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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF LINGUISTICS & CULTURES OF ENGLISH SPEAKING COUNTRIES GRADUATION PAPER MEDIA REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN POLITICAL LEADERS AT SENIOR LEVEL IN VIETNAM Supervisor: Lê Thị Thủy, Ph.D Student: Vũ Thị Bình Minh Course: QH2013 F1 E1 HA NOI – 2018 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA NGƠN NGỮ VÀ VĂN HĨA CÁC NƯỚC NĨI TIẾNG ANH KHỐ LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP HÌNH ẢNH LÃNH ĐẠO NỮ CẤP CAO VIỆT NAM TRÊN TRUYỀN THÔNG Giáo viên hướng dẫn: TS Lê Thị Thủy Sinh viên: Vũ Thị Bình Minh Khố: QH2013 F1 E1 HÀ NỘI – NĂM 2018 ACCEPTANCE I hereby state that I: Vu Thi Binh Minh, QH.2013.F1.E1, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL), accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of the study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan, and reproduction of the paper Signature Date i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank those who supported me over the time I conducted this graduation paper Without their assistance and wisdom, my study would not have been completed First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Ms Le Thi Thuy for her heartfelt encouragement, guidance as well as her timely and detailed feedback for every stage of the study Additionally, I truly appreciate Ms Hoang Thi Hanh for her thorough guidance and consultation and comments on the research proposal and progress reports I am also grateful for my dear friend Tuan Quang for his invaluable support in finding literature and resources for the study, as well as his benign emotional support during one of the toughest times of my personal life Last but not least, I am grateful for the noble lecturers at University of Languages and International Studies, Universitas Indonesia, Freie Universitat Berlin and University of Social Sciences and Humanities for their subtle yet vital influence They have provided me with background knowledge, conceptual and research skills and above all, inspired me to have confidence and find love in pursuing knowledge and engaging in academic research ii ABSTRACT Women‟s participation in politics, as a vital part of women empowerment, cannot be shown through mere percentages The actual performance and influence that women can deliver are what matter This could be partially discovered via media portrayal of them, which has been research topic of various studies worldwide In this study titled “Media representation of senior women political leaders at senior level in Vietnam”, the researcher investigates the situation in the context of Vietnamese media Different from the approach of previous research, this paper narrowed the scope to look more closely at top women leaders in top-rated online newspapers in Vietnam during a period of one and a half years serving in their positions Content analysis and thematic analysis were combined to scan for main themes and key words that make up the picture of senior women leaders in Vietnam, both visually and politically The analyses revealed a lack of proper and insightful coverage of women leaders and a generic format in reporting their work The leaders were mainly portrayed as goodwill ambassadors in international relations missions, tacklers of social issues and supporters of Vietnamese women They were seen in the traditional feminine ao dai, acting on behalf of the nation and always busy working for the people The identity they bear was not their own, but one of the nations and the people The overwhelming majority of articles put these leaders under overly positive lights, making them almost flawless humans Last but not least, in terms of political themes, they were associated the most with “role model” and “equality advocates” The peculiarities of the state-owned media sphere of Vietnam, as well as traditional expectations, might account for these results iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACCEPTANCE PAGE i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the study 1.2 Statement of research problem and questions 1.3 Scope of the study 1.4 Significance of the study 1.5 Organisation of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Key concepts 2.1.1 Media representation 2.1.2 Women political leaders at senior level in Vietnam 10 2.2 Related studies 10 2.2.1 International studies 11 2.2.2 Vietnamese studies 13 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH DESIGN 15 3.1 Sampling 15 3.2 Data collection 17 3.3 Data analysis 18 3.3.1 Content analysis 19 3.3.2 Thematic analysis 19 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION iv 21 4.1 Overview of data 21 4.1.1 Number of articles 21 4.1.2 Source of articles 23 4.2 General characteristics of articles 24 4.2.1 Length and structure 24 4.2.2 Language choice 26 4.2.3 Coverage of women leaders in each article 27 4.2.4 Headlines, sub-headlines, and topics 27 4.3 Case analysis 31 4.3.1 Miss A 32 4.3.2 Miss D 36 4.3.3 Miss C 39 4.3.4 Miss H 41 4.3.5 Miss B 44 4.3.6 Miss G 46 4.4 Political representation 47 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 50 5.1 Findings and