Does Disinformation Toward Women Politicians Reflect Gender Stereotypes? Exploring the Role of Leaders’ Political Orientations

The recent literature highlights the importance of implementing ad hoc media literacy initiatives to counter sexist stereotypical representations in social media, particularly within the political field. To this end, the present study focuses on false and misleading contents (information disorders) about female politicians, since they can reflect gender stereotypes, portraying women as unfit for political roles. Thus, our exploratory study aims to analyze the stereotype content of information disorders targeting Italian female politicians, following classic models of stereotype content. Furthermore, it seeks to explore the role played by the type of information disorder and the political orientation of the targeted leaders. A database of 120 information disorders have been collected, codified, and analyzed. The results highlight that information disorders predominantly target the dimension of communion. Focusing on the types of information disorders, fabricated and misleading content appears to be associated with the professional and private life domains, primarily conveying communion-based stereotypical representations of politicians. Satirical and parodic contents, on the other hand, were associated with the esthetic domain, conveying agency-based stereotypical representations, with a particular focus on politicians' physical competence. Regarding political orientation, a "Stereotyping from my eyes" effect was observed: communion-based stereotypical content prevails in information disorders targeting conservative leaders, while progressive leaders are stereotyped concerning the agency dimension. This effect may reveal a difference between conservative and progressive audiences in their adherence to traditional gender roles.