Journalistic Perceptions of Women Leaders:
A Case of Benazir Bhutto and Beyond
Master’s Thesis
Student
| Noor Anwar
Student Number
| 11081953
Supervisor
| Sophie Lecheler
Erasmus Mundus Master’s Journalism, Media & Globalization
Amsterdam | May 27, 2016
Journalistic Perceptions of Women Leaders:
A Case Study of Benazir Bhutto and Beyond
Noor Anwar
Graduate School of Communication
University of Amsterdam
Acknowledgements I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Sophie Lecheler, who was always very encouraging and as excited about the study topic as I was from the very beginning. More importantly, she was always available to help me with her guidance, sense of humour and attention to detail. I would also like to thank the journalists who took part in the study for their fascinating insights and willingness to talk to me, despite their busy schedules. Finally, a special thanks to the Erasmus Mundus class of 20142016, as well as all the staff and professors who help make the Mundus program as amazing as it is at both University of Aarhus and at the University of Amsterdam. It’s been an incredible journey with you all.
Abstract Despite an increasing trend towards stronger representation of women in politics, research has found that most women running for political office still struggle to receive adequate media coverage compared to their male counterparts. Such gendered and stereotypical media coverage also affects a female candidate’s chances of getting elected by voters. To understand how and why a gender bias still exists in the media, this article studies how journalists themselves perceive and use gender in their news reporting about female politicians. In order to gather indepth information, I conducted 11 semistructured interviews with journalists. To specify my findings, I also interviewed these journalists on their reporting of Benazir Bhutto, the first elected woman leader of a Muslim country. Findings show that journalists are aware of a gender bias in the media, but fully attribute this bias to the political system. They feel passive responders to this bias, and that it is not their place to comment on it in their reporting. I also find that journalists often hold women politicians to higher standards compared to males, specifically when it comes to work on women’s rights. In their reporting on Bhutto, the interviewees showed that her gender played a role in the amount of media attention she received from the Western press. The results contribute to a growing literature on journalistic perceptions of bias, gender bias in the media and press coverage of international women leaders. Keywords: Journalism; Gender Bias; Women Politicians; Benazir Bhutto
Journalistic Perceptions of Women Leaders: A Case Study of Benazir Bhutto and Beyond The increasing number of women entering toplevel leadership positions is shifting workforce demographic issues (Powell & Graves, 2003), and showing a visible trend towards stronger representation of women in politics (Childs & Krook, 2009). Therefore, the interaction of gender and leadership issues requires more attention as women advance into higher roles at all levels of political, public and social life (Bligh, Schlehofer, Casad & Gafney, 2012). However, research has shown that most women running for political office still struggle to receive adequate media coverage compared to their male counterparts (Braden, 1996; Devitt, 1999; Kahn 1994a, 1994b, 1996; Kahn & Goldenberg, 1991). Research has found that gender stereotypes negatively impact female politicians, and that the media is a large source of resistance they face when it comes to breaking these gender conventions (Devere & Davies, 2006). Some scholars argue that genderstereotyped reporting in the media has improved (Rausch, Rozell & Wilson, 1999), whereas others claim that gendered misrepresentation persists globally regardless of the fact that more women are running for office (Ross, 2002). Women politicians are reported about in different ways from their male counterparts, by emphasizing women’s traditional roles, characteristics, their physical appearance and personal lives (Braden, 1996; Harp, Loke & Bachmann, 2010; Devitt, 1999). Kahn (1994a, 1994b) shows that this gendered frame of media reporting emphasizes women politician’s lack of viability, and therefore, women politicians are taken less seriously by voters as well (Devitt, 2002; Koch,1999). Consequently, media campaigns affect the chances of a woman politician getting elected, and therefore, of more women rising to leadership positions.
Despite this evidence of gender biased stereotypes in political reporting and the influence of the media in the success of women political candidates, little research has specifically examined how journalists themselves perceive female politicians and why they report about them the way they do. While most studies focus on content to analyze gender bias in media coverage, the study of direct journalistic perceptions can also be valuable. Shoemaker and Reese (2013) emphasize that there are several individual, as well as contextual, factors that influence what a journalist considers to be important during news production. Yet, journalist’s role perceptions and routines are abstract concepts, which means that they are understood differently in different sociopolitical contexts. This means that a true analysis of these routines and perceptions, and how they are connected to gender bias in reporting, requires indepth analysis that can best be provided by qualitative analysis (David & Sutton 2011). This is what this study attempts to do. Specifically, this study examines gender bias generally, as well as connected to a case study. I also focus on how Western journalists constructed the image of Benazir Bhutto, one of the most popular international women leaders in the world (RosasMoreno & Bachmann, 2012), who was famously known as the first woman to be elected as the leader of a Muslim country, and was the youngest elected leader in history at 35 years old when she came to power in Pakistan in 1988 (Adler, 1996). Research has found that the Western media presented her image differently from the way it was presented in the Pakistani media, highlighting distinct factors such as gender and religion (RosasMoreno & Bachmann 2012; Rahman 2012). I use Bhutto’s case to study gender bias in journalism and political news reporting. Firstly, because through the personal and professional perceptions of journalists themselves, we can understand and uncover how journalists use gender in their news reporting to construct the
images of women politicians in the media, and for what reasons. Secondly, Bhutto’s case is a unique one as she was a minority in more than one aspect, as she was also a nonWestern and Muslim female leader. By studying the construction of her image specifically as well, the study will be able to analyze how prominent female gender is compared to these other potentially ‘detrimental’ factors that could affect her coverage in the Western media. Therefore, this study is shaped by the overarching research question that asks how journalists construct the images of female politicians in the media. To answer this question, a qualitative study is conducted through semistructured interviews with eleven Western journalists from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and France. Doing this research through the lens and perceptions of journalists, who construct the images of the female politicians we see in the media, the study hopes to provide more insight into gender bias in the journalistic profession and in news reporting. Journalists and Gender: From Bias to Fair Representation Journalists & Bias In recent years, scholars have suggested a shift away from the aspect of objectivity in journalism, and towards a more ethical or subjective style of reporting which aims to show a different, more real picture of unheard voices and events (Weisslitz & Ashuri, 2011). These scholars argue that before, journalists were more focused on remaining outside of the stories and events they reported on by relating only the facts to their audiences. Skewes and Plaisance’s (2003) study coincides with this insight, as they found that journalists do not feel comfortable being perceived as activists in their journalistic role. Of course, there is a contested debate as to whether journalists should in fact be considered activists,
and to what extent (Skjerdal, 2011). Gillmor (2015) argues that it is important for journalists to be activists sometimes, as it is simply campaigning to stop things from happening. Recent research suggests that modern journalists are more ‘moral’ now, which has been categorized as a middle group between objective and advocate journalists (Weisslitz & Ashuri, 2011). The commitment to reporting truthfully is one of the fundamental goals of journalism. The concept of truth in journalism is often connected to objectivity, and as some scholars argue: truth becomes replaced by the concept of objectivity (MunozTorres, 2012). Terms such as balance and neutrality, in turn, often replace objectivity (MunozTorres, 2012). Tumber and Webster (2006) argue that neutrality may in fact become problematic when the concept of morality is also considered as part of the function of journalism. However, this innovative way of reporting in a moral way (Weisslitz & Ashuri, 2011) also goes beyond facts and provides a broader, contextualized picture, and also the opportunity and space for marginalized voices to also be heard. However, this new approach also expands the chances for journalists to be more biased in their news reporting, which of course is dangerous for the journalism profession. Research has shown that bias in media favors the powerful and suppresses other groups, causes and individuals (Entman, 2007). These patterns of bias in turn regularly prime audiences to support the interests of only particular holders or seekers of political power. The media’s decision biases operate within the minds of individual journalists, and also within the processes of journalistic institutions (Entman, 2007). Some research has also concluded that the media have bias at a more fundamental level, which includes consistent framing in favor of capitalism, patriarchy, herosexism, white priviledge, among other deeply entrenched values that allocate power accordingly in American society (Budd, Craig, Steinman, 1999; Entman 2007).
However, these studies focus mostly on content, and therefore do not focus on journalistic roles. Journalist’s role conceptions are important as they define how journalists work. These roles also determine what the journalist thinks is worth transmitting to his or her audience, and how the story should be developed (Shoemaker & Reese, 2013). These decisions are based on professional norms which are responsible for influencing the newsmaking method (Sigal, 1973). Plaisance and Skewes (2003) found that many individual factors, beyond the influence of their media outlet, impact journalistic attitude and behaviour such as personal values and demographics. Shoemaker and Reese (2013) further emphasize that there are several individual characteristics and contextual factors in society that influence what a journalist considers to be important, and that consequently influences news production. Shoemaker and Reese’s (2013) ‘Hierarchy of Influences’ model also shows that the journalist profession, as well as ethics, directly affect the content of journalistic work. Shoemaker and Reese (2013) claim that other aspects such as nationality, demographics , and personal opinions, attitudes and affiliations have an indirect influence on journalistic perceptions and content as well. One of the types of categories that Entman (2007) highlights in his definition of bias is the ‘decisionmaking bias’, which is when the motivations and mindsets of journalists affect the news content they produce. In sum, there is bias in some aspects of journalism even though journalists still identify with objectivity. Now with recent qualitative shifts taking place, journalism is in fact moving away from objectivity and towards a moral approach. Consequently, the question arises: what does this mean for the future of the journalism practice? Thus, this study aims to understand how journalists perceive and fight bias in their work. While most studies do content analysis, the
study of direct journalistic perceptions is valuable here. Journalist’s role perceptions and routines are abstract concepts, which means that they are understood differently in different sociopolitical contexts. This means that a true analysis of these routines and perceptions, and how they are connected to gender bias in reporting, requires indepth analysis that can best be provided by qualitative analysis (David & Sutton, 2011). This is what this study attempts to do. Hence, my first research question is as follows: RQ 1: How do journalists fight bias in their work? Gender Bias in Journalism and Politics Research has shown that journalistic bias, as described above, can be found in reporting about a number of groups and issues, such as different minorities (Entman & Rojecki, 2000), or the coverage of U.S foreign policy (Entman, 2004). One important group that has suffered media bias reporting has been women as a larger group, and women politicians in particular (Braden, 1996; Devitt, 1999; Kahn 1992, 1994a; Kahn & Goldenberg, 1991). It is the latter group that this thesis will focus on particularly. Historically, female political leaders have been rare (Jackson, 1990), however in Western liberal democracies, there is now a visible trend towards stronger representation of women in politics (Childs & Krook, 2009). The number of women presidents around the world has also substantially increased since the beginning of the 1990’s (Jalalzai, 2010), and research shows that when women run for political office, they comparatively win in the same percentages as men (Newman, 1994). However, research has also found that most women running for political office still struggle to receive media coverage, as compared to their male counterparts (Braden, 1996; Devitt, 1999; Kahn 1992, 1994a, 1994b; Kahn & Goldenberg, 1991).
