Gendered Agenda-Building: How Female Candidates Communicate Heterogeneous Issue Agendas

This study investigates the extent to which the issues emphasized by female political candidates in American congressional elections vary based on the media platforms used to promote their messages. We develop a framework of gendered agenda-building, arguing that the pressures women face on the campaign trail are rooted in gender stereotypes and will lead women to curate more heterogeneous issue agendas compared to their male counterparts. Our framework also argues that women’s issue agendas will more likely vary across campaign communication platforms. We use an original and novel dataset of House of Representatives candidates’ communication across Twitter and television advertisements to examine the dynamics of agenda-setting for female House candidates. We find that contrary to our predictions, women are no more likely than men to have more heterogeneous agendas.