"Send pretty girls to the White House": the role of gender in journalists - politicians' interactions

Abstract

Interrelations between politics and media are often described as a power-play, a rumba or even a danse macabre, and the key question of political communication is “who leads and who follows” in the “power-play between politicians and journalists” (Ross, 2010, p. 274). As today “[m]eaning, media and politics become blurred, but arguably in highly gendered ways” (Holmes, 2007, p. 12), gender inevitably enters the discussion of the journalists – politicians’ interactions. Based on interviews with 40 Russian and Swedish political reporters working for the “quality” press, this paper discusses the role of gender as a social practice (Löfgren Nilsson, 2010) in journalists – politicians’ communication in different political and cultural contexts, which Russia and Sweden represent. The paper answers the following questions: Do journalists perceive the interrelations with politicians as gendered? Do they use gendered interrelations strategically to acquire information efficiently? How do the gendered political communication practices differ dependent on the political and cultural context?