Just the Facts? Media Coverage of Female and Male High Court Appointees in Five Democracies

Maria C. Escobar-Lemmon, Valerie Hoekstra, Alice Kang, Miki Kittilson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Scopus citations

Abstract

In this article, we examine gender differences in news media portrayals of nominees to high courts and whether those differences vary across country and time. Although past research has examined gender differences in news media coverage of candidates for elective office, few studies have looked at media coverage of high court nominees. As women are increasingly nominated to courts around the world, it is important to examine how nominations are covered by the news media and whether there is significant variation in coverage based on gender. We analyze media coverage of high court justices in five democracies: Argentina, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and the United States. We compare coverage of women appointed to the highest court with coverage of the most temporally proximate male nominees. We also compare coverage over time within each country as well as between countries that nominated women early with those that did so more recently. We find some evidence of gendered coverage, especially with regard to the attention paid to the gender of the women appointees.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)254-274
Number of pages21
JournalPolitics and Gender
Volume12
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 1 2016

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Gender Studies
  • Sociology and Political Science

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Just the Facts? Media Coverage of Female and Male High Court Appointees in Five Democracies'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this