Female leadership under the scrutiny: Discourse analysis of the Finnish media representation of the prime minister Sanna Marin during the COVID-19 crisis

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has increased the interest of female leaders in the media and increased global cooperation. However, the participation of women in decision-making in the foreign policy domain is lower than men. Therefore, it is essential to study what type of representations the media portrays of women as leaders in external relations. The media display an essential role in generating information and representations in society. This thesis focuses on discovering and analyzing the discourses associated with the prime minister of Finland, Sanna Marin, in external relations during the Covid-19 pandemic through critical discourse analysis. The study benefits from social representation theory and interprets the discourses by placing them in social and gender contexts. The study found four discourses associated with Marin's political performance in external relations. These four discourses were the discourse of power, the discourse of age, the discourse of unity, and the emotion discourse. The study discloses that Marin navigates between feminine and masculine leadership traits. Marin partially overturns stereotypes and norms of a female leader and a prime minister. Marin's political performance in external relations generates new social representations and challenges society's traditional notion of leadership.