implications 50 5.2 Limitations and suggestions for further research 52 REFERENCES APPENDIX v LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Table Background information on subjects 16 Table Newspapers and Internet traffic ranking 17 Table Articles by website 21 Table Articles by subject 22 Table Source of articles 23 Table Coverage level in each article 27 Table Article topics 28 Table Visual representation – Miss A 33 Table Visual representation – Miss D 37 Table 10 Visual representation – Miss C 39 Table 11 Visual representation – Miss H 42 Table 12 Visual representation – Miss B 45 Table 13 Visual representation – Miss G 46 Table 14 Frequency of political representation themes by female politician 47 Figure Data collection flowchart 18 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CPV Communist Party of Vietnam IPU Inter-Parliamentary Union NA National Assembly ODA Official Development Aid SDG Sustainable Development Goals UNDP United Nations Development Program VGP Vietnamese Government Portal VIP(s) Very Important Person(s) VNA Vietnam News Agency VNS Vietnam News vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the study Increasing women's political participation is a focal area of social work of the United Nations and many other international non-profit and civil society organisations The highest level of participation - leadership positions are of particular importance (UNDP, 2013) Holding vital political leadership positions, women can directly affect systematic and institutional changes This means that policy reforms towards gender equality will be more practical and effective if more women can participate and are acknowledged amply in the political sphere (Ross & Sreberny, 1997) In many developed nations, many famous women leaders have recently received a significant amount of press coverage, namely, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Korea Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook or US presidential candidate Hilary Clinton, and so on In Vietnam, a developing nation where the society values patriarchal hierarchies, women have been out of the political game for many years (Barry, 1996) The country, nevertheless, is striving to attain gender equality in recent years Vietnam's legal framework has included many points regarding gender equality and a specific section dedicated to women's political representation The world average's percentage of women in parliament and congress is 20.3%, and that figure in Vietnam is 24.4% (UNDP, 2013) This means that women represent a numerical minority in politics worldwide as well as in Vietnam Even though Vietnam‟s figure is above average, it should be noted that this figure does not reflect the reality of women‟s participation In fact, the position of Head of State or Prime Minister of Vietnam has never been a woman, and there are currently only women serving in senior political positions (VOV, 2016) Out of these women, one is the first ever The actions with which she is recorded are speeches, patient visit trips and one interview after the scandal she was involved in Accordingly, she is portrayed along with patients, doctors and on her own on appropriate occasions As a leader, she gives orders to agencies within the management of Health Ministry to deal with issues in the system as well as maintain good healthcare services for the people Her actions show that she is a dedicated leader and cares about doctors and patients She is closer to normal people as she often has trips to hospitals to deal with any arisen problems on the spot Lastly, she is also reported to receive a certificate of visiting scholar from the University of Oxford, which is a prestigious recognition for her medical knowledge and ability as a doctor The whole image is overwhelmingly positive, yet there is one time she was involved in a scandal relating to her family's property and pharmaceutical company's wrongdoing The newspaper only reports that she denied any correlation with the illegal activities and gives no further result of the investigation, which is not transparent Prominent themes and key words H is described as a female leader with strong words and actions She often "orders" hospitals and other agencies to improve certain areas of work, requires that certain things "must be done", "requests" hospitals to take patients in with no sharing beds, "urgently asks" others to get tough on solving attacks on medical staff, and "orders tougher measures" to be taken She is "upset" about unfortunate incidents, "makes a request" or "propose" to change laws regarding smoking and tobacco and consuming alcohol Her statements often involve stating the current situation, explaining the reason for an ongoing rising number of deaths or diseases and then proposing an immediate change in legislation As a leader in the execution of healthcare work, she seems to be under a lot of pressure and has to take responsibility and acts on the spot should any serious incidents in the treatment of patients happen or public health administration goes wrong A representative paragraph is: 43 The health minister cited the million people dying every year due to smoking-related