Are byline biases an issue of the past? The effect of author’s gender and emotion norm prescriptions on the evaluation of news articles on gender equality

Abstract

When female journalists write about issues of gender equality, they often become the target of incivility and their work is devaluated. Research has investigated such devaluations based on journalists’ gender under the scope of byline biases, analysing if it matters to readers whether a news piece is authored by a male or female journalist. In this paper, we set out to study if gender byline biases occur when journalists write about gender equality. As gender attributions become particularly salient through the presentation of gendered emotion norms, we also inquire in how it matters for readers’ interest in reading such an article and the attributed credibility of the author when an article prescribes gender-specific emotions. We report findings from two consecutive experimental studies, manipulating gender bylines and emotion norm prescriptions and include reader gender as a quasi-experimental factor. Our findings show that gender byline biases against female authors are depending on content and context characteristics and only become activated when gender cues are clearly visible. At the same time, we found a tendency to judge female authors as more credible for topics on gender equality, which (partly) mitigated negative effects on reading intention for female authors. The prescription of emotion norms did not further strengthen biases against female authors. Our study opens the path for further investigations into the question when gender bylines are activated and underlines the challenges for female journalists’ visibility when they address controversial issues such as gender equality.