Is It Personal? Gendered Mediation in Newspaper Coverage of Canadian National Party Leadership Contests, 1975–2012

Abstract

Our study examines the phenomenon of personalization in news coverage of candidates for the leadership of Canadian national political parties. Because the politicization of the personal through newspaper coverage of bodies and intimate lives has different meanings for women and men politicians, we argue that it is important to account for gender differences in levels of personalization. Our analysis of the Globe and Mail newspaper reporting of thirteen party leadership races held between 1975 and 2012 includes eleven competitive women candidates, four of whom won the leadership contest. Conducting a content analysis of 2,463 newspaper articles published over the course of this thirty-seven-year period facilitates comparison of the levels of personalized coverage over time, by leadership contest, and by candidate gender and success. Findings reveal that the amount of personal coverage did not increase over time, as the personalization literature hypothesizes. However, reporting was significantly more likely to “make it personal” for women candidates, as suggested by the literature on media coverage of women politicians. We argue that gendered mediation is largely driving the personalization of political reporting in the Canadian national context