The way Scottish female politicians are portrayed in the media will be explored by a leading academic at an event in Aberdeen this month.
Professor Sarah Pedersen from Robert Gordon University (RGU) will deliver a public lecture on Wednesday, April 20 which will investigate the media’s treatment of the suffragettes in Scotland at the beginning of the twentieth century compared with female politicians today.
The free event, which is taking place at RGU’s Garthdee campus, is part of a new series of professorial lectures announced by the university where a number of its experts discuss topical research issues.
Professor Pedersen joined RGU in 1996 and throughout her time with the university her research and teaching has focused on communication by means of the written word, whether that be by Edwardian ladies, mothers online, bloggers or academic scholars.
Part of her research interest investigates women’s experiences during the Edwardian period and First World War through local newspaper columns, which she is publishing in a book detailing the Scottish media’s response to the suffragette movement.
Professor Pedersen, who is a Professor of Communication and Media at Aberdeen Business School, explains: “One hundred years before the Daily Mail declared Nicola Sturgeon to be the most dangerous woman in Britain, suffragettes were being denounced by Scottish local newspapers as a national danger and a shrieking sisterhood led by Pankhurst furies.
“I will draw on my decade of research at RGU to provide a then and now comparison of the media’s portrayal of Scottish female politicians including similarities in a focus on their fashion and how they are presented as being different from the norm.
“I will also look at the differences in argument regarding how the media has presented the place of women in politics over the years from the Edwardian era to the 21st century.”
Uniquely in Scotland Professor Pedersen combines expertise in women’s history and digital media. Her interest in women’s involvement in media has led to a number of projects investigating female blogs; the online discussion forum Mumsnet; teens on Facebook and political uses of social media.
She was also part of the team of RGU researchers which ran an analytical study investigating Twitter responses to televised political debates, including the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum and the 2015 General Election.
In summer 2015 she was invited to work on a project investigating digital parenthood as a Visiting Fellow at the University of Canberra in Australia.
The lecture, which is entitled ‘From the Suffragettes to Sturgeon: Media Response to Scottish Women Politicians’, will begin at 6pm in the Sir Ian Wood Building located at RGU’s Garthdee campus. There will be an opportunity for discussion led by questions and answers, which will be followed by light refreshments.
The lecture is free to attend and is open to anyone including those studying a Higher in History to supplement the knowledge learned on the Scottish suffragettes in the course’s syllabus.
For more information and to book a place at the lecture, please email Anna Duthie via a.duthie3@rgu.ac.uk or call 01224 262210.