diseases in the world and called on local people to stop smoking to protect their own and other people's health She also urged for strengthening the Law on Prevention and Control of Tobacco Harms in localities nationwide In “Health minister calls on tightened measures to curb smoking” – Dantri 29/5/2017 In another series of articles, the Health Minister makes a lot of public "claims" to correct healthcare-related information to the public, she also "vows" to improve national medical service In one occasion only, she denies her involvement in a pharmaceutical scandal The key words associated with Tien have shown that she is a determined person, who takes immediate actions when a problem arises, and takes responsibility for problems She is rather outspoken and is not afraid to regularly propose legislative changes She has more of a personality and shows herself more clearly in her words and actions than the remaining subjects of this study She is not afraid to be fierce, even though social expectations of ladies not really favor a person with personalities and attitudes like her Although she does not publicly advocate for women leaders, she is showing herself as a strong and capable one 4.3.5 Miss B As the head of mass mobilisation commission as well as the Secretary of the Party Central, B is the only woman working directly under the Central Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) There are articles in which B is mentioned Her position is rather high and important to the State, yet her work is not reported regularly in newspapers and she is also not very well known by the public Title /Position She is addressed to her full position in only one headline, and the others not put her full name or positions in the headline In the text, she is referred to with 44 her name and her position There is nothing outstanding about this aspect of representation Visual representations What? Count Sit at delegation table Signing MOU With whom? With VIP / officials Alone No photos (articles) Table 12 Visual representation – Miss B The most noticeable thing about B‟s visual representation is that she is almost invisible When she sits in a table with a lot of people, she cannot be clearly distinguished and she is not on her own in any photos She is under-represented in terms of her image, which is the easiest thing that the audience could remember Prominent themes and key words B is involved with some international relations work, especially "party ties" and strengthening the relationship with nations that have similar ruling Party as Vietnam She presents to the world her Party's wishes, which is ensuring effective collaboration and exchange of the Party members and experience She repeatedly "emphasises," "stresses," and "affirms" her appreciation of the traditional partnership, thanking the former allies in the past of Vietnam and "expresses her hope" for further collaboration She represents the Communist Party of Vietnam and "the people of Vietnam." She also takes actions and gives comments according to the agenda of the Party and the wishes of the State There are not many differences from the themes covered for subject A, D, and C Her representation, in general, is very vague and lacking in details 45 4.3.6 Miss G With only two articles in one and a half years, the Chairwoman of National Assembly‟s Ombudsman Committee is under-represented during her term Her name is not mentioned in the titles of two articles, and it is rather difficult to even search for articles relating to her both in Vietnamese and English versions of online newspapers She is in charge of collecting and responding to voters' request and queries regarding Vietnamese law and other social issues Her report on the work of the Ombudsman makes up the content of the two articles Visual representations What? Count Speech with podium With whom? With VIP / officials Alone No photos (articles) Table 13 Visual representation – Miss G G is portrayed in the traditional dress ao dai and her appearance at a podium about the voters‟ wishes and how the committee has tried to summarise and send to the National Assembly The NA can consult normal citizens‟ opinions via the work of G Her work is not covered in newspaper It should be noted that this committee has never been formed before, which might explain the rarity of articles on the topic Prominent themes and key words In the articles, G does not directly say or propose changes in legislation but rather let the report of the Ombudsman speak for her She speaks on behalf of normal citizens and just focuses on reporting their concern, as well as reminding and 46 requesting relevant offices in government to resolve issues that are raised by voters The recommendations set by the report are quite detailed, and the whole article is dedicated to G Still, G's representation is rather vague and does not have anything outstanding 4.4 Political representation Political representation Descriptive Substantive representation representation Role Subject model A 53% D Novelty Equality Agents of advocates change Total 10% 25% 12% 100% (54) 75% 0% 25% 0% 100% (34) C 65% 0% 35% 0% 100% (26) H 76% 0% 0% 24% 100% (26) B 