Is There a Political Bias? A Computational Analysis of Female Subjects' Coverage in Liberal and Conservative Newspapers

Abstract

ObjectivesOne possible source for the gap in media coverage between female and male subjects is the political affiliation of the media source. The objective of this present study was to test whether there is a difference between more liberal and more conservative newspapers in coverage rates of female subjects.MethodsWe used computational methods to analyze a unique large‐scale data set (complied by the Lydia Text Analysis System) and compared the 2010 female coverage rates in 168 newspapers.ResultsContrary to our expectations, we found that conservative media tend to cover female subjects no less (and even slightly more) than liberal media. However, the difference was no longer significant once we controlled for newspaper distribution.ConclusionThe common view that liberal newspapers are more likely to cover female subjects was not supported by this study. Both conservative and liberal newspapers are much more likely to cover males.