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1999 Commonwealth.max

Pennsylvania Women's Campaign Communication: 
A Content Analysis of Brochures 
from 1996 State Assembly Races1 

Stephanie Greco Larson 
Dickinson College 

This paper examines campaign communication of women who ran for the 
Pennsylvania State Assembly in 1996. The statements made in their campaign 
brochures were content analyzed to see if messages in litis medium were 13imilur 
to those identified in the literature about female candidates' television advertis­
ing. Specifically the issues, traits, and attacks mentioned in the brochures were 
examined. Differences between incumbents and challengers, winners and los­
ers, and Democrats, Republicans, and Independents were also examined. 

As elections have become mor~ candidate-centered, campaign adver­
tising has grown in importance. The messages in advertisements have 
become highly scrutinized by politicul scientists, journalists, and con­
sultants. Specifically, attention to the similarities and differences between 
how female and male candidates promote themselves has contributed to 
addressing the question of why there continues to be a relatively small 
number of women in elected office. 

Attention to women's political advertising hus focused primurily on 
the television advertisements of those running for Congress and Gover­
nor (Debelko & Herrnson, 1997; Johnston & White, 1994; Kahn, 1993; 
Kalm, 1994; Proctor et aL, 1994). However, the most impressive gains 
made by women in politics have been at the lower levels of governmenti 
female membership in state legislatures tripled from 1974 to 1994 (Rule, 
1996). Since the lack of women "in the pipeline" is a key explanation for 
women's underrepresentation (Duerst-Lahti, 1998), it is important to 
examine advertising in campaigns for an important political entry point 

the state legislature (Ford & Dolan, 1996). 
Focusing on state legislative races requires examining forms of politi­

cal advertising appropriate to this level of campaign. Theodore Sheckels 
(1994, 324) reminds political communication scholars not to be "mes­
menzed by televIsion, especially when dealing with non-national cam­
paigns." However, despite brochures being a common campaign com-

o munkanon dpV1cf> in 10('al races (Grey, 1994), they have generally gone 
ignored. Only Paul Raymond (1987) has systematically examined bro­
chures, and his analysis does not consider the candidates' gender. There­
fore, there is much to be learned about the messages in female candi­
dates' political brochures. 

56 



1999 Commonwealth.max

There are reasons to suspect that women's communication for lower 
level offices might differ from their advertisements for higher offices. 
Leonard Williams (1998) warns scholars not to assume that women's 
advertising will be the same regardless of the office sought. After all, 
voters' willingness to support female candidates varies by office (Dolan, 
1997) and their expectations for candidates differ by government posi­
tion (Huddy & Terkildsen, 1993). In an effort to give the voters what they 
want, women seeking higher offices might emphasize different issues 
and qualifications than those running for lower level offices. To discuss 
differences between the content of state-level brochures and that of tele­
vision advertising for national offices and governorships, we need to re­
view the findings of research on women's campaign communication. 

Studies repeatedly reveal that women's television campaign adver­
tisements discuss issues more than candidate traits Oohnston & White, 
1994; Kahn, 1994; Kahn & Goldenberg, 1991; Kahn & Gordon, 1997; 
Raymond, 1987). They also discuss "female issues" more than other is­
sues (Kahn, 1993; Kahn & Go:pdon, 1997; Witt et al., 1994), although Kahn 
(1994) shows gubernatorial candidates as an exception to this. "Female 
issues" are those issues for wh.i.dl "wol1.1.en are seen as superior" (Kahn, 
1994,166) and are operationally defined as education, environment, health 
care, family issues, and social welfare. 

Attacks on opponents are infrequent in women's television campaign 
advertising Oohnston & White, 1994; Kahn & Gordon, 1997) perhaps due 
to the reluctance to appear "unladylike" (Witt et al., 1994). However, 
Leonard Williams (1994) found that about one-third of the female senato­
rial candidates whose ads he studied attacked their opponents. When 
women do explicitly critique their opponents, the focus is more likely to 
be on issues rather than candidate qualifications or traits (Benze & Declercq, 
1985b; Johnston & White, 1994; Kahn, 1993; Kalul. & Gordon, 1997). 

In terms of the character traits that women candidates promote, the 
literature is mixed. Early research of women campaigning for the House, 
Senate, and statewide offices indicates that women conform to feminine 
traits stereotypically by promoting warmth and compassion more than 
toughness (Benze & Declercq, 1985a). Williams (1994, 1998) confirmed 
that female Senate candidates stressed feminine traits (especially empa­
thy) more than other h'aits. However, the extensive work of Kim Fridkin 
Kahn (1993; 1994; Kahn & Gordon, 1997) clearly points in the other direc­
tion. This work illustrates that women seeking seats in the U.S. Senate 
and governorships spend more time challenging feminine stereotypes 
than reinforcing them. They emphasize traits like leadership and experi: 
ence rather than honesty, compassion, warmth, trustworthiness, and 
empathy. The level of office could make a difference since "typical femi­
nine traits are considered more suitable for lower or non-elective levels 

57 



1999 Commonwealth.max

of office" (Huddy & Terkildsen, 1993,504). 
This article examines whether these characteristics found in televi­

sion advertising of women running for high-level offices, such as gover­
nor and Senator, were also found in brochure advertiSing of women seek­
ing state-level congressional seats. It does so by examining brochures 
used by women running for the Pennsylvania State Assembly in 1996. 
Pennsylvania is an interesting, but not necessarily representative, place 
to start exploring this question since it has a reputation for being "inhos­
pitable toward women candidates" (Witt et a1., 1994,5) despite the num­
ber of women in the Pennsylvania State Assembly doubling (to 12%) in 
the past two decades (Rule, 1996). If the finding~ from the research on 
women candidates' television advertising hold true for brochures at the 
State Assembly level, then the brochures should: 

1) contain more issue appeals than candidate traits; 
2) emphasize certain issues (those identified as "female issues") over 

nthP! issnE's; 
3) infrequently attack opponents; 
4) emphasize feminine candidate traits more than masculine traits. 

Data and Coding 

Letters asking for copies of campaign brochures were sent to 55 can­
didates running for representative in the General Assembly of Pennsyl­
vania in 1996 who had female names.2 A follow-up letter was sent to 
those who did not send brochures. Of the 55 candidates contacted, 29 
(53%) responded to the letter, with 21 (38%) sending brochures. The other 
eight indicated that they had not used brochures.3 Of the 21 who sent 
brochures: eleven won their elections, ten lost them; 12 were Democrats, 
six were Republicans, and three were Independents; eleven were chal­
lengers and ten were incumbents! Of those who senl brochures, all of 

Table 1 
Relationship between Party and Election Outcome 

Party Loser Winner 

Democrat 50% 50% 
(6) (6) 

Republican 17% 83% 
(1) (5) 

Independent 100% 0% 
(3) (0) 

NOTE: Cell sizes are too small for reliable statistical calculations. 

58 



1999 Commonwealth.max

the incumbents won their elections and only one challenger, a Demo­
crat, won hers.s Table 1 illustrates the relationship between party and 
election outcome. 

Although brochures varied in length, style, professionalism, and 
breadth, they were standard introductory brochures, which focused on 
general appeals introducing the candidate to the general voters, rather 
than targeting messages for specific audiences, like partisans or the eld­
erly. The brochures seemed designed in part to increase name recognition 
since even the shortest brochures mentioned the candidates! name more 
than once. The minimum number of times the candidates! name appeared 
was three and the maximum was 18 with t1;te average being eight. 

One way that the brochures varied was in their use of photographs. 
One candidate did not use any photographs and another used 14. The 
average number of pictures used on a brochure was 2.3 and the mode 
was 1 (10 brochures had one picture). The most common use of photog­
Idphy was to include a sin.gle photo of the candidate (typically a formal 
face shot). Incumbents incfuded photographs of themselves with chil­
dren and senior citizens who were not members of their own families, 
whereas no challengers did. Six candidates included photographs of their 
family; but for only one candidate was this her sole photograph. 

Thirteen of the candidates included some reference to themselves as a 
wife, a mother, and/ or a daughter. Of these 13, ten emphasized this ref­
erence by either including a photograph of her family, making the refer­
ence in bold type or in color, or putting it at the top of her list of qualifi­
cations. The references to being a wife or mother were often explicitly 
linked to governing skills. Por example, one candidate claimed in her list 
of "Reasons to Vote for __ If that "her husband was confined in a wheel­
chair for eight years, she understands the needs of the disabled." More 
Democrats than Republicans included references to their families. In­
cumbents and challengers were equally likely to do so. 

The analysis that follows uses a content analysis of the brochures treat­
ing statements, sometimes referred to here as references or claims, as the 
unit of analysis. Statements were all sentences or sentence fragments that 
appeared on the brochure. All statements were coded by the author for 
"Topic:" Issues, candidate traits (characteristics of the candidate, such as 
honesty or strength), opponent attacks (any criticisms of the opponent 
whether by name or not),6 group references (such as the candidate's identi­
fication with a party or interest group ), candidate qualifications (credentials 
of the candidate, such as public service or motherhood), and other (a re­
sidual category for statements of the "Vote for Candidate __ If nature); 

In addition, all issue references were coded for the specific subject 
discussed and recoded into "female issues," "male issues," and "other" 
using the definition of these which is common in the literature.7 All refer-

59 



1999 Commonwealth.max

ences to candidate traits were coded for the specific lrail menlioneu. TIlese 
traits were recoded into" feminine traits," "masculine traits," and" other" 
generally using Williams' (1994) coding scheme. The background char­
acteristics of the candidate whose brochures contained these statements 
were also coded. These characteristics were: party (Democrat, Republi­
can, or Independent), election outcome (won OI lo::;l), anu cduuiudte ::;ta­
tUB (incumbent or challenger). 

Findings 

The 21 brochures yielded 625 statements. The number for individual 
candidates varied greatly hom six to 68. The average number uf stdte­
ments in a brochure was 12. The overall distribution of appeals is shown 
in the total column of Table 2. Clearly this medium allows ample room 
for candidates to offer multiple messages. 

Similar to television advertising of other female candidates, there were 
more references to issues than other types of appeals. Issue claims (234) 
made up 37% of all statements. Qualifications were the second most fre-

Table 2 
Type of Appeal by Incumbency Status 

Type Challenger Incumbent Total 

Issues 29% 42% 234 
(85) (142) 

Qualification 17% 21% 208 
(85) (69) 

Traits 16% 23% 124 
(85) (78) 

Attack 2% 0% 7 
(85) 

Groups 4% 10% 15 
(85) (32) 

Other 1% 1% 7 
(85) (4) 

Total 293 332 625 

Chi Square 66.8; Cramer's V = .32; Significant at .001 level 
Whpn t],,, sm"l1 ('P11", "re eliminated by omitting 1/ Attack" and "Other:" 

Chi Square 54.3; Cramer's V "" .30; Significant at .001 level 

60 



1999 Commonwealth.max

quent type of reference with 208 (33% of the totnl). There were 124 refer­
ences to character traits (20% of the total) and 45 group references (7% of 
the total). Also similar to television advertising was the lack of attacks on 
opponents. These were very rare (only seven, or 1 %). The average num­
ber of appeals per candidate was: 11.1 for issues, 9.9 for qualifications, 
5.9 [or traits, 2.1 for groups, and .3 for attacks. 

Table 2 also demonstrates the mix of statement types used by chal­
lengers and incumbents. These two groups differed significantly in the 
types of appeals they used. Incumbents were more likely to use issue 
appeals, character traits, and group appeals than challengers were. Chal­
ltmgel's were more likely to discuss their qualjfications and to attack their 
opponents than incumbents were. This could be because challengers lack 
the legitimacy that is inherent in the incumbency status of their oppo­
nents and therefore need to explicitly assert it. Since incumbency and 
winning strongly co-varied (with one exception, a Democratic challenger 

/ Table 3 
Type of Appeal by Party 

Type Democrat Republican Independent Total 

I~~u!:!t> 29% 53% 45% 234 
(lOS) (96) (30) 

Qualification 40% 15% 43% 208 
(152) (27) (29) 

Trails 19% 27% 8% 124 
(70) (49) (5) 

Attack 2% 0% 0% 7 
(7) 

Groups 9% 5% 5% 45 
(33) (9) (3) 

Olher 2% 0% 0% 7 
(7) 

Tolal 377 181 67 625 

Chi Square 7S.2; Cramer's V = .25; Significant at .001 level 
'Wll!:!ll lhe small cells are eliminated by omitting" Attack" and "Other:" 

Chi Square 5S.9; Cramer's V = .22; Significant at .001 level 
When the small cells are eliminated by omitting" Attack/' "Other/' 
and Independent:" 

Chi Square 50.1; Cramer's V = .30; Significant at .001 level 

61 



1999 Commonwealth.max

who won), the observed differences between incumbents a.1lJ challellg­
ers were also true when winners were compared to losers.8 Republicans 
were more likely to make references to issues and character traits, while 
Democrats were more likely to discuss their qualifications, attack oppo­
nents, and make group references (see Table 3). 

