Sarah Palin, Six Years Later

During discussions of gender performance in January we reviewed an article by Harp, Locke and Bachmann analyzing the media representations of Sarah Palin. The study focused specifically on media from major broadcast video segments during the first week following the announcement of Palin to join John McCain’s ticket. Recent media attention, and events, has brought Palin back to my attention. In looking at articles in major newspapers, it is interesting to see some of the same motifs occurring that were identified by Harp et. al.

As a bit of a refresher, Palin’s emergence into the national spotlight was characterized by three major themes according to Harp et. al.: the devoted mother, the beauty queen, and the touch politician. The authors noted that Palin was presented with an unusual combination of a “female’s politician’s toughness” with that of an “ultra-feminine frame.” Palin received attention for both her physical looks and her toughness (p. 304).

The Washington Post reviewed her closing speech as the 2014 CPAC last week, article here. In this article, Palin is presented as the tough counter to the liberal agenda under President Obama. Her message to “hunker down and refuse to budge on conservative principles,” was a combative contrast with that of other speakers including Christie, Ryan, and Gingrich. Here, you see the toughness described by Harp et. al. coming out full force. However, this article seems to lack the “ultra-feminine” frame when it briefly discusses the conference’s focus, though not Palin’s, on how to attract women and minorities to the conservative party.

An MSNBC article similarly focused on Palin’s toughness during her CPAC speech, article here. Only briefly alluded to in the Washington Post article, MSNBC focused more attention on Palin’s comments regarding women. Unlike her first week of prominence, however, her comments and those of the article focused mainly on her calls for the “sisterhood” to push other women to fight for conservative ideals. Palin commented that women “know better than to fall for that victimization line from the president and his party.” Here, even in discussions of women’s rights, Palin is no longer being portrayed with the “ultra-feminine frame.”

Additional articles from Politico, CNN, and the Washington Times all highlight Palin’s toughness and desires to fight the ideals of Obama and the Democratic Party and/or Palin’s reactions and “told you so” comments regarding the crisis in the Ukraine. A possible explanation is that this is merely too small of a sample to compare with the data from hundreds of clips that Harp et. al. reviewed. However, if this is a changed trend, how are we to view this? Has media changed in the last six years? Are the first impressions that Harp et. al. focused on not determinative of long term perceptions? Have Palin’s actions herself allowed for a new perspective on her as a politician?