Gender Representation in News Media : A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Representation of the Two British Prime Ministers Theresa May and Boris Johnson

Sammanfattning

This thesis examines how former and current Prime Ministers, Theresa May and Boris Johnson are represented in two British newspapers, The Guardian and The Sun, a broadsheet and a tabloid, during the election time, namely July 2016 for May and July 2019 for Johnson. By applying Critical Discourse Analysis, and especially Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional model of analysis (1989), as well as studies on gender discourse, this study investigates how constructions of gender stereotypes are created. The thesis is performed to study and compare possible examples of inequity in the representation of Theresa May and Boris Johnson, and to seek an answer to whether these representations are based on gender stereotypes or not. By introducing the discursive representation approach, this study has uncovered how the discourses in the articles surrounding Theresa May have shifted focus a day before and on the day of election, whilst for Boris Johnson, the discourses have stayed the same.