ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that women candidates face particular challenges in deciding how to present themselves to voters. In fact, the answer to the question of whether the media give women candidates a fair shake appears to have two parts: "It depends," and "More so today than in the past." Though the media are not the lone determinant of election outcomes, evidence clearly indicates that "campaigns serve to activate predispositions and affect how citizens judge candidates," particularly for voters who lack strong party and issue attachments. Social media offer female candidates pathways around mainstream media coverage—a potential boon considering some of the research reviewed here—but the effects of candidates' social media feeds may be limited to that percentage of voters who follow politics via Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites. Research has established the importance of news coverage to the success of women's bids for office.
