Political women on Twitter: analysis of the messages issued by the gubernatorial candidates in Mexico

Abstract

The representation of women in the media has been commonly linked to private spaces and emotions, and the political sphere has traditionally been considered as a space in which men participate more frequently. However, 2015 was a year in which women took a leading role in politics in Mexico, so it was considered important to analyze what are the elements that were used in the political campaigns on Twitter of women candidates for governor in 2015, and the framing used in different online campaigns. In order to do this, a quantitative content analysis was used, in which 3,013 tuits published between April 5th and June 3rd, period in which the electoral campaign was carried out, were taken into consideration. It was found that the most used frames were the personalist / emotional and the human interest, and that the topics most mentioned by the candidates had to do with personal matters. In addition, a presence of elements external to the text such as photography and video was detected. It was concluded that the former reinforces the traditional gender stereotype in which women are more oriented to the intimate space and feelings, and the latter reiterates the idea that the female gender is linked to the image.