Female political candidates smile more than their male colleagues, Marc Jungblut and Mario Haim show in a new study.

That’s not a problem itself, but the dilemma is if a certain way of presenting yourself is putting you into a box, says Jungblut. This is the “double bind” that female candidates might face: either they are "too" warm and compassionate – typical feminine stereotypes – to be associated with the common traits associated with a strong leader, or they counter these stereotypes – and face a backlash.

A low female representation in the European parliament set off the study of how politicians are depicted – and how they depict themselves – during election season back in 2019. The researchers studied nearly 14.000 candidates in all the 28 European Union member states in search for answers. 

The million-dollar question is (and spoiler alert – still unanswered): does the way female politicians are portrayed in media affect how voters see them fit for office?

Keywords: automated content analysis, gender stereotypes, European election, computational vision, visual politics

• The article discussed in this episode

Jungblut, M. & Haim, M. (2021). Visual Gender Stereotyping in Campaign Communication: Evidence on Female and Male Candidate Imagery in 28 Countries. Communication research.

Open access: https://doi.org/10.1177/00936502211023333

• The researcher featured in the episode

Dr. Marc Jungblut is a researcher at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, Germany. His co-author, Dr. Mario Haim, is affiliated with the University of Leipzig.

• How to reach out

For comments, feedback and suggestions on articles for future episodes, please reach out to me on Twitter @rasmuskyllonen or by dropping me a letter at rasmus.kyllonen@helsinki.fi

• About the host

Rasmus is a master’s student at the University of Helsinki, where he is majoring in journalism and communication. Earlier, he has worked as a journalist and graphic designer at various newspapers and magazines. He has also been a teacher in vocational media education.

• Disclaimer

The articles showcased on Keywords are all published in scientific journals that have received an official classification (level 1, 2 or 3) by the Publication Forum. This means the publications are always peer-reviewed. For more information on the academic classification criteria: https://julkaisufoorumi.fi/en/evaluations/classification-criteria

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Alexandra Elbakyan is enjoying wide recognition by scientists all over the world. She is the creator of Sci-Hub, an online library for millions of research papers – for free. Every day, half a million users use the site. In the process of making knowledge open to everyone, she has gained many enemies as well.

In this episode of Keywords, Elbakyan explains her motives behind Sci-Hub and her plans with the portal for the future.

Keywords: Sci-Hub, science, open access, knowledge

• Resources

Elbakyan's personal website with articles by her: https://sci-hub.st/alexandra

Article by Nature on the lawsuit against Sci-Hub: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2017.22196

A study about Sci-Hub from 2018: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5832410/

• How to reach out

For comments, feedback and suggestions on articles for future episodes, please reach out to me on Twitter @rasmuskyllonen or by dropping me a letter at rasmus.kyllonen@helsinki.fi

• About the host

Rasmus is a master’s student at the University of Helsinki, where he is majoring in journalism and communication. Earlier, he worked as a journalist and graphic designer at various newspapers and magazines. He has also been a teacher in vocational media education.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

@i_love_my_cheetah, @koodiz, @Sondos_aq, @thehala and @themayaahmad are hugely popular social media influencers in the Middle East. These women caught the interest of researcher Zoe Hurley, after hearing of them from her students at the all-female university in Dubai.

Despite skeptics, who belittled the relevance of Instagram as a point of inquiry in social sciences, Hurley collected nearly 25.000 Instagram posts by the influencers. What emerged was an analysis of how these women represent themselves in a space still dominated by patriarchy, traditionalism and Islam. 

This is the story of how these women are making Instagram their key political platform.

Keywords: empowerment, agency, social media, postdigital, Instagram, self-presentations, artifact, affordances, Arab women

• The article discussed in this episode

Hurley, Z. (2021), #reimagining Arab Women’s Social Media Empowerment and the Postdigital Condition, Social media + society, 7(2)

DOI: 10.1177/20563051211010169

Open access: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F20563051211010169

• The researcher featured in the episode

Zoe Hurley is a lecturer at the Zayed University in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. She is a feminist scholar with a focus on social media. She has a doctoral degree from Lancaster University in the UK.

• Further reading

“Why I No Longer Believe Social Media is Cool” by Zoe Hurley

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2056305119849495

• How to reach out

For comments, feedback and suggestions on articles for future episodes, please reach out to me on Twitter @rasmuskyllonen or by dropping me a letter at rasmus.kyllonen@helsinki.fi

• About the host

Rasmus is a master’s student at the University of Helsinki, where he is majoring in journalism and communication. Earlier, he worked as a journalist and graphic designer at various newspapers and magazines. He has also been a teacher in vocational media education.

• Disclaimer

The articles showcased on Keywords are all published in scientific journals that have received an official classification (level 1, 2 or 3) by the Publication Forum. This means the publications are always peer-reviewed. For more information on the academic classification criteria: https://julkaisufoorumi.fi/en/evaluations/classification-criteria

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.