Media Scan

The first component of the research is founded in a content analysis of Canada’s top two consumed online news sources. The study centers on the Globe and Mail and the National Post, both Canadian based news sources that report on Canadian and American politics. Not only are both of these online news platforms the most heavily consumed in Canada, but they are known to align with different political parties. Despite the Canadian news industry claiming to provide an impartial report on current events, the Globe and Mail is known to be more Liberal, while the National Post is more Conservative leaning. A total of eighty articles were analyzed, ten for each candidate split equally between the news sources. Each politician’s name was searched on both news sites and the first ten articles that appeared in the results were used in the analysis.

The frames used are derived from common media frames found throughout a literature review.

These frames include:

• adaptable
• family-oriented
• emotional
• qualified
• reliable

Each article was read and coded using these frames as a guide. When coding the articles, a specific frame was recorded one-time per article, despite often appearing multiple times throughout the article. This strategy was used to avoid skewed results, as once a frame appeared once in an article it was prevalent throughout.

Survey

Secondly, a survey was sent out to determine if the frames found in the media scan were similarly held by respondents. The survey also served to determine if respondents believed there was a bias in politics and if they thought that online news media played a role in the disparity. The respondents of the survey all belonged to the voting population, eighteen years of age or older and originated from both Canada and the United States. The respondents were either given a closed answer option or a Likert scale to determine their agreement with certain statements. The survey was constructed with the gender bias questions at the end in order to not impact the responses throughout the survey.

ANALYSIS

Media Scan

When comparing the total amount of times each frame was referenced for men and women in both the Globe and Mail and National Post articles, every frame occurred more frequently in the men’s articles. Despite all frames occurring in the articles for each gender, each frame was utilized more frequently in the articles chosen for the male politicians. However, a more granular approach to the analysis of the media scan produces insights into differences between how the media reports on female and male politicians.

SOURCE COMPARISONS

WOMEN (Both)

When considering only the articles chosen for the female politicians, it is apparent that the Globe and Mail utilize framing in their articles at a much higher rate than the National Post. After all the articles had been scanned, there was no evidence of a family-oriented or appearance frame being used.

MEN (Both)

The results were similar amongst the male-focused articles. However, the National Post did turn out more occurrences of the family-oriented frame and the two sources had equal results for the framing of reliability. It is also important to note that all of the frames appeared in both sources, unlike the women’s articles.

WOMEN AND MEN (National Post)

Focusing specifically on the National Post articles, men, overall, were framed at a higher rate. Yet, women were framed more often as qualified and equally as reliable. As mentioned above, the National Post showed no framing of family-oriented or appearance in the women’s articles.

WOMEN AND MEN (Globe and Mail)

Men were framed at a higher rate across all categories in the Globe and Mail articles except for family-oriented. Also, all frames were visible in articles for each gender.

INDIVIDUALS

When considering individual values amongst men and women there was not a considerable difference amongst members of the same gender and the rate frames appeared overall. Some of the more noticeable differences were that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Donald Trump were the most framed of all the candidates.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

There was also no substantial evidence of a news source showing more leniency to a politician who aligned with its own political values. Almost consistently the Globe and Mail utilized frames at higher rate with no correlation to political alignment.

Survey

WOMEN VS. MEN

The survey results show that respondents believed women to be more adaptable, family-oriented, qualified and reliable than men. The only frame that men ranked higher was emotional, with family-oriented being almost equal across genders.

INDIVIDUALS

Individually there weren’t many areas of noticeable differences. One noticeable trend in the responses centering on women was that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was found to be adaptable, family-oriented and emotional at a substantially higher rate than the rest of the female politicians. Respondents also tended to be more certain in their answers regarding Donald Trump, with him scoring either really low or really high on the Likert scale.

CLOSED ANSWER RESPONSES

Survey and Articles

OVERALL

When comparing the media scan and surveys it is apparent that the respondents were more likely to associate politicians with specific frames over the media. However, it should be noted that neither the results from the scans or the surveys demonstrated stark differences between framing of men and women.

INDIVIDUALS

Similar to the media scan, the respondents associated Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with frames more frequently than the other female subjects. Donald Trump also had higher rates of framing in both the surveys and the scan.

CLOSED ANSWER RESPONSES

When considering the closed answer questions, there was a clear consensus amongst respondents that the media was inaccurate in their depictions of politicians. Yet, the survey responses produced a higher rate of framing than the media scan, showing that society was more biased in their depictions of politicians.

FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS

Having addressed and analyzed the data there are some additional preliminary observations that can be made but would require further research to be concluded.

The first consideration is that the female politicians, overall were represented much less in the media, often not even being the subject of the article found in their search results. This can be corroborated by the surveys, as women were recognized 27% less frequently than men.

Secondly, women tended to be associated with frames that align with traditional gender expectations, such as adaptable, family-oriented and reliable. Specifically, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is the youngest subject by nineteen years, was associated with these traits at the highest rate. What makes this correlation odd is that not only is she the youngest, but she has the least experience and also does not have any family aside from her parents.

Lastly, a consideration that has appeared in other research, is that for the first time politicians are being treated like celebrities rather than officials by the media. Politicians are more frequently being commodified by news media, with articles focussing on their behavior and appearance. This concept may account for the results showing that Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tended to be recognized more frequently and were framed at a higher rate than their counterparts.

Researcher Bio