ABSTRACT

In this chapter, we deconstruct mediatic discourse around the election, tenure, and re-election of Jacinda Ardern as Prime Minister of New Zealand. Scrutinising media attention is a necessary step in providing a holistic picture of the experience of political leaders in general and through elections in particular. In our study, we observe the archetypes of leadership the media employs to conceptualise Ardern, the ways in which her leadership has been questioned on the basis of gender, and the strategies she adopts in response. While we find that the media describes Ardern through the use of dichotomous male/female traits of leadership, we also observe a shift towards seemingly gender-neutral descriptors based on youthfulness on the one hand, and markers of difference on the other. The evidence we find suggests a need to update scholarly conceptualisation of leadership and provides ample space to discern the gendered dimensions behind those descriptors that, at first glance, appear to be gender-neutral. Our study is built on the analysis of 256 online publications in the news category, relating to five key events in Ardern's career as Prime Minister, based on interpretive qualitative analysis procedures.