Gender Disparity in US Senate: Success in Political Campaigns - Research Paper

Abstract

Gender disparity in the US Senate has existed since it was established over 130 years ago to date. It was up until 1922 that the first woman represented Georgia State for just one day. In the last election, 25 women were elected to Senate, being the highest number for women candidates to succeed in US politics. But one of the significant determinants for a successful political campaign is media adverts and coverage. When it comes to success in political campaigns, press coverage plays a vital role as it offers the candidate a chance to speak with the electorates and offer their candidature. To determine the disparity in men and women coverage in media adverts, I examined political adverts aired on television for 50senate candidates of 2016 and 2018. I also examined pattern coverage to determine whether there is the disparity in media coverage between male and female contenders. As electorates rely more on media coverage to decide their political choices, differences in gender coverage by the press can affect their political outcome. The results of the research conclude that a male and female candidate would use similar approaches in political campaigns but different in other methods. They all focus on policy and manifestos in their campaigns without taking explicit stands on the issues. However, when it comes to media adverts, a difference occurs as a result of women stereotyping. Men prefer economic matters while women discuss social and educational issues, but the differences are not presented in the media coverage.

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Over the last one and half of a century, women leadership in the elective political seats have been overshadowed by men. Women have either being denied the right to vote, the freedom to contest, and when given the two, male dominance has always won all the time. One of this dominance is in the area of political adverts and media coverage. Male and female have not gotten similar levels of political coverage in the media. Both free and paid adverts play a significant role in campaigns as the candidates try to appeal to the electorates for their votes. Candidates devote the right amount of resources to their media adverts to get good press coverage (Clarke and Fredin, 1986). Media adverts may be used to appeal to different gender differently. The adverts can be used to create a positive impression of candidates to their voters. This paper examines televised adverts for legislative senate seat during the run-up to 2016 and 2018 Senate primaries to test whether men and women have gotten similar treatment.

Background

The background of this paper is the poor performance of women in high profile elective seats in the US. Since its establishment in 1789, Senate has been dominated by men, with the ever first woman to be elected a senator being on 1932. The politics of stereotyping women have ruled the US over a very long time. Before 1800, women did not even have the right to vote, and it was not until a great fight for their rights that they got this right. Nothing have they reached on a silver platter from their male counterparts. Every freedom they enjoy, they have fought for against an otherwise male-dominated society. As media plays a significant role in shaping public opinion studying about their treatment of male and female in political campaigns, would help assess whether the media have been on the side of women in their struggle for equal rights or they have been presenting them with a feminine stereotype.

Scope and Limitations

This study tests about women participation and treatment by media in the US senate campaign of 2018. The study tests about dominance and treatment of either gender in the paid televised political adverts. A sample of 50 candidates is drawn from the whole campaign by random selection and a study of their media coverage done. I first analyzed political ads to examine whether both male and female use the same appeal and since the candidate controls ads contents, this analysis shows whether male and female use a similar request in their campaigns or articulate their issues differently. Together with the paid adverts, I study media coverage of political campaigns and their differences to each gender. The research tests whether the candidate's ads get mirrored by the media and whether the media briefs correspond with the paid adverts.

Methodology

To research about gender differences in the US media coverage for both paid and free ads for Senate seat, I explore political televised adverts for a sample senate seats in the 2016 and 2018 Senate primaries. Political ads were studied for 20 of the women who ran for Senate in the given period, and 320 ads were drawn. To satisfy gender balance in the male candidates for Senate, and a candidate's strength based on the pre-election test, a sample of 30 men and 430 political ads were selected. With the examples chosen and political commercials, a comparison can be drawn regarding the way men and women present themselves to voters for election to the US Senate primaries.

Coding of Commercial Ads

All political ads were coded by one researcher, after which the data was crosschecked to ensure reliability. After the coding and crosschecking of the data, the reliability check showed a success of 97% to the agreement for the stability of coding. To assess intercoder reliability; a sample was given to a coder without prior knowledge of the objectives. The example gave intercoder credibility of 95% with reliability ranging from 85-99%.

