ITALIAN FEMALE MINISTERS: A TEST FOR THE CELEBRITY POLITICS?

Abstract

The so-called celebrity politics is a well-known general and global phenomenon, common to most Western democracies. The celebrity politicians have become leading actors in tabloids, gossip magazines and entertainment TV programs. The paper aims at investigating the impact of those developments on wo-men politicians and attempts at evaluating if they are advantaged or disadvantaged by the increasing celebritization of politics. By referring to the case of the Italian female ministers and through a content analysis of the most read Italian gossip magazine, the paper tests the hypotheses that female ministers receive more coverage than their male colleagues and that this coverage gives more space to trivial details, like appearance