Most voters do not experience politics directly, but rather see the political landscape largely through the perception and eyes of the news media and its representatives (Kahn, 1994a). Thus, the above described gender bias may be problematic for women running for office, as such biases can have consequences on the success or failure of their media campaigns (Koch, 1999; Kahn, 1994b; Devitt, 2002, Falk & Kenski, 2006). Research has consistently shown that the news media influence the public’s perceptions of political candidates and their image, as either positive or negative, as well as voter’s overall evaluations of candidates (Bligh et al., 2011). However, gender bias may not only originate in media reporting. Previous research has found significant gender differences in the media campaign messages of male and female candidates, with women focusing on ‘female’ issues like education and health care, whereas men were more likely to focus on more ‘male’ issues like foreign policy and the economy (Kahn, 1992; Kahn & Goldenberg, 1991). In 1994, Kahn concluded that the media’s agenda more closely resembled the agenda issued by male candidates in their televised political advertisements, which could then be connected back to male electoral success. Most recent research shows that there are fewer gender differences now when it comes to policy emphasis (Bystrom, 2006; Sapiro & Walsh, 2002; Dolan, 2005), however, there is still emphasis on highlighting different personality traits in political campaigns. For example, Sapiro and Walsh (2002) found that women candidates tend to focus more on their ‘toughness’, as compared to their male counterparts. The traits that are typically associated and expected from a successful leader, such as assertiveness, strength and ambition, are perceived as inappropriate for a woman (Devere & Davies, 2006).
Studies have found that attitudes about women in leadership are not simply linear or progressive, but very much affected by current events, stereotypes and differing perceptions of women’s and men’s strengths (Falk and Kenski 2006, p. 2). Gender stereotypes play an important role when it comes to politics, in terms of both perceptions of female politicians and leaders, and also when analyzing female voting behavior (Kahn, 1994a; Bligh et al., 2012). For example, Koch (1999) and Falk and Kenski (2006) found that female candidates are perceived to be more liberal ideologically and that voters use gender to further infer female candidates’ positions on contentious issues, their behaviour and competencies. Women politicians are often perceived as being concerned about improving the status of women as a minority group, and therefore supporting policies that further their gender’s interests rather than those of society as a whole (Bligh et al, 2011). In terms of traits for example, women are considered to be more passionate and in terms of emotional strength, women are considered weaker (Falk & Kenski, 2006). Importantly for this study, Kahn (1994) found that newspeople seem to hold these same stereotypes regarding female competencies for political leadership positions. Stereotyping is a powerful and destructive frame that influences how female political leadership are portrayed in the media, and this in turn reinforces the patriarchal ideology held by most societies and individuals around the world: the idea that women do not really belong in politics (Gallagher, 2001). According to Braden (1996)), journalists describe women politicians in different ways and with words that emphasize women’s traditional roles and characteristics. There is also more focus on their physical appearances, with news reports of female politicians often focusing on
their hairstyles, weight and clothing choices, rather than their policies (Harp et al., 2010; Braden, 1996). Devitt (1999) also found that newspaper reporters devoted much more attention to the personal lives of female politicians as compared to the men, and also gave more emphasis on their personal traits. Consequently, they are regarded as an oddity by the media, and their behavior is subject to more evaluation, and as a result their receive disproportionate media attention as compared to their male counterparts (Cantrell & Bachmann, 2008). Heldman, Carroll & Olson (2000) found that media coverage does not seem to improve once the female candidate is officially elected. However, leaders like Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhi challenge these prevailing assumptions that women exhibit a softer style of leadership (Jalazai, 2010). During their leaderships, they both exhibited traits that would be categorized as highly masculine, such as an unwillingness to compromise and be controlled (Jalazai, 2010) Research shows that gender differences in press treatment of female politicians seems to be even more dramatic for presidential candidates. A content analysis of newspaper coverage of Hillary Clinton, conducted during the timespan from when she was First Lady to Senate candidate, showed found that Clinton was gradually framed as more negatively the closer her political candidacy approached (Scharrer, 2002). A content analysis study done by Meek (2013) examining coverage of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin in the 2008 presidential election found that the New York Times did show stereotypical trends as it provided a heavy emphasis on women’s novelty, and also gave more attention on masculinized content. It also showed that the New York Times gave men more issue and trait cover as compared to the women as the elections came to an end (Meeks, 2013).
Some research suggests that a few differences in the media coverage of men and women candidates have become less dramatic in the last few election cycles (Bystrom, Robertson & Banwart, 2001; Jalazai, 2006). However, the press still continues to distinguish between male and female candidates in terms of their policies and and personal qualities, which includes emphasis on their appearance and marital status (Bystrom et al., 2001; Devitt 1999). However, Fountaine and McGregor (2002) found that symbolic annihilation, which illustrates the omission, condemnation and trivialization of women by the mass media, continues to take place in the media, regardless of the great political gains that women have made. Consequently, the question that arises is: why is the media still covering female politicians in the same way, even though there are more women in politics now? Fountain and McGregor (2002) concluded that the problem in fact lies with the way journalists are trained, highlighting that they tend to surrender and recede back upon the use of old gender stereotypes to explain female actions. This is because firstly, it is more convenient and secondly, it does not involve having to take on a individual role to challenge existing gender representations (Gallagher, 2001). More than three decades ago, Hartley (1982) suggested that news is mostly about men, and written by men and therefore, it is overwhelmingly seen through the eyes of their gender. Most feminist journalism research would agree with this, as it is evident that this has not drastically changed. Hall, Critcher, Jefferson, Clarke and Roberts (1978) attributed this to the fact that journalists routinely organize news sources into a hierarchy of credibility. Therefore, only certain sources are about to speak about the social world, and in only certain preferred ways that quite basically stick with the statusquo.