100% 0% 0% 0% 100% (6) G 0% 0% 0% 100% 100% (2) Total 55% 5% 23% 17% 100% (148) Table 14 Frequency of political representation themes by female politician Some main themes and key words have been covered in case analysis to partially reveal the main areas of work and the general tendency in actions and speeches of each subject However, a more insightful approach to all subjects using the categorisation of political representations into descriptive and substantive representations is offered in Figure 15 This theory is applied to representative democracy, which means the candidates or politicians are voted because they can meet the demands and requests of the people who vote for them These two types of representation are contrary While substantive representation is the tendency of 47 elected legislators to represent the “expressed preferences of their constituencies or the nation as a whole,” descriptive representation refers to "descriptive characteristics that are politically relevant, such as geographical area of birth, occupation, ethnicity, or gender" (Verge & Pastor, 2017) In Figure 15, it can be observed that the representation of all subjects leans more towards the side of descriptive representation In this case, their gender is the starting point for the themes of “role model” and “novelty” in the political system Even though novelty is only emphasised in the case of A, she is the first woman politician to reach the highest position in legislation and the fact that she was elected is celebrated and congratulated upon by many international friends The majority of all occurrences of political representation are about the role model This theme is shown throughout more than half of all articles The women leaders are role models, manifested through the way they dress, the way they talk, the way they make decisions, and the way they behave in formal occasions They never make mistakes, and they are always busy They participate actively in promoting good causes to help develop a greater nation They are also wearing the national symbol ao dai and behaving appropriately and accordingly to the traditional expectations of Vietnamese society for women In terms of substantive representation, the women leaders are proving to be very active and passionate equality advocates in their speeches and calling for women to participate more in the global movement Subjects participate in women leaders' summit and discuss ways to increase the percentage of women political participation As they themselves are the pioneers of success, of the change to come in politics, they call on other women to follow them This theme goes along well with the theme "agents of change." However, this aspect is not shown very clearly in the articles surveyed in this study Only A, H, and G actually give out the proposal to change the laws and persuade other agencies to understand the take their proposal into consideration H is very strong in her attitude and wants to introduce tougher 48 measures to ensure the health of people G is in charge of a totally new committee in the National Assembly and has started to bring people's voices and requests closer to the government and policymaker 49 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 5.1 Findings and implications This study has looked into the media portrayal of a growing minority group that is getting empowered in the future to come Some results are similar to previous studies and some new findings are also identified The new women leaders in the political system of Vietnam are in charge of very different positions and are portrayed in different lights in the media, as described above To summarise all elements of leaders into just several points is not easy In general, senior women leaders are lacking in media representation, proven by the fact that out of subjects are not covered at all in 1,5 years, as well as other leaders with just under articles in the same period The coverage they receive in each article is also surprisingly low, with most of them being described in less than half of the whole text They are mainly associated with international relations work, showing the country‟s willingness to expand cooperation with other entities, as well as women empowerment and tackling social issues As regards the main trends in their actual representation, there are several points as follows The first finding is the more feminine ways they are referred to and the traditional ao dai that is worn by them on most occasions Second, they are all very friendly and take formal actions, they have glorified images of important persons who stand higher than normal people, attend official meetings, and only work alongside VIPs Third, they are possessing both the collective identity, that is, the Vietnamese national identity and their individual identity, but their individual identity seems to be hidden with little information revealing their private lives Fourth, they are portrayed in overly positive lights and seem to make no mistakes or say anything that is foolish or irrelevant Fifth, as they are the top leaders of the nation, they are portrayed as busy, responsible, consistent in their actions and