Recent electoral studies have found that candidate image has become the important reference basis when people vote. Besides, mass media is the major mediator by communicating candidate image to general people. Therefore, candidate image research (or electoral research) can not ignore the questions of mass media ’ image construction. In order to deeply understand the questions between candidate image and media ’ image construction, this study uses women candidates as an example to explore above research questions.
Although women involve politics more than before, the percentages of women being politician and political-appointees are still low compared to men. The reasons of women seldom becoming politician are because of people ’s cognition of gender stereotype and the differences of man and women candidates ’ image reported from mass media. Thus, this study applies gender stereotype to discuss the relationship between women candidates and political election. Also, this study is to discuss the questions of media ’ image construction in representing women candidates and influencing voter ’s cognition of women candidates.
This paper is first to discuss the related studies of candidate image research. Next, this paper explores the relationship between gender stereotype and political image, and then discusses the questions of women candidate image constructed by mass media. Finally, this paper hopes to propose some campaign strategies for women candidates in avoiding the questions of gender stereotype and media’s image construction.
中文關鍵詞
女性候選人，候選人形象，女性候選人形象，性別刻版印象，媒體形象建構，選舉，競選策略
英文關鍵詞
women candidates，candidates image，women candidates images，gender stereotype，media ’s image construction，election，campaign strategies