Gendered Political Socialization through the Dutch Children’s News Broadcast the Jeugdjournaal

Media play an important role in political socialization and are influential in communicating gendered information about who belongs—and doesn’t belong—in politics. This project examines the messages communicated specifically to Dutch children about gender and political representation through the popular public news broadcast the Jeugdjournaal. We analyze broadcasts over three decades to document the extent to which women political leaders are represented in political content, if children’s media coverage reflects gender biases observed by scholars in media coverage of politicians, and whether and how women politicians are discussed in gender stereotypic ways. Drawing from scholarship on gender-differentiated media coverage of politicians, we hypothesize that women politicians will make up a minority of political leaders discussed on the Jeugdjournaal broadcasts, and that women leaders will be underrepresented compared to the percentage of women in the Dutch parliament. We further expect that women politicians, compared to men politicians, will be quoted less often, and receive more coverage related to their families, appearance, and gender. Related to gender stereotypes, we predict that compared to men politicians, women politicians will receive more coverage of communal issues and traits than agentic issues and traits. To test these expectations, we conduct a manual content analysis on the way that men and women politicians are discussed in the Jeugdjournaal, a popular Dutch news broadcast that is tailored to kids ages 9 to 12. We sample episodes over three decades (1990-2021) during the campaign periods and the direct aftermath of the nine parliamentary elections that took place during this time. This research contributes to the burgeoning research efforts to document the gendered political socialization process through which children gain an awareness that politics is a masculine domain – an awareness that relates to girls to reporting less political interest, engagement and ambition. Our work importantly examines the role of political reporting geared toward children as a powerful agent of political socialization that can contribute to the early origins of gender gaps in politics.