Description of Prime Minister Ardern in the Newspaper - Does pregnancy have an influence on how prime minister Jacinda Ardern is presented in a newspaper?
Summary
New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern was the second elected female prime minister in the world to give birth while being in office. In political leadership positions, masculinity is still the unspoken norm. This can also be seen from how female political leaders are described in the media. The aim of this thesis was to investigate whether descriptions of prime minister Ardern in newspaper articles, changed during her pregnancy thus showing if her pregnancy had an influence on the image that the media had about her. This research was a combination of both quantitative and qualitative content analysis of newspaper articles from the newspaper The New Zealand Herald. The quantitative content analysis was completed with help of the program WordStat 8 and the qualitative content analysis consisted of close reading. Hereby showing the frequency and context of selected words and phrases related to Ardern in newspaper articles in different time frames. The results showed that after the announcement of the pregnancy, the distinction between private sphere and work sphere disappeared. After prime minister Ardern gave birth to her child, there was an even stronger focus on her private life. The husband was more frequently mentioned and words stereotypically linked to being female increased. Furthermore this study identified a decrease in words and phrases related to her work as a prime minister. Therefore a difference in the description of Ardern was found; after the announcement of the pregnancy news articles became more gendered.