assertive in their speech Finally, senior women leaders in Vietnam are found to be 50 associated mostly with political representation as the role model and equality advocates To further discuss the findings of this study, a comparison with previous research on the same topic is offered As the paper focuses on new senior women leaders in Vietnam, the results are given in greater details alongside with some background information on each subject The researcher has also included information on source, structure and language choice of the articles, which explain the main voice behind the portrayal and how repetitive, rigid and shallow the approach in describing the subjects is Besides, the study has taken on a more unique approach than available research on the topic in Vietnam with a smaller sample size and subject choice as well as a more neutral approach than "gender stereotypes" as used by Vu et al (2017) Another new point is that visual representation via photos in each article is also taken into account and treated alongside texts and complement the final findings This is a different aspect of bigger projects in Vietnam and abroad When compared to international research, the paper‟s main difference is that media in Vietnam does not give comments on the leaders‟ appearance and does not mention their personal lives at all This is because personal lives of political figures in Vietnam are not often mentioned in mainstream media Other important gaps are the style of commentary and the candidacy campaign While politicians in many other countries can be commented by reporters from different political perspectives and different news agencies‟ agenda, there is no commentary on leaders in Vietnam Besides, a publicised candidacy campaign to win votes is characteristic of nations like the US, the UK, Australia or European countries, which leads to a viral discussion on the candidacy before the election and how they fulfil their promises after the victory This is non-existent in Vietnamese political sphere, so the news coverage before and after an election on how a politician performs is also missing 51 Much as the women in leadership positions are celebrated as the new factor to represent women in power, the ways they are portrayed call for further reasoning on what brought to this kind of portrayal First, there are social expectations concerning how a news reporter writes about women leaders The leaders are painted according to the expectations and wishes of the readers, with good merits, responsibility, grace and a traditional look Second, the uniqueness of media of Vietnam, as shown in sources of the articles reveal that no private media is authorised to write anything about these political figures Newspapers can only take sources from governmental pages, or the content will be controlled to some extent by the owners of the newspapers, which are also governmental agencies This leads to the third point of discussion concerning the "painter of the picture," which is no one else rather than the government itself Its voice is reflected in these articles, and the content conveys its own intention to portray their officers in certain ways This happens not just for a female but also for a male politician, and these have resulted in a repetitive manner in producing articles, as well as a perceived lack of details, opinions, and commentaries 5.2 Limitations and suggestions for further research The limitation of this study is the scope of the study With available free tools and time constraints, the results are the only representative of a period of 1.5 years, with subjects of senior leaders and newspapers Another shortcoming is the news source If there is more advanced tool and time to research, the sample should be expanded to look into the reservoir of traditional printed newspaper with more detailed content and has a guaranteed traceability Lastly, the method of taking notes for each newspaper articles is rather time-consuming and could not be used with bigger samples Further research in the future on the same topic is recommended to look into multimedia sources such as videos, television, or radio If the research is done on 52 newspaper source, printed and widely circulated versions of the articles should be collected and investigated to give a more comprehensive description of women leaders in Vietnam If there is financial support, texts should be treated using specific scanning software so that data could be analyzed more quickly and 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NGỮ KHOA NGƠN NGỮ VÀ VĂN HĨA CÁC NƯỚC NĨI TIẾNG ANH KHỐ LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP HÌNH ẢNH LÃNH ĐẠO NỮ CẤP CAO VIỆT NAM TRÊN TRUYỀN THÔNG Giáo viên hướng dẫn: TS Lê Thị Thủy Sinh viên: Vũ Thị Bình Minh Khố:... Tuoi Tre News Ho Minh 31st in Vietnam Chi Communist 9th in Vietnam Youth Union of Ho Chi Minh City VietNamNet Ministry Information of 22nd in Vietnam 12th in Vietnam and Communication Table Newspapers... audience in Vietnam 16 Online news Owner site Rank by Rank by Cimigo Alexa.com report (March 2018) (December 2010) Dan Tri Vietnam Association 16th in Vietnam International for 3rd in Vietnam Study