‘Can women have it all?’ Transitions in media representations of Jacinda Ardern’s leadership and identity by a global newsroom

Chałupnik, Małgorzata, Mackenzie, Jai, Mullany, Louise and Vilar Lluch, Sara 2024. ‘Can women have it all?’ Transitions in media representations of Jacinda Ardern’s leadership and identity by a global newsroom. Critical Discourse Studies 10.1080/17405904.2024.2401984

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Abstract

The paper examines changing media representations of Jacinda Ardern, former Aotearoa New Zealand Prime Minister, from the global broadcaster, BBC News Online, across three key milestones in the politician’s career: her appointment, re-election and resignation. Our socio-semantic analysis of this representation demonstrates how the media intersect her professional identity with age, gender, social class, and later, her identity as a mother. Whilst earlier coverage of Ardern’s career praises her successfully reconciling these aspects of her personal, social and professional identities, later coverage implies that ‘having it all’ was never really possible longer term. We argue that the visibility of this discourse, and the focus on intersectional aspects of Ardern’s personal and social identities, leads to her resignation being positively evaluated as her ‘finally’ succumbing and committing to the ‘natural’ inevitabilities of heterosexual family life. The article considers what such representation means for Ardern and women politicians and leaders more broadly, and contextualises these findings in relation to existing research on media representations of women in politics and leadership. Finally, we also consider the value of a more longitudinal approach to tracking the cumulative effects of the representation of social actors and groups.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	In Press
Schools:	English, Communication and Philosophy
Publisher:	Taylor and Francis Group
ISSN:	1740-5904
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	12 September 2024
Date of Acceptance:	3 September 2024
Last Modified:	01 Oct 2024 15:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/172055

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