Dr Minglu Chen (Usyd)

Emeritus Professor Louise Edwards (Moderator) (UNSW)

Media, Gender and Politics: Representation of Female Political Leaders in The People’s Daily

This event is part of the mini series on "women in China". 

This presentation focuses on how Chinese female political leaders are represented in media, through the examination of the People’s Daily’s coverage of female Politburo members since 1949: Jiang Qing, Ye Qun, Deng Yingchao, Wu Yi, Liu Yandong and Sun Chunlan. Existing scholarship argues that media representation of women’s political life reflects existing gender norms of ‘public man, private women’, and largely sees the relationship between media, gender and political leadership as static.

The representation of early generations of female Chinese leaders confirms this view. This is illustrated by the cases of Jiang Qing and Ye Qun’s political roles being portrayed as mere mistakes, and the cases of Deng Yingchao’s public roles being seen as an extension of her domestic roles and extensive media attention being paid to Wu Yi’s private life. Since the last decade, however, there has been little difference between media representation of female and male politicians.

The authors argues that media representation of female politicians is a changing dynamic. In an authoritarian system, the changes can be caused by the varying needs of the dominant political party at different times. In the case of China, these are the needs of dealing with legitimacy crises, presenting a positive image to the outside world, and strengthening its centralized rule.

About the speakers

Minglu Chen is a senior lecturer in the Discipline of Government and International Relations and director of the Local China Project at the University of Sydney China Studies Centre. Her research concentrates on social and political change in China, especially the interaction between entrepreneurs and the state and women’s political participation. She has published her research in The China Quarterly, The China Journal and Journal of Contemporary China.

Louise Edwards (Moderator) is Emeritus Professor of Chinese History at UNSW, Sydney. She is also Honorary Professor at the University of Hong Kong’s School of Modern Languages and Cultures and the University of Technology of Sydney’s Australia-China Research Institute and a Senior Advisor to Asialink at Melbourne University. In 2022 she was appointed as Chair of the Board to the ANU’s China in the World Centre. Her most recent sole-authored books include Citizens of Beauty: Drawing Democratic Dreams in Republican China (Washington University Press, 2020), Women Warriors and Wartime Spies of China (Cambridge University Press 2016), and Women Politics and Democracy: Women’s Suffrage in China (Stanford University Press 2008). Edwards is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities, the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and the Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities.