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Gendered Political Socialization through the Dutch children’s news broadcast the Jeugdjournaal

Gender
Media
Political Leadership
Political Psychology
Representation
Quantitative
Communication
Youth
Loes Aaldering
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Loes Aaldering
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Daphne van der Pas
University of Amsterdam

Abstract

There is an almost universal gender gap in political interest, knowledge, ambition and representation. Many explanations for the persistence of these gaps are put forward, and an increasing body of scholarship focuses on gendered political socialization. Over the life-course, people familiarize themselves with the norms and values pertaining to the political as well as the social roles related to gender. Through family, peers, and schools, this information is reinforced and subsequently internalized. We study the important, but largely overlooked role of media in gendered political socialization: they are influential in communicating gendered information about who belongs—and doesn’t belong—in politics to their users. This project examines the messages communicated to Dutch children about gender and politics through the Jeugdjournaal, a popular Dutch news broadcast that is tailored to kids at ages 9 to 12, which is watch in schools. We study the visibility and content of coverage of women politicians and examine if children’s media coverage reflects stereotypical gender biases observed by scholars in media coverage of politicians in adult’s news. Drawing from scholarship on gender-differentiated media coverage of politicians, we hypothesize that women politicians receive less coverage than their men colleagues, even relative to their descriptive underrepresentation in politics. We further expect that women politicians are quoted less often; receive more coverage related to their family, appearance, and gender; and receive more coverage on communal and less on agentic issues and traits. Lastly, we expect the gendered portrayal of politicians to diminish over time. To test these expectations, we conducted a manual content analysis on the way that men and women politicians are discussed in all episodes of the Jeugdjournaal during the campaign periods and the direct aftermath of the nine parliamentary elections that took place between 1993 and 2021 (including 252 episodes). The results show that, indeed, Dutch children come across men politicians much more often than women politicians watching the Jeugdjournaal. A staggering number of 80 percent of the politicians featuring in this news show directed at children is male, and this number even increases when members of the royal family are excluded. However, the low number of women politicians portrayed is not due to journalistic bias in the Jeugdjournaal news room, but reflects the descriptive underrepresentation of women in politics: the Jeugdjournaal mainly focuses on party leaders, and they are to a large extent male. Also, we find very little differences in the way that men and women politicians are portrayed: contrasting the biases found in adult’s news, the children’s news seems to cover men and women in an equal manner. These findings bear some good and some bad news. It shows that there are very little systematic differences in the way that men and women politicians are portrayed in media coverage directed at children. However, it also shows that kids watching this show are strongly socialized in thinking that politics is a masculine domain – which hinders girls political interest, knowledge and ambition. Authors: Loes Aaldering, Daphne van der Pas, Angela Bos and Samuel Ornstein