Family appendages or feminist possibilities? : A framing analysis of female candidates in the 2022 general elections (GE15) in Malaysiakini and The Star Online

This study addresses media representations of women politicians during the Malaysian 15th General Election (GE15) of 2022, examining how two of Malaysia's biggest news media framed female candidates and how gender intersects with political partisanship and new media. Previous studies cite biased coverage of women politicians in Malaysia due to Malaysia being a patriarchal society. Religious-culture beliefs and gender stereotyping create barriers to women accessing leadership in politics. Media prefer to associate female politicians with their male relatives, rather than viewing them as individual beings. This study analyzes how and in what way gender and political loyalty influence media narratives, as well as how gender stereotypes persist in news coverage. The study employs quantitative and qualitative content analysis of Malaysiakini (an independent news source) and The Star Online (a politically aligned news source) news articles. Data were collected from online news portals for a month before and after the election (October 19 to December 19, 2022), capturing campaign and post-election reporting. 285 articles were coded using a 17-question coding booklet and analyzed using SPSS. These main results replicate previous coverage of English language media, specifically in the repetition of gender stereotypes and the use of positive frames, a phenomenon also observed in Malaysiakini’s reporting during the 2018 election. This echoes the double bind identified in Western studies, where women in politics often face contradictory expectations. This research contributes to the existing literature by demonstrating the presence of gender stereotypes in both news outlets examined, while notably identifying a greater use of neutral frames in one. This suggests a more objective outlook, which fosters a more level playing field in the portrayal of female politicians within the larger political discourse.