Coding Newspaper Ads

In addition to televised commercial ads, I coded newspaper content concerning the candidature of the sample collected. By coding this content, I will be able to draw the media coverage and presentation of the male and female candidates from the media point of view. Through comparing the two media coverage's one can tell whether media correspondence to both male and female candidates were the same.

Newspaper is selected to study media correspondence as they more attention to state's news as opposed to television and for the fact that newspaper data can be retrieved easily due to the accessibility of past newspapers. Newspaper analysis was limited in the fact that they do not include the presentation of all races as otherwise represented by the local televised ads. Papers which had high circulation across the state were the ones analyzed as they offered more representation of public opinion regarding the candidates. All items that mentioned the candidates were examined from articles to editorial analysis and columns during the entire campaign period. A total of 1832 articles were sampled from this sampling and analyzed to offer more insight into the study.

Findings and Discussions

Gender Personalities in Political Ads

By studying televised political commercials, we can tell what electorates learn of their candidates in the campaign season. If for instance, female candidates emphasize more on policies in the ads and forget personal traits, there will be little information for voters to know about the female character in the commercial advertisements. The study gives us a political view of the campaign from the candidate's perspective. It helps us to see how they articulate their issues and learn whether male and female candidates apply a similar approach of a different one in wooing the voters to their side. In the analysis of political ads, a candidate has treated a unit and advertisements subjected to him, or she is analyzed as opposed to using ads as a unit which would otherwise throw more weight to the candidate with higher ads.

Candidates apply two strategies in the commercial adverts. The first one is candidate-oriented; in which candidates emphasize their strengths, while the other one is opponent-oriented, which is done by emphasizing on their opponent's weaknesses. Both approaches are essential as they help draw voters to the candidate as they attack their opponents.

In the study, 70% of all the samples selected were candidate-oriented, and 30% were opponent based. Incumbent candidates toped in the use of positive ads at 68%, while the first contenders had below 50% use of positive announcements. Male candidates had positive ads of 73% while female candidates lagged at 47%. The gender disparity in positive and negative ads is not status driven, as even where candidates were of the same situation, male candidates still toped in positive adverts at 72% as compared to the female who scored 54%.

Issues Discussed in Positive Ads

Candidate-oriented ads had the highest point based discussion as opposed to opponent-oriented ads. Female candidates toped on issue-based ads at 68% as opposed to their male counterparts who got 57% of issue-based adverts. Although women top on issue-based ads, they avoid taking stands on critical and controversial issues and tend to share on general problems with moderation. The matters discussed differ in content based on gender stereotypes where men tend to talk more about economic policies such as budgetary allocation and taxes, whereas women talk more about social issues affecting the people such as education and health issues. The difference in issues-based ads between male and female candidates corresponds to the gender stereotype.

Personality Traits in Positive Ads

Candidates focused more on their strengths in their candidate-oriented commercials. Personal trait concept is beneficial to candidates as voters assess their character traits which affect their voting choices. Female candidates stressed more about their as compared to male counterparts, although not statistically significant. Sex stereotype goes beyond issues to personality traits. Men are discussed as being tough and independent, while women are viewed as being compassionate and honest. Nevertheless, male characteristics of leadership and independent traits are considered more than 70% of the time with female characters of kind and honesty being discussed less than 30% of the time. This stereotype in trait perspective makes the female candidate stress more of male traits in their ads as opposed to feminine characteristics.

Negative Campaign Advertisements

Attacking opponent candidate is one of the strategies used by candidates for legislative seats aimed at showing why the opponent is not fit for the position in your favor. A political scientist and campaign consultant Kern, argues that attacking opponent candidate by running negative ads towards them, draws more voters to the attacker (Kern 1989). Based on the perception of capable of negative campaigns, 30% of the sampled adverts were opponent-based commercials. Based on gender disparity and stereotype, men candidates avoid attacking their female opponents so as not to appear "beating" them (Lake, 1984). The study showed that only 14% of men who used negative ads towards women as opposed to 38% of attack towards male counterparts. Although women use negative aggression towards their opponents as opposed to men, they are still faced by an up task of proving their competency against a society that regards men as more knowledgeable and objective. They, therefore, emphasize more on policy and issues as opposed to opponent attacks.