An Ode to Powercoats : A qualitative study of media portrayal of prominent women and men in American politics

The purpose of this study was to increase awareness of the media’s portrayal of American female and male politicians. When Kamala Harris became the first female vice-president in the United States a discussion about how men and women should be portrayed in the media began. This discussion sparked an idea for us as writers to investigate gender roles in American politics. The United States is a large, influential country that receives a lot of media attention. This leads to global interest and it is therefore relevant to investigate the media's portrayal of these politicians. To reach a conclusion on the issue, articles from Vogue and The Washington Post were reviewed. The portrayal of men and women in text and image were analyzed within these articles. The articles were analyzed with gender theories from Gunilla Jarlbro and Yvonne Hirdman. Erving Goffman’s theory about gender portrayal was also applied. With methods in semiotics and Fairclough's critical discourse analysis power structures in text and images were made visible. The analysis identified three main discourses: age, clothing and persona. An ethnicity discourse could also be identified in Harris articles. The main conclusion this study has shown is that women and men were portrayed differently. Studies show that the media tends to focus on women’s appearance rather than their political standpoints. This is still the case. However, this study has shown when mentioning clothing it has a purpose and is being used as a tool to strengthen women’s legitimacy.