“The Three Harpies”: Media Representation of Political Leadership in the 2013 Israeli General Election

• In Event: Critical Readings of Media Representations

Abstract

For the first time in Israel’s history, four women stood as party leaders in the 2013 parliamentary election: Sheli Yahimovitz (Labour), Tzipi Livni (Hatnua- a centrist party she set up herself during the election campaign), Zahava Galon (Meretz- leftist democratic party) and Asma Agabria Zahalka (Da’m- leftist Arab-Jewish party). This study, part of a wider research project, focuses on the way the three of these political leaders ultimately to enter parliament, were represented on online news sites. Using a thematic, comparative, textual analysis we seek to expose the “gender framing” with which newspapers construct politicians’ media image as political leaders, against a backdrop of pre-existing gender conventions current in Israeli society and in the media. The study encompasses all journalistic texts referencing the leaders by name, in the three israeli's main online news sites, published between the declaration of the election in October 2012 and the end of January 2013.

Authors

• Dalia Liran Alper, Communication School

• Orly Tzarfati, Communications Studies Department, Yezreel Valley College, Israel