The Changing Face of Representation: The Gender of U.S. Senators and Constituent Communications

Chapter 2. Measuring the Content and Impact of Representational Messages

29 Chapter 2 Measuring the Content and Impact of Representational Messages There are three fundamental questions motivating this book: (1) Do male and female senators articulate different types of messages when governing and campaigning? (2) Do reporters and editors cover male and female senators differently? (3) Do citizens’ understanding and assessments of senators vary with the senator’s gender? To answer these questions, we need data capturing the communications disseminated by senators, we need data measuring the messages produced by news media about these senators, and we need data revealing what citizens know and think about these elected officials . We have assembled a large and impressive data set for U.S. senators in 2006 providing extensive information to answer these important questions. We look at two different but complementary sources to capture the content of senators’ representational messages: (1) the senators’ official websites, and (2) the senators’ press releases. Both of these data sources measure messages that are directly “controlled” by the senators, allowing us to make judgments about the type of information senators want to communicate to citizens. During the senators’ reelection campaign, we turn to two additional sources of data: the senators’ campaign websites and their televised political advertisements. To measure news media coverage of the senators’ messages, we examine the largest circulating newspaper in each senator’s state during governing and campaigning periods. Finally, to examine citizens ’ knowledge and evaluations of their senators, we rely on a large and representative survey of constituents, the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES). During the senators’ reelection campaign, we turn to a specific module of 1,045 respondents designed to explicitly evaluate gender differences in evaluations of senate incumbents approaching reelection. 30the changing face of representation These various data sets allow us to determine what senators choose to emphasize when they communicate with their constituents. We can explore whether the content and style of their representational message varies with the senator’s gender. Furthermore, by comparing news coverage with the senators’ own messages, we can see whether male and female senators differ in their ability to draw attention to their preferred messages. Finally, we can examine the connection between the content of the senators’ communications and the attitudes citizens hold toward their senators. Why the Senate? We have decided to study the U.S. Senate for a number of reasons. The constitutional structure of the U.S. Senate makes it an ideal laboratory for studying representation. First, the staggered electoral cycle means that one-­ third of senators in the chamber in any given year will face reelection, while one-­ third of the senators will be two years away from their reelection campaign, and one-­third will be four years away from the demands of reelection. Therefore , when looking at a single year, we can compare how the senators’ representational messages change with their proximity to reelection. Second, the dual member districts of the U.S. Senate, two senators serving the same state, provide useful analytical leverage for a number of interesting comparisons. We can compare senators with the same constituency to see how they differ in their communication patterns and in the news media ’s representation of these messages. For instance, we can explore whether male and female senators serving the same constituency differ in their representational messages. While we expect male and female senators to distribute different messages, will this hold true for senators sharing the exact same constituency? And if male and female senators representing the same constituency deliver divergent messages, will the press echo these distinctions in their news coverage? Third, 20 women are currently serving in the U.S. Senate. Their constituents represent nearly half of the U.S. population. In contrast, while there are more women in the U.S. House of Representatives, these congresswomen represent only about 15% of the U.S. population. In addition, the U.S. Senate is a better choice than the U.S. House for examining the mediated nature of communication since news coverage of senators is much more extensive Measuring the Content and Impact of Representational Messages 31 than coverage of U.S. House members (Arnold 2004; Cook 1990; Krasno 1997; Westlye 1991). Fourth, there is a long history of women serving in the U.S. Senate. The first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate was Rebecca Latimer Felton (D-­GA) in 1922. She was appointed to fill the unexpired term of a senator who...