Issues-Table 4 illustrates the distribution uf l~::me put:;itiont; taken in 
the brochures.9 The most frequent was education with 38 mentions (18% 
of the total number of issue references). The second most frequent was 
taxes (29 mentions, 14%), then health care (19 mentions, 9%), and crime 
(18 mentions, 9%). These specific issues were grouped according to 
whether or not they fit the definition of "felmtle ,it;t;ues" broadly defined 
in the literature as issues that have a nurturing aspect to them (including 
health care, education, welfare, children, environment, etc.) or "male is­
sues" (including jobs, economy, taxes, agriculture, crime, and foreign af-

Table 4 
I Type of Issue Statements 

Number 
"Female" Issues 
Education 38 
Health Care 19 
Welfare 16 
Environment 8 
Children's issues 6 
Women's rights 3 
Other Ii 

Total 95 

"Male" Issues 
Taxes 29 
Crime 18 
Jobs 12 
Economics 11 
Transportation 8 
Farming 4 
Other ,2 

Total 87 

Othel' 
Government Organization 20 
Worker compo / min. wage 8 
Other 1 

Total 29 

62 

Percentage 

18% 
9% 
8% 
4% 
3% 
1% 
2% 

45% 

14% 
9% 
6% 
5% 
4% 
2% 
2% 

42% 

10% 
4% 
1% 

15% 



1999 Commonwealth.max

fairs). There were slightly more references to "female issues" (95 or 45% ) 
than "male" (87 or 42%). Although the difference between the two was 
not large (48% "male" compared to 52% "female" when "other issues" 
were omitted), it is in the direction identified by the television advertis­
ing literature (Kahn, 1993; Kahn & Gordon, 1997). 

There were no significant differences in terms of the types of issues 
used ("women's" or "men's") when challengers were compared to incum­
bents, winners were compared to losers, and Democrats, Republicans, and 
Independents were compared to each other.'° The only significant differ­
ence appears between Democratic winners and losers. Democratic win­
ners were more likely to discuss "female issues" than "male issues" (see 
Table 5). This finding might demonstrate the benefit that Democratic 
women have of playing to an agenda both in keeping with their gender 
stereotypes and, to some extent, assumptions about their party. 

Opponent Critiques-The infrequency of opponent critiques (7, only 
1 % of all references) conform to the literature, which indicates that women 

/ 
Table 5 

Relationship between Election Income and 
Type of Issues Discussed among Democrats 

Type of Issue 

"Female" 

"Male" 

Cramer's V=.22 
Significant at .05 level 

Election Outcome 
Loser Winner 

39% 
(14) 

61% 
(22) 

61% 
(30) 

39% 
(19) 

do not frequently attack Gohnston & White, 1994; Kahn & Gordon, 1997). 
Even when the brochures, rather than claims within them, were used as 
the unit of analysis, the frequency of attacks (present in ::I out of 21 bro­
chures or one-seventh) falls short of Williams' (1994, 1998) one-third. 

All of the attacks coded here were made by Democratic challengers 
who lost. Two of these candidates did not name their opponents. One of 
these two simply implied that there was something wrong with the in­
cumbent by saying that people should vote for someone who is "Caring 
... for a change." The other noted that she was the" only candidate in~the 
__ district with a deep business background." A third candidate re­
printed a local newspaper article in her brochure, which contained five 
attacks on her opponent. On the surface, using a newspaper article to 

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1999 Commonwealth.max

introduce opponent criticism is in keeping with advice that candidates 
can avoid backlash by having others launch attacks. A closer look at this 
brochure indicates that the advice was not taken since the article repro­
duced includes comments made by the candidate criticizing her oppo­
nent (for policy positions and his support for his own pay raise). Over­
alt the minimal number of references to opponents was predictable given 
the television advertising research, but the nature of the criticisms were 
not since they went beyond issue critiques. The small number of candi­
dates who made these critiques and the unsuccessfulness of their cam­
paigns should curtail any sweeping interpretation of what this says about 
office-level differences in negative campaigning. 