The media may cover male and female political candidates differently for more various reasons as well. The first may be the journalist’s reliance on newsworthiness, which is one of the organizational incentives that are active in news organizations (Sigal, 1973; Kahn, 1994a). Journalists rely on the ‘standards of newsworthiness’ (Sigal, 1973) when selecting potential news stories, with novelty being one of the standards. Women political candidates are relatively rare, and therefore journalists may view them as especially newsworthy. Consequently, they may receive more, or different, news coverage than their male counterparts (Kahn, 1994). A second reason for why the media highlight gender differences is that they reflect stereotypes that journalists hold about male and female candidates (Kahn, 1994a). This is because journalists, just like other voters, may believe that certain personality traits are more characteristic of women, whereas other different traits are more characteristic of men (Sapiro, 1982). Journalists’ perceptions are abstract concepts, which means that they are understood differently in different sociopolitical contexts. By asking journalists what are the different facts and characteristics they use to construct the image of female politicians in their news reporting, the study can investigate and measure how aware journalists are of a gender bias in the media and whether they see it appear in their own work, and most importantly help us answer: why is it still there despite the fact that there are more female leaders in the world now? Research on how female politicians are reported about in the media has found a consistent pattern of gendered stereotyping and framing (Whitaker, 2006). The role of the media is fundamental in the way gender is understood by the public, as they expose audiences to socially constructed concepts of women and appropriate gender roles (Harp, Loke & Bachmann, 2010).
Therefore, based on the abovementioned literature and of the need for further academic exploration regarding the lingering gender bias in the media, my second research question is as follows: RQ 2: How aware are journalists of a gender bias in the media? The Case of Benazir Bhutto The study of gender portrayal in the media has become very prominent in the recent decades, expanding to include research on international female politicians as well. In her study looking at international women leaders, Jalalzai (2010) found that although there are more female leaders now, presidential positions around the world are still overwhelmingly dominated by men. To illustrate, this study introduces a case study of Benazir Bhutto, who was among the first global female leaders to come to prominence in the international media. In 1988, Benazir Bhutto was the first woman to be elected as the leader of a Muslim country, and was the youngest elected leader in history at 35 years old when she became Prime Minister of Pakistan (Adler, 1996). Therefore, she was among the first women leaders to be universalized by the international media, being voted the world’s most popular politician in the 1996 Guinness Book of Records , and according to a survey conducted by Gallup and USA Today in 2007 she was one of the top ten women Americans admire the most (RosasMoreno & Bachmann 2012). She served two terms as Pakistan’s Prime Minister, albeit they were both terminated before the fiveyear term completion, as her government was accused of corruption (Ali, 2007). She returned to Pakistan after almost a decade of exile in October of 2007, but was assassinated two months later. Research shows that the Western media presented her image
differently from the way it was presented in the Pakistani media, highlighting distinct factors such as gender and religion (RosasMoreno & Bachmann 2012, Rahman 2012).
Rahman’s (2012) content analysis of Time and Newsweek magazines found that Pakistani Muslim women were often depicted as stereotypes of oppressed victims of the ‘repressive’ laws of Islam, and that their problems were depicted as religious problems. However the most coverage, and also most positive coverage , was given to women in the secular image which in this case was almost exclusively Benazir Bhutto (Rahman, 2012). Rahman explains this as follows: Bhutto was hardly referenced to in the context of Islam, whereas other Pakistani women were usually framed in the context of a negative image of Islam. In most of the news items Bhutto’s educational background in the West was always highlighted, and during when there were serious charges of corruption against her, her responsibility was mitigated by focusing more on the conditions of the country and the usual power games played by the opposition (p. 111) Bhutto’s emancipated image was specifically framed as succumbing to foreign influence, showing that Muslim women are largely marked by stereotypes by the Western media, rather than knowledge and cultural context. Rahman (2012) also discusses Klaus and Kassel’s (2005), who argue that even though it is important to address the issue of women’s rights in the media, whenever women’s rights suddenly appear on the agenda of foreign or domestic news, one should ask where this interest is rooted in and whether it serves women or some other purpose. For example, the news narrative
of the liberation of Afghan women from the Taliban regime after 9/11 was linked to the legitimization of military involvement and foreign policy (Rahman 2012). RosasMoreno and Bachmann (2012) conducted a content analysis study which compared Pakistani media coverage to that of US media coverage regarding Bhutto’s assassination. Their results found that the Pakistani media stories after her assassination almost ignored matters of gender and religion, whereas the US newspapers highlighted Bhutto’s position as a trailblazer female in a Muslim country who broke gender barriers (RosasMoreno & Bachmann, 2012). Their study showed that the American media tried to make sense of Bhutto’s assassination in terms of U.S interests and events that an American audience could understand. There was emphasis on the danger now facing U.S security due to Bhutto’s death, and the decreased chances of nucleararmed Pakistan having a democratic government (RosasMoreno & Bachmann, 2012). It is interesting to see how Bhutto was celebrated by the West as a democratic leader, even though she was elected after her father the ex Prime Minister of Pakistan was assassinated, in a dynastic tradition that encapsulates politics in South Asia (Thompson, 2002). As Jalalzai (2010) also found in her study on international female politicians, that strong women presidents are still very rare, especially those elected by popular vote and without any family ties to male leaders, and are more symbolic in nature. The U.S news reports in RosasMoreno & Bachmann’s (2012) study had illusive references to democracy, which tended to define democracy not by what it is, but rather by what it’s not: terrorism. Rosas and Moreno (2012) rightfully bring up an important question after they find a uniformed pattern in the reporting of
