Cameramen and Congresswomen: How photojournalists framed female candidates in the Year of the Woman

Andrea Hudson and Kyser Lough (2023). “Cameramen and Congresswomen: How photojournalists framed female candidates in the Year of the Woman,” in Thomas J. Johnson and Aaron Veenstra (eds.) What if Democracy Falls and Nobody Covers It? How Media Coverage Threatens Our Political System, Lexington. Abstract: In this chapter, we first review the existing research on press still images of women in politics to highlight the documented failures of the visual press to fulfill its role, as well as what is working, with additional focus on the photographers themselves. We further develop these thoughts through a case study of press images in 2018’s “Year of the Woman,” a recent significant moment for women in politics in the United States. The chapter concludes with discussion and guidance for the visual press to responsibly move forward in how they cover gender in politics with still imagery.