Political Science, Department of

 

Date of this Version

5-2016

Citation

Published in Politics & Gender, 12 (2016), 254–274. doi:10.1017/S1743923X16000234

Comments

Published by Cambridge University Press for The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association. Copyright © 2016 The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association. Used by permission.

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.

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