the American media: how could Bhutto be a hopeful emblem of democracy for her country, if she also simultaneously engendered a dynasty and royalty (RosasMoreno et al., p. 304). Kahn (1994a) noted that sometimes women political candidates have been able to take advantage of the stereotypes held by the public and the media in order to promote themselves. For example, in Bhutto’s case: a Pakistani Muslim female leader who was breaking the typical stereotype by becoming the first female elected leader of an Islamic state. However, it has also been found that when political women attempt to break out of their stereotypically perceived roles and characteristics, they often face criticism from both the media and the public (Bystrom et al., 2001). This could be why Bhutto’s gender and religion were absent from the coverage of her assassination by the Pakistani press, as compared to the American press (RosasMoreno, 2012). As has been highlighted in this paper so far, female politicians receive less coverage than their male counterparts (Devitt, 1999; Kahn 1992). However, Bhutto was a celebrated and popular female politician in the international media, and this could be attributed to a number of contextual factors: the historic events in Pakistan that led to her democratic election, her family background of dynastic politics, or the fact that she had strong links with the West. However, what is interesting in Bhutto’s case is it seems her gender was repeatedly brought up to empower her and refute stereotypes, as compared to what is usually the case with female politicians where their gender stereotypes harm their media image (Gallagher, 2001). Therefore, it can be predicted that Bhutto’s gender played a role in her coverage, and surprisingly, in a more positive manner. Bhutto’s case is also a unique one as she is a minority in more than one aspect, as she is also a nonWestern, Muslim female leader. By studying the construction of her image, the study
will be able to analyze how prominent female gender is compared to these other potentially ‘detrimental’ factors that could affect her coverage in the Western media. Generally, more research needs to be done regarding gender, politics and the media and specifically more research that also looks at international female politicians as well. Although there have been some case studies of specific international female leaders that did content analyses of their media coverage, there have not been many that look at the way their images are constructed by journalists themselves. There has been no study conducted about how Western journalists themselves perceived Benazir Bhutto as a politician, and how they constructed her image for the Western media. Therefore, my final research question of the study is: RQ 3: How did the Western journalists construct the image of Benazir Bhutto as a female leader in Pakistan? Method The study aims to understand how journalists fight and overcome bias in their work, how aware they are of a gender bias in the media and what their perceptions are regarding why it is still there. Ultimately, the study aims to investigate how Western journalists perceive and construct the image of female politicians in the media, by more specifically looking at the case of Benazir Bhutto. Research Design This is the first journalism study of its kind on the topic of Benazir Bhutto, and so a qualitative approach, with semistructured interviews, allowed me to have a high level of indepth and interpretive analysis, and also gave me space to conceptualize my results due to the historical aspect of my subject. David and Sutton (2011) state that one of the opportunities of a
qualitative study over a quantitative study is that it retains a degree of openness which helps formulate concepts rather than test them. Research involving feelings, attitudes and personal values cannot simply be observed through experiments or surveys, and therefore, the choice for a qualitative approach is the most appropriate one to directly study the perceptions of journalists in regards to bias in the media. This research is based on eleven interviews which were conducted over a total of four months, between February and May of 2016. Eight of these were indepth, semistructured interviews conducted by either Skype or telephone, due to financial and logistical constraints. Three interviews were conducted through email as the journalists could not find time in their schedules to do a full length interview. These three journalists only answered questions regarding Benazir Bhutto specifically, as reporting about Bhutto is the common factor, which brings this study’s entire sample of participants together. The interviews were recorded, with the participant's consent, and transcribed after. All the interviews were in English, lasting between 30 and 75 minutes, plus three pages of emails answers. Participants were informed about the general aim of the research and were told why they were chosen to be part of it. Their anonymity was also guaranteed, and therefore they are referred to in the study by numbers only (e.g. Journalist 1) and there is no mention of the media outlet each journalist belongs to. However, overall, some of the media outlets of the journalists included in the research are: The BBC, The New York Times, The Associated Press, The CBC,
The LA Times). Interview Guide
I used a semistructured interview guide (see Appendix I) to conduct the interview sessions, which allowed the respondents to expand on the topic. The interview guide was constructed based on the theoretical framework, and was adapted as the interview process went on and newly emerging themes emerged. The interview guide questions were broken down into four distinct sections, with the first being about the background of their careers in news reporting and their sociodemographic information. The next three sections were about their perceptions about bias, gender bias in the media, and aspects of and reflections about their reporting on Benazir Bhutto. Not all the answers were used in the results, but all the information contributed to my analysis. The interview guide was tested on and practiced with fellow journalist colleague, to ensure that it was appropriate in terms of both content flow and timeliness. Sample This research is based on eleven interviews with American (5), Canadian (3), British (2) and French (1) journalists. I first used purposive sampling to contact Western journalists who had covered or reported about Benazir Bhutto at least once, and by any kind of media: print, television, radio, etc. They were mostly from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom due to language constraints. However, I was suggested through an interviewee to contact the French journalist I interviewed. Therefore, along with him and a few other participants of the study, I used snowball sampling as well. I contacted all participants through email, telephone and social media. Since I am looking at gender as a factor in my research, I also made an effort to reach a nearly equal ratio of men (6) to women (5) so that I can also investigate what role the gender of the journalists also played in their reporting of female politicians. The sampling process aimed to achieve diversity in terms of nationality, gender and
type of media, and therefore, this purposive and snowballing sample included elements of maximum variation sampling (Bryman, 2012).
