Melissa K. Miller's guest appearances

Melissa K. Miller

BG Ideas

Shannon Orr

Charles Kanwischer

Jerry Reed

Tim Davis

Rachel Rickard

Mona Hanna-Attisha

Maurice Cherry

Nicole Jackson

Rick Valicenti

Lauren Salisbury

Sheri Wells-Jensen

Amy Fiedler

Taylor Simone

Linda Butler

Lynn Whitney

OwlTail

Dr. Melissa K. Miller, 2019 ICS Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor of Political Science at BGSU, discusses her research on women in politics. Dr. Miller shares her findings from her analysis of media coverage of the unprecedented number of women running for office during the 2018 election cycle. Dr. Miller explores how media coverage influences voter perception of mothers running for office. Transcript: Introduction: From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society. This is BG Ideas. Musical Intro: I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment. Jolie S.: To the BG Ideas podcast. A collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, an associate professor of English and American culture studies and the director of ICS. Today I'm joined by one of ICS' faculty fellows, Dr. Melissa K. Miller. She's an associate professor of political science and affiliated faculty in the department of women's gender and sexuality studies here at BGSU. Her current research is focused on women who are mothers who ran congressional campaigns in the 2018 midterm elections. This is the first extensive bi-partisan study of mother candidates and we're thrilled to be here to discuss her research. Thanks for joining me, Melissa. Melissa M.: Thanks for having me. Jolie S.: The 2018 midterm elections really put the spotlight on women running for political office. Can you talk to us about what initially drew you to focus on candidates who were also mothers? Melissa M.: I really have always been interested in the intersection of women, media, voters, campaigning. Gender and politics is a study of my research and I'm an expert on American politics. What happened? I go all the way back to 2008. A friend and colleague of mine, Dr. Jeff Peak, he's a presidency scholar. I'm a gender scholar within the political science department and we decided to do a collaborative project where we content coded press coverage of the presidential candidates back in 2008 and we thought what a great slew of candidates to look at. I of course was most interested in looking at how Hillary Clinton was covered by the press in her 2008 attempt to get the democratic nomination. Melissa M.: He was interested in all the candidates as a presidency scholar and so we did a press coverage study of Hillary Clinton and it was amazing to do. We published our results in the journal called Politics and Gender and there were some real gendered aspects of her coverage that really jumped out. In the midst of that campaign, from my perspective as a gender scholar, I was so pleased to be able to study Hillary Clinton's press coverage. We content coded 6,000 news articles about the democratic race specifically to look at her coverage and then come around August, John McCain, the Republican nominee named Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor as his running mate. And so suddenly our study is underway and it was like we'd won the lottery. Melissa M.: At least it felt that way for me. Holy cow, now I can study a Republican woman also competing not for president but as a vice presidential running mate. So we also, Jeff Peak and I, did a study of how Sarah Palin was covered and in both Clinton's coverage and Palin's coverage back in 2008 there were real gendered coverage markers. Their gender was mentioned at a disproportionate rate. Their marital status was mentioned at a disproportionate rate. In Hillary Clinton's case, her press coverage was much more negative than her male rivals and the content of that negative coverage was highly personal. Really personal descriptives that were very negative about her. Melissa M.: For Sarah Palin, her coverage was very distinguished by t

Dr. Melissa K. Miller, 2019 ICS Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor of Political Science at BGSU, discusses her research on women in politics. Dr. Miller shares her findings from her analysis of media coverage of the unprecedented number of women running for office during the 2018 election cycle. Dr. Miller explores how media coverage influences voter perception of mothers running for office. Transcript: Introduction: From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society. This is BG Ideas. Musical Intro: I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment. Jolie S.: To the BG Ideas podcast. A collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, an associate professor of English and American culture studies and the director of ICS. Today I'm joined by one of ICS' faculty fellows, Dr. Melissa K. Miller. She's an associate professor of political science and affiliated faculty in the department of women's gender and sexuality studies here at BGSU. Her current research is focused on women who are mothers who ran congressional campaigns in the 2018 midterm elections. This is the first extensive bi-partisan study of mother candidates and we're thrilled to be here to discuss her research. Thanks for joining me, Melissa. Melissa M.: Thanks for having me. Jolie S.: The 2018 midterm elections really put the spotlight on women running for political office. Can you talk to us about what initially drew you to focus on candidates who were also mothers? Melissa M.: I really have always been interested in the intersection of women, media, voters, campaigning. Gender and politics is a study of my research and I'm an expert on American politics. What happened? I go all the way back to 2008. A friend and colleague of mine, Dr. Jeff Peak, he's a presidency scholar. I'm a gender scholar within the political science department and we decided to do a collaborative project where we content coded press coverage of the presidential candidates back in 2008 and we thought what a great slew of candidates to look at. I of course was most interested in looking at how Hillary Clinton was covered by the press in her 2008 attempt to get the democratic nomination. Melissa M.: He was interested in all the candidates as a presidency scholar and so we did a press coverage study of Hillary Clinton and it was amazing to do. We published our results in the journal called Politics and Gender and there were some real gendered aspects of her coverage that really jumped out. In the midst of that campaign, from my perspective as a gender scholar, I was so pleased to be able to study Hillary Clinton's press coverage. We content coded 6,000 news articles about the democratic race specifically to look at her coverage and then come around August, John McCain, the Republican nominee named Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor as his running mate. And so suddenly our study is underway and it was like we'd won the lottery. Melissa M.: At least it felt that way for me. Holy cow, now I can study a Republican woman also competing not for president but as a vice presidential running mate. So we also, Jeff Peak and I, did a study of how Sarah Palin was covered and in both Clinton's coverage and Palin's coverage back in 2008 there were real gendered coverage markers. Their gender was mentioned at a disproportionate rate. Their marital status was mentioned at a disproportionate rate. In Hillary Clinton's case, her press coverage was much more negative than her male rivals and the content of that negative coverage was highly personal. Really personal descriptives that were very negative about her. Melissa M.: For Sarah Palin, her coverage was very distinguished by t

Dr. Melissa K. Miller: Moms on the Run - Mothers in Politics