Women and Politics: Coverage of 2021 Parliamentary Election Campaign in the Albanian Online Media

This study aims to analyze the online media coverage of political discourse and portrayal of women, as political candidates and voters, during the electoral campaign of 2021 in Albania and raises two research questions with regard to this, employing a gender perspective. The study uses a qualitative methodology. Media content analysis is employed for the analysis of 1420 online articles, from 15 portals, 7 TVs, and 8 newspapers. The results show that political candidates are the subject of a gendered portrayal in media. Women receive less amount of time, more focus on personal life versus professional, and on “soft” issues; young candidates are on focus for being “surprise” or “clean” candidates; political party leaders follow the same gendered discourse, the narrative of political candidates’ interest, and objectives for women voters relates to their traditional role; women candidates’ looks and appearance are targeted in the media; and sexist language promotes hate speech and derogatory comments. To add to this picture, some women candidates promote the gender stereotypes’ game to appeal to their electorate, while there is almost no reflection by the media on the problematics of gender portraying during the electoral campaign.