Table 1: Overview Sample
Interviewee Host Country Gender Method of Contact Media
Journalist 1 American Female Telephone Print
Journalist 2 Canadian Male Telephone Print Journalist 3 Canadian Female Telephone Print Journalist 4 American Male Telephone Print Journalist 5 American Male Telephone Print Journalist 6 Canadian Female Skype TV
Journalist 7 British Female Skype Radio, Print Journalist 8 British Female Skype TV, Print Journalist 9 French Male Email Print
Journalist 10 American Male Email Print Journalist 11 American Male Email TV
Data Analysis The data analysis has followed a ‘grounded theory’ approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1990), which is a cyclical process of data collection, analysis and the development of a coding scheme until a saturation point is reached, while at the same time trying to develop new theory from the analyzed data (Bryman, 2012). Grounded theory provides a set of flexible guidelines for analyzing textual data, and therefore this approach is especially well suited for understanding human behavior in the context of social processes and cultural norms (Hennink, Hutter & Bailey, 2011). After the interviews were fully transcribed, I conducted ‘open coding’ of the text, and constructed a codebook, in the spreadsheet program Excel, as my coding instrument (see Appendix 2). The aim of open coding is to discover, name and categorize developing
categories in terms of their properties and dimensions (Strauss and Corbin, 1990). At most times, a single abstract was placed under more than one frame category. After a first few rounds of category coding and constant readjusting of the codes, I was able to start seeing patterns emerging of which coded frames were familiar and being positioned together, and therefore came up with the main sensitizing concepts of my findings and was also able to analyze the relationship between them. I will be discussing this more extensively in the results section. A critique of qualitative research is that it is hard to reach high levels of reliability and validity, because scholars do not believe that it is possible to generalize the results found, which can be interpreted as a limitation in terms of the study’s scientific value. However, the main goal of qualitative research is go into depth, rather than make the results generalizable (David & Sutton, 2011). Aspects such as transferability, credibility and confirmability were taken into account to increase the trustworthiness of the results (Bryman, 2012), and of course I did not allow any personal values or opinions to influence the research in any way. The interview guide and excerpt of the codebook are provided in the appendices at the end of the paper. All the recorded interviews, copies of the transcripts, emails with participants and the entire codebook are also available upon request. Results The results are organized according to research question. There was an abundant and rich amount of insights gained from the interviews with the journalists, however, only those findings that contribute to answering the research questions have been included, as well as some general analysis on the topics and responses of the journalists. Strategies for Fighting Bias
“We are not advocates, we are not champions of anything, we are not on one side or the other. Our job is not to change the world, our job is to try and understand” (Journalist 3). The first research question of the study asked how journalists fight bias in their work (RQ 1). Results regarding this research question suggest that all the interviewed journalists are very aware of the presence of bias in their profession and where it comes from. This awareness, in turn, also becomes an important strategy for how these journalists fight bias in their work as well. These suggested strategies can be gathered into two categories, which are the characteristics that accompany the (1) job and role of a journalist, as well as the experience journalists gain over time to (2) naturally fight bias in their line of work. All the journalists interviewed highlighted that bias is a highly contentious issue within the profession. Only a few of the interviewed journalists stated that they do not believe that objectivity is possible, even though they still described it as a goal and explained how they work to overcome bias in their work. Therefore, most of these journalists have not shifted from having a less objective approach to their work in the way Weisslitz and Ashuri (2011) theorized. However, this could be attributed to the older age of the journalists who have been working in the profession for an average of around thirty years, and thus cannot be considered modern journalists. The interviewed journalists attributed bias to national backgrounds or journalistic culture, as well as to changes and shifts in journalism towards a more subjective style of reporting, as was also pointed out in the findings by Weisslitz and Ashuri (2011). Some journalists expressed that they appreciate the freedom this new approach gives them in their reporting, whereas the
majority of journalists felt that this new trend in journalism was harming to their profession because it gives more space for bias to become part of their news reporting. Having confident beliefs about their own personal approaches to bias as a journalist and not letting the concept of bias affect their journalistic work was important in the thought process to achieve their goal. This was accompanied by the skepticism that comes with experience on the job as a political journalist and working with politicians, who the journalists are aware of always having an agenda for telling something to the media. A few of the journalists highlighted the fact that they may have an ‘activist bias’, even though Skewes and Plaisance (2003) found that journalists do not feel comfortable being perceived as activists in their journalistic role. However, the rest and majority of the journalists did in fact make very clear that their job is to report the news and not advocate or give comments regarding their own views and opinions. Experience fights bias. The amount of time and experience of working as a journalist seems to naturally affect how the interviewed journalists fight bias. For example, a few phrases repeated many times amongst the journalists when beginning to answer questions about how they avoid bias were, “I have been doing this for so long”, “it’s ingrained in me” and as Journalist 4 said: “It’s part of the DNA of being a reporter”. Many of the journalists mentioned that they don’t actively think about bias in their work as they have learnt to naturally fight it. Journalist’s job to fight bias. All the journalists agreed that fighting bias is part of the job of being a good journalist. The emphasis was on reporting about the subject to the best of their abilities, as that is the end goal, with a lot of hard work and research to understand the full context of what is being reported. This was clearly outlined as the best way to fight bias. Words
that constantly came up were, “balance”, “all sides”, “do justice”, “no preconceived notions” and “critical thinking”. There was an emphasis to ask the “right” questions, as opposed to asking those that only feed into the current narrative. So while objectivity as a journalistic stereotype seems less popular among these journalists, they still value the journalistic routines it ideally stands for. Therefore, in sum, the answer to my first research question is that journalists fight bias by being constantly aware that it exists and knowing where it comes from, whether it's their nationalistic background, journalistic culture or shifts in journalism. They fight it through experience facing and dealing with it on the job, through hard work, an open mind, asking the right questions, giving all sides coverage and doing research. Gender is Part of The Story “I think the media itself is interested in gender as a story it’s a great story. And that’s because the world has not come to terms with gender as an issue” (Journalist 2). The second research question (RQ 2) of the study asked how aware journalists are of a gender bias in the media? All the journalists interviewed for this study acknowledged that a gender bias in the media exists, but they were critical as to how strong it is. In general, the journalist’s responses for how gender bias appears in the media matches those found in previous studies, in that media often focus on women politician's appearance more, emphasize their personal lives, and highlight gender specific traits and characteristics (Braden, 1996; Harp et al. 2010; Devitt, 1999). My result categories show that journalists perceive gender bias to still be noticeable, due to how (1) female politicians are covered differently by the news media. The journalists believe that this is due to the fact that there is a (2) gender bias in politics and
