This paper explores how the gender of a party leader within a proportional representation parliamentary system impacts the social media output of the party. While previous studies have focused on how gender influences the way in which candidates and party leaders are portrayed on social media, this study adds to this understanding by exploring how the gender of the party leader specifically impacts the frequency of party leader depictions. With an initial hypothesis that parties led by women “self-censor” by posting less content depicting the party leader, this study uses data collected from the official Instagram accounts of major parties across the European Union to test this theory. Ultimately, the findings show that parties led by men post content directly depicting party leaders more frequently than parties led by women. The difference in depiction is particularly statistically relevant within ideologically right wing political parties.
