Saudi Women as Decision Makers: Analyzing the Media Portrayal of Female Political Participation in Saudi Arabia

Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

Hawwa

Publication Date

1-1-2020

Abstract

© 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. This paper analyzes the contrasting media portrayals of female political participation in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Through a thorough discourse analysis of Saudi, British, and American newspaper articles surrounding the 2015 municipal elections, we scrutinize how the portrayal of women as a subject group has shifted from one that requires the constant approval of guardians in the public sphere to one that makes its own decisions and actively participates in politics. We analyze what types of discourses and frames have supported this drastic shift in official Saudi media discourses. We then contrast these findings with the portrayal of Saudi female political participation in Western countries that claim to uphold human rights and gender equality, in contrast to Saudi Arabia. Finally, we contrast our findings with the perceptions of 50 female Saudis regarding female agency and political participation in Saudi Arabia.

ISSN

1569-2078

Publisher

Brill Academic Publishers

Volume

18

Issue

1

First Page

75

Last Page

95

Disciplines

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Keywords

discourse analysis, political participation, Saudi Arabia, women empowerment

Scopus ID

85086389425

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

no

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