Analysis of Media Coverage of Minority Women in the French Government

This study examines how newspapers cover minority women members of the French government (ministers). A large literature already established the various ways female politicians are treated differently than their male counterparts in media coverage. However, the main focus has been on gender and seldom studies have focused on the intersection of gender and ethnicity in politics in regard to media representation. Moreover, research has primarily focused on the difference of coverage received by politicians during electoral campaigns in North America. Therefore, the present project aims at filling in some gaps in the literature by analyzing the media coverage of minority female ministers during both Sarkozy (UMP – right wing party) and Hollande (PS – left wing party) presidencies. The Sarkozy presidency has led to a shift in the media coverage the president of the republic, from politic-related only to private-life exposure. Oppositely, the current president – Hollande – has tried, unsuccessfully, to move back to the former media/president relationship. Therefore, this project examines minority female ministers’ media coverage in regard to this shift in media exposure. To do so, news stories will be collected from Le Monde (center-left) and Le Figaro (right), two French Newspapers chosen for their quality as source of information, high circulation in France, and their opposite political stances. Years 2014 (ministers El Khomri and Vallaud-Belkacem) and 2008 (ministers Dati and Yade) were chosen because (i) ministers were in office at the same time, (ii) they were not elections years and (iii) no over mediatized events occurred that would increase or/and influence media coverage. Frequently used in media research due to its efficiency at analyzing media content and at examining large data set, qualitative content analysis (QCA) will be used for this study.