From “mother of the nation” to “unfit for office”: a comparative study of media framing of women presidential candidates in Malawi and South Africa

This study examines how mainstream news media in Malawi and South Africa frame women who move from established political positions into contests for executive leadership, addressing a gap in comparative Southern African research on the gendered mediation of presidential legitimacy. Using a comparative qualitative content analysis of 102 articles from Malawi24 and Independent Online (IOL), the study analyses coverage of Joyce Banda and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma through an integrated lens combining feminist media theory and Entman’s framing theory. The analysis identifies recurring frames of maternal symbolism, competence and viability, scandalisation, factional politics, and contested legitimacy. The findings show that both women were recognised as experienced political actors, yet coverage repeatedly narrowed their authority through gendered scripts: Banda was frequently legitimised through caregiving imagery and delegitimised through scandal, while Dlamini-Zuma’s executive ambition was commonly interpreted through factionalism, dependence, and party indiscipline. These patterns were not uniform, as counter-frames of competence, reform, and political agency also appeared. The study concludes that the coverage was grounded in real political events but often selective and disproportionate in the weight assigned to scandal, relational identity, and factional conflict relative to documented governance achievements. It recommends gender-sensitive newsroom standards, comparative self-audits of election coverage, and stronger professional and regulatory attention to gender equality in political reporting. The study contributes a comparative account of how gendered framing operates across two Southern African media contexts and shows that role-transition moments intensify scrutiny without determining representation in a uniformly negative way.