Gender, party and performance in the 2020 New Zealand general election: politicking on Facebook with Jacinda and Judith

Ross, K; Fountaine, S; Comrie, M

doi:10.1177/01634437221127366

Gender, party and performance in the 2020 New Zealand general election: politicking on Facebook with Jacinda and Judith

Lookup NU author(s): Professor Karen Ross ORCiD

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This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by Sage Publications Ltd, 2023.

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Abstract

New Zealand’s 2020 General Election campaign was unusual, though not unprecedented,in featuring women as both Prime Minister (Jacinda Ardern, Labour) and Leader of theOpposition (Judith Collins, National). To explore the extent to which gender, party andstyle intersected in their social media positioning, we analysed all posts made on thetwo Party Leaders’ public Facebook pages. We found both quantitative (post frequencyand composition, main topic and policy issues, audience reactions) and qualitativedifferences (tone, presentational style) but importantly, our research suggests thatneither woman ‘performed’ gender in normatively stereotypical ways.