Gender, Politics, and the Glass Ceiling: Comparative Analysis of Male and Female Politicians’ Agenda-Building Efforts in the U.S. Primaries

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study focuses on investigating whether male and female politicians have an equal opportunity to influence the media agenda through their strategic communication efforts during the 2020 U.S. primary elections. Exploratory in nature, this study is grounded in agenda-building theory. This research employs mixed-method content analysis to compare the campaign press releases and subsequent news coverage of three male and three female candidates from the U.S. primaries. The findings revealed that, while both female and male politicians’ messages significantly correlated with the news agenda across three levels of agenda-building, there was no significant difference by gender. However, issues framed as “masculine” were more strongly linked with the media agenda compared to “feminine” issues. This study contributes to communication research by exploring the current state of gender stereotypes in political media coverage, offering insights into the persistence of a ‘glass ceiling’ in strategic news coverage. Additionally, it contributes to agenda-building research by incorporating gender and the context of primary elections in the U.S. which are underrepresented in the literature, into the complex relationship between political campaign messages and news agendas.