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Women Politicians Online examines the complex relationship between gender, politics and digital media, focusing on how women politicians both navigate and are shaped by online platforms.
Taking a mixed methods approach, the book examines the disproportionate hostility women politicians face online, strategies for curating their political image and the influence of satire and digital news on public perceptions. It forwards a novel framework for understanding how women politicians are depicted on and treated via digital media, while balancing this against women politicians’ use of digital tools to project authenticity, challenge gendered expectations, and reclaim political communication from traditionally masculine norms.
Rosalynd Southern is a Senior Lecturer in Political Communication at the University of Liverpool. Her work focuses on how digital and social media are used for political communication, with expertise in uncivil and intolerant online speech – particularly that directed at women politicians. She is currently co-director of the DigiPol Centre for Digital Politics, Media and Democracy.
Emily Harmer is a Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media at the University of Liverpool. She has published extensively about legacy and online news media coverage of UK elections and the online othering and harassment of women in public life. She has published in leading journals such as Social Science Computer Review and Political Communication.
1. Introduction
2. Women Politicians and Digital Media
3. Alternative Online Political Media
4. Satire, Memes and Online Political Humour
5. Controlling Their Narrative? Social Media, Image Curation and the ‘Double Bind’ of Motherhood in Office
6. Different Platforms, Different Experiences? Social Media as a ‘Safe Space’ for Women Politicians
7. Women Politicians and Online Abuse: Experiences and Effects
8. Conclusions