therefore also in the media, and because gender is considered an (3) attractive news value for both the media and female politicians. Interestingly, most of the female journalists felt that although gender bias still exists, it is not overwhelmingly prevalent, whereas the male journalists were able to give more explanatory examples and take more of a visible stance against it. There were two possible reasons that emerged for why some of the female journalists were not stressing on the problems of a gender bias. First, they have seen it progress from the time they began their careers and find it comparatively better now. Second, they have accepted gender bias in politics as an automatic reason for gender bias in media. The journalists who were opposed to taking on an ‘activist role’ were also mostly female, and therefore, perhaps the interviewed female journalists avoid thinking about and discussing gender bias in the media as they feel it may affect the objectivity of their journalistic work. Even more noteworthy is the fact that, although the journalists agreed that they have noticed gender bias in the media at one point or another, they all stated that they themselves do not believe ever having let it infiltrate into their own work. They also clearly stated that they themselves report on both females and males in the same way. However, at the same time, all the interviewed journalists except for one (female) made distinctions between the strengths and characteristics of male and female politicians. What also became clear is that journalists find it difficult to isolate one single reason for why they report about any politician a certain way, let alone a female politician. For example as Journalist 3 puts it, “Is she getting attention because she's a woman or because she's asserting
herself?” However, all the journalists agreed that being female does play a role in the coverage of women politicians in the media, by making it “different” from that of males. Female politicians covered differently in the media. The journalists explained how they have always been aware that women are perceived differently than men in political news reporting, and that they're held in many ways to different standards. Overall, they agreed that the media tends to give specifically genderbased criticism to female politicians. A few of the journalists gave the example of Hillary Clinton and how she is often accused of shouting or being “strident”. For example, Journalist 5 said: “I think it's really challenging for women to be strong and assertive without having men criticize them for things that they wouldn't necessarily criticize men for” (Journalist 5). All the journalists interviewed were very aware of how there is increased focus given to female politicians’ appearances, and explained how often the public and media both simultaneously feed into the obsession with female leader’s clothes, shoes, hair, weight, etc. They also explained how there is a fascination with well presented, more feminine looking politicians, whereas the more presumably ‘masculine’ presented women, like Hillary Clinton and Angela Merkel, are given criticism for not being “feminine” or “sexy” enough. When it came to Bhutto, her dupatta (headscarf) was brought up a few times with some of the journalists. For example, Journalist 7 recalled the “sexist” comments she heard other journalists making about it: “The fascination that people had when she was making a speech was whether the headscarf would fall off or not fall off”. The journalists also highlighted how there was a lot more focus and coverage given on female politician’s personal lives as compared to males.
Media respond to gender bias in politics. The interviewees highlighted the fact that there is a gender bias present in politics, and that this is why it is reported in the media. This tallies with similar arguments in the literature (Gallagher, 2001; Falk and Kenski 2006). In this sense, journalists see their role as responding to the political system and mirroring it in their reporting about the news. The journalists explained how, if male politicians make sexist comments about other female politicians, the media has to report that. Due to the fact that most of the journalists interviewed avoid taking on an activist role, most of the journalists do not feel it is their place to comment on this sexism in politics, as it is their job to report what is happening and not to try and change it. All but one of the interviewed journalists perceived inherent differences between male and female politicians, even though they stated that they do not ever recall reporting differently about female politicians. A word that repeatedly came up to describe female politicians strengths was “conciliatory”. Other characteristics were “problem solvers”, “multitaskers” and “uphold women’s right”. There was only one journalist (female) who saw absolutely no genderbased differences, and said: “Just because you have breasts, why are your strengths going to be different as a politician? I think Angela Merkel has the strengths because she's a good leader. I don't think it has anything to do with her gender” (Journalist 3). A few journalists also felt that some female politicians perhaps feel a pressure to prove that they do not conform to gender stereotypes and therefore try to appear more masculine, which coincides with Bligh et al. (2011) and also with Sapiro and Walsh's (2002) findings that women candidates tend to focus more on their ‘toughness’ in order to be taken seriously. If the journalists perceive differences between male and female politicians, then this will be
highlighted in their news reporting as well. In turn, this will affect how the audience, the electoral voters, perceive female politicians as they view them through the media’s eyes (Kahn, 1994b; Koch, 1999). This is problematic because it encompasses a vicious circle that prevents women politicians of getting elected into leadership positions because of their stereotyped images presented in the media. Gender as a news value. The interviewed journalists highlighted how gender is used as a news value by the media, due to fact that women in leadership are a minority. This finding coincides with the literature by Sigal (1973) and Kahn (1994b) as well. All the journalists stressed how female politicians in specific regions, such as South Asia for example, are given even more attention because of the status and perception of women in the region. Another reason journalists gave for why the media highlights gender is because women are not the norm in leadership positions in politics, but still in fact a minority, which coincides with the ‘novelty aspect’ of the coverage analyzed of Clinton and Palin (Meeks, 2013). Therefore, the media must highlight women politicians as they are “marking off milestones” (Journalist 7) and that is important to the story they are reporting. Journalist 4 also pointed out how “anytime it’s a ‘first’”, the media will give the topic more coverage. For example, he remembers Hillary Clinton’s first campaign being much more centered on emphasizing her gender because it was the first time she was running for President. This is an important finding to compare with the literature (Childs & Krook, 2009) that states women in leadership are in fact rising by the numbers, but that the media is continuing to over emphasise gender (Devere & Davies, 2006).
