II. Literature Review Robert Entman posits two types of media biases: content bias, where media content shows regular patterns of slant towards specific candidates or ideology, and decision-based bias, where reporters and editors contribute to slant through their personal beliefs and opinions. He also emphasizes how journalists, though nominally barred from allowing personal ideology to permeate into print, often express other non-partisan notions of decision-making bias, such as through candidate competence or momentum. Time as a necessary independent variable allows for shifts in bias to occur, where Entman points to positive coverage of John McCain’s announcement of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential nominee through the delayed response …show more content…
In their research analysis on news coverage of congressional candidates in 2010, Danny Hayes and Jennifer Lawless found that incumbency and were more statistically significant for increased coverage compared to the gender of the candidates. Running tests on increases in coverage, positive and negative ideological framing of issues, and evaluation of a candidate's character, they find that “if women face significant or additional hurdles when navigating the campaign trail, it does not appear that those impediments are raised by the …show more content…
She concludes that though women on average perform just as well as men during election day, both men and women overwhelmingly believe that “it is more difficult for a woman to be elected into high-level public office than a man.” Furthermore, women significantly are more likely to believe that female candidates have more difficulty procuring funds for a campaign. The cultural biases that women face while running for office, which are absorbed and produced by media, though not significant enough to directly cause a shift in electoral outcome, has a deep effect on how individuals perceive the very place of women in an