A “nasty woman”: assessing the gendered mediation of Hillary Clinton’s nonverbal immediacy cues during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign

ABSTRACT

Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the 2016 U.S. presidential election was a stunning upset that confounded pollsters, pundits, and journalists predicting a solid win by the former secretary of state and Democratic candidate against businessperson and reality television star Donald Trump. This article uses the theoretical lenses of gendered mediation and the double bind to investigate how U.S. media framed Clinton’s credibility and likability as a female candidate during the last six weeks of the election campaign. Employing a qualitative thematic content analysis, the paper examines how two regional daily newspapers in traditionally red and blue states assessed Clinton’s credibility and likability through her use of nonverbal immediacy cues. It finds that though Clinton was able to gain credibility through her use of immediacy behaviours, the portrayal of her likability was still confined by gender norms and depicted as a barrier to her viability as a presidential candidate.

KEYWORDS:

• Female politicians
• nonverbal immediacy
• double bind
• gendered mediation
• communication
• qualitative content analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Laura Cummings

Laura Cummings holds an MA degree from the Department of Communication at the University of Ottawa in Ottawa, Canada.

Jenepher Lennox Terrion

Jenepher Lennox Terrion PhD., is Full Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Ottawa in Ottawa, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]