yet feminists' realm is not that of regular women; feminists are less often associated with day-to-day work/leisure activities of regular women, and more often with public sphere activities including media/the arts and politics.Considering the lengthy history of the women's movement in the U.S. (Cott, 1987), there are surprisingly few scholarly analyses of how the movement, or feminism, has been represented in the electronic media. Understanding how media portray feminism is important because research has shown that people's attitudes and judgments can be affected by the media's framing of issues (Domke, Shah, &

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