09.01.2023

New publication on gender stereotypes in IJOC

Voters tend to perceive female and male politicians differently and view women in politics through the prism of existing gender stereotypes. Although social media has become one of the most important platforms for political communication, little is known about the stereotypes that social media users communicate about political candidates. In this study, Aliya Andrich and Prof. Emese Domahidi examine how gender influences citizens' social media ratings of more than 500 U.S. political candidates. Based on a large sample of Facebook user comments (n = 13,866,507), the authors find that female politicians are discussed based on characteristics that describe women's personality and appearance. They also show that users associate female politicians with leadership qualities, competence, and empathy. However, the results change for high-ranking female politicians. Overall, our findings support the idea of leadership roles being more strongly linked to the masculine stereotype, as we observe that Donald Trump is more strongly associated with masculinity and traits relevant for a political career than Hillary Clinton. For more information, see the publication:

Andrich, A., & Domahidi, E. (2023). A Leader and a Lady? A Computational Approach to Detection of Political Gender Stereotypes in Facebook User Comments. International Journal of Communication, 17, 20. ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/19041