New study finds long-term gender gaps in political journalism

New study shows long-term gender differences in political journalism

The study by Aliya Andrich, Marko Bachl and Emese Domahidi was published in the special issue on "Diversity and Gender in Journalism" of the journal "Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft".

The article "Do Women Write More About Women? The Impact of Journalist Gender on the Media Visibility of Female and Male Politicians" examines how the gender of journalists influences political reporting. More than 500,000 news articles published in national US media over the last ten years were analyzed and the coverage of 2,315 journalists and the visibility of over 1,000 politicians was recorded.

The results show that the gender of journalists has a small but consistent impact: Articles written by women are more likely to mention and highlight female politicians. At the same time, the extent of these differences depends on the media outlet, underlining the importance of the organizational context. The results also show that gender-specific reporting patterns have changed over the last few decades. decades have remained stable.

The study highlights how inequalities in newsrooms shape media content and thus contributes to a better understanding of persistent gender differences in journalism and politics.

Further details on the study: https://doi.org/10.5771/1615-634x-2025-3-386