U.S. Newspaper Coverage of Feminism and its Cultural Shifts, 1990-2024

• In Event: 20220 - Section on Communication, Information Technology, and Media Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Section on Communication, Information Technology, and Media Sociology Roundtable VIII: Politics & Conspiracies

Abstract

This study examines U.S. newspaper coverage of feminism from 1990 to 2024, spanning both the third and fourth waves of the movement. While news media play a crucial role in shaping public discourse, previous research suggests that coverage of feminism tends to be sporadic, event-driven, and often framed in fragmented ways that depoliticize its goals. This paper investigates how feminism has been represented in mainstream media over the past three decades and explores shifts in its cultural meaning. Using a dataset of articles from the New York Times and five other major U.S. newspapers, the present study employs topic modeling to identify dominant themes in media discussions of feminism and word embedding models to analyze the evolving semantic contexts of the term “feminism.” Preliminary findings have shown that media attention to feminism fluctuates in response to major social and political events, with peaks occurring during moments of controversy or high-profile campaigns such as the #MeToo movement. Topic modeling reveals the diverse range of topics that have framed media discourse on feminism, highlighting the complexity of its underlying thematic structure. Furthermore, word embedding analysis indicates that contemporary feminism is an uneven terrain, continually shaped by its contested meanings and ongoing ideological struggles. By integrating computational text analysis with media studies, this research contributes to feminist scholarship by illustrating how mainstream news media may shape, constrain, and redefine feminist discourse over time.

Author

• Yunlin Li, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill