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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
This paper is part of an ongoing research project called “Feminine Politics – Gender
policies and strategies oriented toward the visibility of female members of Parliament
in Portugal (PTDC/CCI-COM/102393/2008), funded by Fundação Ciência e
Tecnologia (FCT).
Assuming the benefits of women's participation in politics, namely in terms of
enrichment and diversity, this communication focuses on the obstacles women must
overcome to be elected and more, to be hear, in the media (Ballington e Karam 2005;
Sawer, Marian et al. 2006; Paxton e Hughes 2007; Norris e Inglehart 2001).
Our goal is to characterize both the profile and the activities carried out by the female
members of Parliament (MP’s) in various cycles of Portuguese political life. Our
analyses focuses on the epiphenomena related to gender issues and examines how
the press covered the female parliamentary initiatives and their strategies for visibility
in the public sphere.
The methodology is based on a triangulation of methods, namely: a prosopographical
study of the female MP’s and a discursive analysis of the interviews conducted with
the parliamentarians and the journalists based at the Parliament.
The Paritary Parliament was an initiative from female MP’s taking place in
January/1192, during the right wing liberal government conducted by the Prime
Minister Cavaco Silva. The general goal was to raise public attention for the gap
between man and women regarding political representation and to force political
leaders to legislate in order to revert this situation.
The Paritary Parliament received major press coverage and thus configures one of
the epiphenomena constructed and selected by and for our analysis. Our conclusion
leads to the idea that it was a successful initiative, resulting in an increasing reflexion
around gender issues and forcing politicians to start a very productive discussion that,
shorter later, resulted in the implementation of quotas for female parliamentarians.
The influence of new persuasive and narrative techniques in local political
journalism. A case study of the local 2011 Spanish elections.
Gómez Baceiredo, Beatriz; Rodríguez Salcedo, Natalia
School of Communication, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain
One of journalism’s current challenges lies in determining how much the strategies of
political consultants are influencing press coverage and information processes.
Political consultancies have gained not only presence but also influence and
competencies by enhancing their narrative techniques in order to produce information
more easily and make it more rapidly acceptable by the media. Sometimes, this
acceptance is so fast that the media forgets to appreciate that in addition to being a
source of information, consultants are also meant to be a source of persuasion.
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