The feminine style, the male influence, and the paradox of gendered political blogspace

ABSTRACT

This article explores gender differences in political communication among blogging politicians. The article sets out to explore two baseline questions: (1) Are distinct gendered ‘blogstyles’ to be found among political representatives? and (2) How do gender and gendered blogstyles interplay and affect the impact of political blogs? The empirical study draws on a survey targeting blogging politicians in Sweden (N = 523). The analysis identifies substantial differences in how female and male politicians communicate in the blogosphere as well as the outcomes in terms of feedback and impact. Female politicians, to a greater degree than their male counterparts, utilize blogging for the purpose of fostering a stronger connection with their readers as well as to enquire about ideas and policy perspectives. This strategy seems to be successful for fostering qualitative feedback from readers; yet, female bloggers have far less impact than their male colleges. We discuss two potential understandings of these results: relating to gender stereotypes and the network power structure of the blogosphere.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• politics
• social media
• e-democracy
• blogs
• blogging

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Joachim Astrom http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7291-2875

Martin Karlsson http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5485-8577

Notes on contributors

Joachim Astrom (Ph.D., Örebro University, Sweden) is Professor of Political Science at Örebro University. He is the author of several articles, books and book chapters focusing on information technology and politics. [email: [email protected]].

Martin Karlsson (Ph.D., Örebro University, Sweden) is postdoctoral researcher in political science at Örebro University. He has published extensively on the relationship between political representation and information technology. [email: [email protected]].