Media Coverage Of Women

In modern campaign rhetoric, the media and press coverage of politicians and candidates is never without underlying bias, especially for women in the political limelight. Female politicians tread a fine line between the perceptions of being framed as too emotional or too cold, too calculated or too indecisive, and too strong or too weak. Even in this time of greater gender equality, media coverage of female politicians still remains stereotypical and biased. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, throughout much of her political career has been a target of biased media coverage. This paper will examine media coverage of Clinton’s historical 2008 Democratic presidential campaign and the media coverage of Clinton’s 2016 campaign with a …show more content…
As already understood, news media can have a great deal of influence on the electorate’s opinion of a candidate. The underlying visual biases found in photographs frame information that persuades voter’s beliefs and preferences. Trischa Goodnow provides an effective method to determine if underlying biases are evident using Kress and van Leeuwen’s application of the social semiotic theory to photographs. According to Goodnow, the semiotic analysis “can reveal details in the photographs and allow for possible interpretations that can then be evaluated for potential bias in both the content and style of the photographs” (Goodnow, p. 407). This type of analysis is appropriate to use when analyzing the selected photographs because it can provide insights about individual details of the contextual and constructed biases created by the maker in the visual aspects of the image that serve as part of the argument. Kress and van Leeuwen propose three levels of analysis for the evaluation of visual bias: 1) the ideational, 2) the interpersonal, 3) and the textual (Goodnow, p. 408). The ideational is concerned …show more content…
409). The photo essay article was found to drastically portray the two candidates differently according to the bias evident in the images. The photograph I selected for semiotic analysis is a two page spread image of Clinton in stark black and white studying talking points in preparation for rally. In the image Clinton is the focused in the center with six other individuals in the background of the chaotic campaign scene. Focusing on the narrative patterns, the geometric shapes created by the alignment and angels of the background individuals forms two distant triangles which center Clinton in the middle of the image (Goodnow, p. 410). The vectors of the image, enhanced by the directionality of the geometric shapes, draws the attention of the viewer to focus in on Clinton, although she does not demand attention from the viewer, as she is looking down at her papers. This causes a confusion amongst the directionality of the vectors because Clinton gazes away from the viewer and the background individuals are neither centered on Clinton or the viewer, they are looking past or Clinton or looking down (Goodnow, p. 410). According to Goodnow, Clinton remains the center of the image but lacks the ability to hold the attention of