Sexism in News: A Comparative Study on the Portray of Female and Male Politicians in <i>The New York Times</i>
- 1 School of Foreign Languages and Cultures, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China
- 2 School of Foreign Languages and Cultures, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China
Abstract
Adopting a comparative and descriptive case study of The New York Times , this paper aims to probe into the gender discrimination against female politicians in the news media. The New York Times , one of the most authoritative newspapers in the world, can be a convincing representative to expose the universal ideologies like sexism in the news media. The authors attempt to analyze the sexism in news from two dimensions, namely, horizontal dimension (synchronic) and vertical dimension (diachronic). Horizontally, the news reports concerning Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, two rivals of the Democratic Party in the 2008 American presidential election, are chosen. By analyzing the difference in speech reporting, it can be seen that female politicians’ speeches are more controlled and interfered. Vertically, based on Markedness Theory, we explore the development and change in formal marking, distributional marking and semantic marking. It is observable that in spite of the current subtle sexism hidden in news reports, news media have made great efforts in preventing gender discrimination over the past century and sexism against women in the current news reports appears to be less direct and more subtle compared with the past.
- Attenborough, F. (2013). Sexism Re-Loaded ... or Sexism Re-Presented? Irrelevant Precision and the British Press. Feminist Media Studies, 13, 693-709. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2012.700524
- Attenborough, F. (2014). Jokes, Pranks, Blondes and Banter: Recontextualising Sexism in the British Print Press. Journal of Gender Studies, 23, 137-154. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2013.774269
- Chen, Y. (2000). Sociolinguistics. Beijing: The Commercial Press.
- Coulmas, F. (1985). Direct and Indirect Speech: General Problems and Problems of Japanese. Journal of Pragmatics, 9, 41-63.
- Davis, H. (1985). Discourse and Media Influence. In T. A. van Dijk (Ed.), Discourse and Communication: New Approaches to the Analysis of Mass Media Discourse and Communication. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
- Feng, Y. (1998). Women’s Existence in News: A Research Report of 8 Major Chinese Newspapers. Zhejiang Academic Journal, 2, 81-85.
- Gibbon, M. (1999). Feminist Perspective on Language. Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman.
- Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold.
- Heilman, M. E. (1975). Miss, Mrs., Ms., or None of the Above. American Psychologist, 30, 516-518. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.30.4.516
- Hofmann, Th. R. (1993). Realms of Meaning. London: Longman.
- Jesperson, O. (1923). Growth and Structure of English Language. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd.
- Lakoff, R. (1975). Language and Women’s Place. New York: Harper & Row.
- Leech, G. (1974). Semantics. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
- Leech, G. N., & Short, M. H. (1981). Style in Fiction. London: Longman.
- Li, J. F. (2009). On Reported Speech and the Dialogic Nature of News Texts. Journal of Beijing International Studies University, 2, 8-16.
- Liu, H. J. (2002). Sexism in Language. Journal of Xi’an International Studies University, 10, 35-39.
- Lyons, J. (1977). Semantics. London: Cambridge University Press.
- Megarry, J. (2014). Online Incivility or Sexual Harassment? Conceptualizing Women’s Experiences in the Digital Age. Women’s Studies International Forum, 47, 46-55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2014.07.012