Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2007, 8 (2): 87-95

Man-made Politicians? Media representation of Women-Politicians in the Czech republic Parliamentary Election in 2006

Iva Baslarová, Pavlína Binková

The article focuses on the media representations of women-politicians and women-candidates during Czech Republic Parliamentary Election in 2006. Using the results of extensive quantitative and qualitative research of the media contents the authors analyse the ways in which journalists report on women in politics and on equal opportunities issues in general. Their analysis starts with the following questions: What form of representations do the media use? How much space do they allocate to women-politicians? Which topics they connect with women participants in the big league politics? They claim that during the 2006 Parliamentary election there was a distinct raising public and media demand on the topic of equal opportunities. The authors therefore ask: How did the media deal with the issues of equal opportunities? What form did the representation of women in the Czech political life take? They come to the conclusion that despite the media (public) need for the equal opportunity agenda setting, there is still general lack of deeper knowledge, which could form a meaningful and useful discussion.

Keywords: Women's political representation, Media, Election

Published: June 1, 2007  Show citation