Gendered personalization in economic news media coverage: Analyzing the presentation of female and male CEOs

This paper takes a gender perspective on personalization, i.e., the shift in media portrayals from institutions to individual actors, in the media coverage of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs). Using mediatization, social role, and role congruity theories, we examine gendered personalization in U.S. newspaper reporting. A quantitative content analysis of 304 articles from The New York Times and USA Today published between January 2023 and December 2024, covering 20 Fortune 500 CEOs (10 women and 10 men), yielded 331 mentions of CEOs. Our findings reveal that male CEOs appear slightly more frequently in the news and that reporting on them emphasizes external, strategic, and political issues, while female CEOs are more often linked to internal, people-oriented topics, such as management and human resources. Both genders are primarily portrayed in professional contexts, with few references to their private lives or appearances. Furthermore, we found that companies with female CEOs are evaluated more negatively than those with male CEOs, suggesting a negativity bias against female-led companies. Overall, our study indicates that traditional gendered coverage persists in business news. At the same time, the absence of overt gender-based personalization suggests a more professionalized portrayal of corporate leadership in business news today; however, given the cross-sectional design, this remains indicative rather than conclusive.