Reporting Germany's 2005 Bundestag Election Campaign: Was Gender an Issue?

Research conducted in the United States and Canada shows that female candidates for political office are covered differently in the news than their male counterparts: Female candidates receive less coverage, their electoral prospects are more negatively assessed, and the focus of reporting is often on “soft” issues compared with coverage of male candidates. We examine reporting during the 2005 Bundestag election campaign to assess the degree to which findings can be extended from North American and European contexts. Germany's first female chancellor candidate, Angela Merkel, and her male opponent, incumbent Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, were the main focus of campaign news. Drawing on an analysis of the four main evening national television newscasts and the most widely read newspaper in the six weeks prior to Election Day, we show that while the two candidates were rather equal in terms of visibility in the news, and did not differ substantially in terms of the issues on which they were reported, gender did play a considerable role in framing certain stories.