Representation of women leaders in the media: Cases of Margaret Thatcher and Tansu Çi̇ller

This thesis looks into how women political leaders are represented in the mass media. This study attempts to answer this research question through the cases of the mass media in Turkey and the United Kingdom and the media representations of their first woman prime ministers, who have a lot in common, namely Tansu Çiller and Margaret Thatcher. This study compares the gender dimension in the two leaders' newspaper representations. The representations of these two women leaders were analyzed with the method of qualitative content analysis during two periods. The former period includes their initial rise to power; the latter is the military crises they faced, namely the Kardak Crisis and the Falklands War. Newspapers from different political tendencies have been used for the analysis to provide a comparative outlook. The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, and The Times were selected from the United Kingdom, while Cumhuriyet and Milliyet were selected from Turkey. 84 news articles and opinion columns have been analyzed. Repeated themes and codes have been determined and compared with the literature. It was observed that Thatcher and Çiller received gender-based media attention similarly for their competence, leadership, appearance, personality, and characteristics. These findings are in line with the literature. However, the representations in the British mass media entail differences from the Turkish mass media in terms of the usage of professional language and its the ideological polarization in the representations. Key Words: Media, Representation, Woman, Leader, Tansu Çiller, Margaret Thatcher.