Abstract
We study gender bias in media coverage of candidates during election campaigns. Our analysis focuses on the 2015 Swiss national elections and relies on an almost comprehensive sample of print and online news items covering the full duration of the campaign, including over 200,000 documents from 70 sources and all 3,927 candidates. First, we analyze media attention with regression methods and find a significant gender gap, except for incumbents. Second, we use structural topic models to identify the main themes of newspaper coverage and how they covary with the candidates’ gender. Controversies and scandals are discussed disproportionately together with male candidates, while reporting on the electoral contest occurs disproportionately in connection with female candidates. Third, we use the same technique to search for gender stereotypes in the election coverage. Across 100 topics, we find only faint evidence of their presence.