Media coverage of general election campaign is disproportionately favouring men

Jeremy Corbyn, Nigel Farage, and Boris Johnson. Photograph: PA/TNE. - Credit: Archant

Men are dominating four-fifths of national press coverage according to a new study looking at the first few days of the general election campaign.

Academics at Loughborough University have noted “gender inequality across all coverage” with men dominating 67.1% of the television coverage, and 81.9% of the national press coverage.

The research – carried out between November 7th and November 13th – looked at citizens, business people, experts and public professionals.

Overall, women featured in 21.4% of the coverage, while men were much more prominent on 78.6%, according to Loughborough University’s Centre for Research in Communication & Culture.

The researchers said: “The data show that female actors are marginalised in cumulative terms in comparison with their male counterparts during the election campaign so far.”

This gap is despite women leading a number of political parties

Jo Swinson leads the Liberal Democrats and Nicola Sturgeon leads the SNP.

In Northern Ireland, the DUP is led by Arlene Foster, and Naomi Long is the leader of the Alliance Party.

Mary Lou McDonald is president of Sinn Fein, while Michelle O’Neill is vice president.

The data comes from the first in a series of weekly reports from the university on UK wide television and print media reporting of the 2019 UK general election.