Karen Boyle, Melody House, Fiona McKay
Key findings:
* Men were more dominant in election stories than in the sample as a whole.
* Just 19.6% of politicians in election stories were women. 1% were women of colour.
* The Scottish media remains more dominated by men than even our candidate lists or parliaments.
In this blog presenting the findings from the Pass the Mic General Election study, we focus on Scottish stories about the election.
Across the 2239 election stories we coded,[1] men were more dominant than in the sample as a whole. Men were 74.3% of all people in Scottish election news (compared to 66.7% in the sample as a whole) and women were 23.3% (cf 29.4%).[2] When we took out those people for whom race was unknown (e.g. “a spokesman”), white men made up 63.6% of recognisable individuals in election news stories, white women were 21.9%, men of colour 12.8% and women of colour 1.6%.
Figure 1: percentage of people in election news by race and gender
The high proportion of men of colour can largely be accounted for by two men: Anas Sarwar alone accounted for 41.9% of all men of colour, Rishi Sunak for 36.9%. Party leaders undoubtedly have a distorting effect on election coverage, but the range of roles in which men of colour appear is notably narrower. So, whilst party leaders Sarwar (Scottish Labour) and Sunak (Conservative) collectively accounted for more than three quarters of appearances of men of colour in election coverage, white male party leaders accounted for 44.9% of all white men. This is despite the fact that there were many more white men leading Scottish and UK parties.[3]
When we looked at who was quoted in election stories (focusing specifically on print news), the marginalisation of women of colour was even more marked. Only 0.9% of all people quoted in Scottish newspapers’ election coverage were women of colour – that’s just 21 women of colour, in 1114 newspaper stories. Notably, only one of the women of colour who was quoted was a candidate in Scotland (the SNP’s Anum Qaisar), though Kaukab Stewart MSP was quoted in three stories and Alba’s Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh in one. The majority of women of colour quoted in relation to the election in the Scottish press were not based in Scotland and included English politicians (Diane Abbott, Kemi Badenoch, Joyce Onstad, Claire Coutinho) and broadcasters (Mishal Husain, Naga Munchetty).
Although – as discussed in our previous blog – experts are a relatively small proportion of those appearing in news stories (just 2.9% of people in election stories were experts), their views are often given particular weight and this is a key area in which Pass the Mic has sought to intervene with its database of women of colour experts. The database includes a number of experts in Scottish and/or British politics, featuring both academics and activists aligned with specific parties. Depressingly, however, there was only one woman of colour expert featured in stories about the election: Pass the Mic founder Talat Yaqoob.
Those sharing personal experience or giving their personal opinions were also relatively small proportions of those appearing in election stories – at 3.4% and 4.4% respectively. Only 8 women of colour gave their personal experience as part of Scottish election coverage, meaning women of colour were 3.2% of those giving personal experience. And just 9 women of colour gave popular opinion in Scottish media stories about the election (2.8% of all popular opinion): three of those women appeared in just one story on STV news.
Who represents us?
Unsurprisingly, politicians dominate election news: 80.6% of the people appearing in our sample of election stories were politicians. Just 19.6% of those politicians were women; 1% were women of colour.
There are a number of ways to situate these findings. First, our findings for Scottish media chime with Loughborough University’s research on English-based election coverage. The Loughborough study found that less than 1 in 5 of politicians in television and print news in the five weeks leading up to the election were women.
Second, not all politicians are equal in media coverage. The Loughborough study of this and previous elections (going back to 1992) consistently show that party leaders dominate media coverage. In 2024, with the exception of the Greens’ co-leaders Carla Denyer (in the UK) and Lorna Slater (in Scotland), the UK and Scottish leaders at the time of the General Election were all men. Leaders of the Scottish parties played a significant role in our sample, amounting for 24.6% of all people in election stories and 30.5% of all politicians. One of the curious effects of the emphasis on Scottish leaders, however, was a relative lack of attention to people standing in the election: only Douglas Ross (Conservative) among the leaders of Scotland’s main parties was standing for Westminster. Less than half (39.6%) of politicians featuring in our sample were running for election, and 25.2% of politicians were candidates in Scottish seats.
When we considered politicians who were not party leaders at the time of the election, the male bias remained but was less marked: 62.8% of non-leader politicians were men; 34.3% were women. The proportion of men of colour in the non-leader dataset was notably reduced at 4.6%, whilst women of colour were 2%.
Another way to situate these findings is in relation to the profile of candidates and elected MPs, and (given that more than 50% of politicians were not running for Westminster) in relation to the profile of MSPs in Holyrood. The results of this election mean there are a record number of women MPs: 263 of the 650 MPs at Westminster are now women (up from 220 in 2019), and the number of Scottish MPs who are women has also risen, albeit just by 1 to 20 (of 57), though there are no women of colour and there is only one man of colour representing a Scottish Westminster seat (Labour’s Zubir Ahmed in Glasgow South West). At Holyrood, 46% of MSPs are women – including two women of colour elected in 2019 (SNP’s Kaukab Stewart and the Conservatives’ Pam Gosal) – and, at the time of the General Election, the cabinet was dominated by women (with 8 women and 3 men, including Swinney). However, candidate lists in Scotland for the General Election remained heavily male dominated: 69% of candidates in Scotland in 2024 were men.
We found that media coverage was even more male-dominated than our parliaments or even our candidate lists. 81.5% of all candidates standing in Scottish seats mentioned in our study were men. Although no women of colour were elected, according to data collected by Talat Yaqoob for Pass the Mic, there were 5 women of colour candidates standing for election (1.2% of all candidates in Scotland). There were just 5 appearances by women of colour candidates in our media sample: this means women of colour made up 0.3% of all candidates appearing in the media.
In conclusion, whilst women in general – and women of colour specifically – remain underrepresented in Scottish politics, particularly in relation to Westminster, the Scottish media was more dominated by men than even our candidate lists or parliaments in the run up to the July 2024 election.
[1] The conclusion of our intercoder reliability tests means that the figures presented here are slightly different to those reported in the Herald on July 16 though the overall arguments remain the same.
[2] For 2.3% of people in election stories gender was unknown (e.g. “a Conservative party source”) and 0.1% were categorised as other (i.e. explicitly identified as trans or non-binary).
[3] White male party leaders at the time of the election included: John Swinney (SNP leader and First Minister), Douglas Ross (Scottish Conservatives), Alex Cole-Hamilton (Scottish Liberal Democrats), Patrick Harvie (co-leader Scottish Greens), Alex Salmond (Alba), Sir Keir Starmer (Labour), Sir Ed Davey (Liberal Democrats), Nigel Farage (Reform).