Some of the journalists interviewed also pointed out how female leaders themselves use their gender to add to their political and media news value, which coincides with Kahn’s (1994b) finding that women political candidates have been able to take advantage of the stereotypes held by the public and the media in order to promote themselves. A few journalists gave the example of Hillary Clinton, who is trying to make the press take her as a seriously and substantive politician, but at the same time “also plays on the fact that she’s a female” (Journalist 2). Therefore, media alone is not highlighting gender, as the politicians themselves also make it prevalent in their own images being presented. Consequently, some women politicians may use their minority status as an advantage for their political campaigns and media coverage. In sum, the answer to my second research question is that journalists are aware of gender bias and how women politicians are reported about in the media. However, they attribute the cause of this bias to the gender bias present in politics. The media, in fact, are only mirroring political reality, and journalists do not see themselves playing an activist role in trying to help overcome gender bias in politics. They firmly believe that gender bias does not affect or influence their own individual work, even though it can be concluded that journalists do actually see differences between male and female politicians, albeit these differences might not always be negative for women themselves. Therefore, the journalist’s selfperception that gender bias does not affect their own work may not be completely viable. The Case of Benazir Bhutto: A Journalistic Perspective “I think it was because she was the woman who she was, rather than a woman. She wasn't just any old woman, she was Benazir Bhutto. And the higher you ride, the harder you fall” (Journalist 7).
The final research question of the study asked how Western journalists constructed the image of Benazir Bhutto as a female leader in Pakistan (RQ 3). The findings regarding this research question suggest that the case of Bhutto is a very contextual one. From the analysis, the following main results emerged regarding the categories they used to construct her image in the media. First, the important role the (1) historical context of the time when she entered politics played in her positive coverage, and secondly the tradition of (2) dynastic politics she inherited, which the journalists believe was the reason she got elected, which was not affected in any way by her gender. However, the journalists do believe that the popular Western media attention she received was due mostly to her gender, which was used as a (3) winning factor, as she was seen as the antistereotype of a female politician from South Asia. This consequently justifies the case selection for this study. The next category of findings were Bhutto’s individual personality, appearance and Western background, which were viewed as part of her (4) female persona and skills by the journalists. Another category addresses the large amount of media attention that was focused on her (5) personal life and the apparent role her husband played in influencing her. An additional category, that also corresponds with the literature, is that she was assigned to (6) stereotypical policy issues because of her gender. The final category addresses the switch in coverage that the journalists highlighted, which took place after she became elected. Historical context. The events surrounding Bhutto when she emerged on the scene of politics in Pakistan, and consequently on the platform of international media, played a very important role in the construction of her image by the Western press. The twoyear window during which Bhutto rose to power was described as “magic”, because “she came at just the right time” and immediately became an “icon” (Journalist 4). The interviewed journalists described
how they were all mostly in Pakistan covering the brutal dictatorship of General Zia, when Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan to avenge her father’s assassination and to bring democracy to Pakistan. Many of the journalists described her as a “sympathetic” and fascinating female leader to emerge at the front of a populist revolutionary cause. The journalists described the hopeful and emotional environment in Pakistan at the time she made her entrance into politics, as they along with the rest of the country were curious to see what she would achieve. Reflecting back on their coverage about her now, a few of the journalists feel that they may have been swept away with the euphoria surrounding Bhutto at the time, and may have portrayed her first political campaign more positively. However, these journalists felt that it was not because of her gender, but in fact because of the idea that she was bringing democracy to Pakistan. For example, Journalist 4 now feels that he would change some of the reporting he did around the world, not just in Pakistan, because he can observe times at which he was too easily swayed with the idea of democracy coming to turbulent countries. He says he now understands that democracy is a difficult and long process, and that “journalists need to stop celebrating a demonstration in the streets as a sign of democracy” (Journalist 4). This directly coincides with the findings of RasasMoreno and Bachman’s (2012) study that cited illusive references to democracy in the American press about the consequences of Bhutto’s assassination, which tended to define democracy not by what it is, but rather by what it’s not. In this case, democracy was the counter force to a very brutal dictatorship. However, as Journalist 4 highlighted, that didn’t automatically make it a successful transition, especially since Bhutto was elected as the successor to her martyred father’s political party.
Dynastic politics. Another aspect of Bhutto’s image that was always reported about was her family’s background in Pakistani politics, and how she represented the legacy of her murdered father, the exPrime Minister. The journalists were able to relate this finding to other female political leaders in South Asia that they had also covered, who belonged to family dynasties as well: Indira Gandhi, Khaleda Zia, Sheikh Hasina. The journalists concluded that Bhutto’s family name and political background played the most important role in her getting elected to power, even though symbolically a woman getting elected did represent a hopeful change in Pakistani society, and got her more media coverage. Gender as a winning factor. All the journalists agreed that Bhutto was “very much seen in the context of her gender” (Journalist 3) when reported about in the media. This was because she was viewed as having broken a gender stereotype of a woman from a conservative society who had successfully gotten elected as the leader of a Muslim country. An important question raised a number of times was, “Would she have had the same coverage if she was a male? Would one of her brothers have made more of a splash if they'd been Prime Minister in her stead?” (Journalist 8). Most of the journalists do not think her brothers would have gotten the same amount of media attention as she did, conclusively because of her gender and her persona. This is a good example of Kahn’s (1996) theory that, when the salient issues and traits of the campaign compliment a woman candidate’s stereotypical strength, women will receive an advantage from their female stereotypes. Female persona and skills. However, compared to the other dynastic South Asian women leaders the journalists also reported on, all the journalists agreed that Bhutto received a lot more popular amount of coverage by the Western press. Many of the journalists credited