Traits-Character traits were coded into 14 different categories. ll The 
most common of these categories was "hardworking," which included 27 
references (22%). The second most frequent category was "caring" (20, 
16%). When incumbents and challengers were compared, differences of 
five percent or greater existed for four traits. A larger percentage of chal­
lengers' claims were about their strength (11 % vs. 4% for incumbents) and 
expertise (11 % vs. 6% for incumbents), while incumbents more frequently 
mentioned their activeness (9% vs. 4% for challengers) and caring (19% 
VS. 11% for challengers). The gap for mentioning caring was even larger 
for winners and losers (20% of winners' traits fell into the "caring" cat­
egory compared to 10% for losers). No losers included claims of indepen­
dence whereas 6% of the winners' traits claimed fell in this category. 

When the traits promoted by candidates of different parties were com­
pared, Independents differed from members of the major parties. Only 
three of the 14 traits were claimed by Independents: expertise (60%), 
honesty (20%), and hard work (20%). Independents discussed their ex­
pertise much more than others since these claims made up only 6% of 
those offered by Democrats and Republicans. Republicans and Demo­
crats differed by more than 5% in the following categories: leadership 
(with Democrats mentioning this more often, 17% to 8%), activity (with 
Republicans mentioning this more often, 14% to 3%), caring (comprising 
20% for Republicans and only 14% for Democrats), and hard work (with 
Democrats claiming this quality in 29% of their traits mentioned com­
pared to 12% for Republicans). To some extent these messages seem to 
be contradicting negative pa.rty stereotypes (such as Republicans being 
uncaring). 

Traits were recoded into categories used by Williams (1994) in his study 
of female Senate candidates' television advertising. These categories in­
cluded: compassion, empathy, integrity, activity, strength, knowledge, 
and a residual group. Williams argued that compassion and empathy 
were the feminine traits; strength, activity, and knowledge were the mas­
culine ones; and integrity was neither. Since all of the traits categorized 

64 



1999 Commonwealth.max

Table 6 
Type of Trait Appeal 

Number Percentage 
"Feminine Traits" 
Compassion 20 16% Includes: caring 
Empalhy 6 5% Iudwl~~; l:uup~ri:ttl ve, 

open to learn, outsider 
Integrity 12 10% Includes: honesty 

38 31% 

"Masculine Traits" 
Activity 40 32% / Includes: hard work, 

effectiveness, excitement 
Strength 29 23% Includes: independent, 

strong, leader 
Knowledge 10 8% Includes: expertness 

79 / 63% 

"Other" 
Other 7 6% includes: thritty, hopeful, 

proud 

here as integrity were about honesty, a characteristic identified by Kahn 
(1993; 1994) as fitting feminine candidate stereotypes, it will be coded as 
such here. Table 6 demonstrates the prevalence of each type of trait. Even 
counting the integrity category as feminine, masculine traits appeared 
more than twice as often as feminine traits (64% mmparf'd to::l1 %). Thf'Sf' 
results contrast sharply with Williams' results that showed 62% of the 
traits claimed by women Senators in their television advertisements were 
feminine compared to 27% that were masculine. These findings are much 
more consistent with the findings of Kahn (1994, 108) which were that 
81 % of the traits claimed by gubernatorial candidates and 78% of those 
claimed by Senate candidates were masculine.12 The results fail to con­
firm the expectation that women competing for lower level offices would 
be more likely to emphaSize feminine traits and instead reinforce the 
idea that women advertise against type in order to conform to masculine 
stereotypes of leadership. This conformity appears "acroflfl-the-board," 
as there were no significant differences in the frequency of claiming "fe­
male" versus "male" traits when candidates from different parties, with 
different election outcomes, and different status - incumbents or chal­
lengers - were comparedY 

Conclusions 

Campaign brochures of women running for the Pennsylvania State 

65 



1999 Commonwealth.max

Assembly in 1996 conveyed messages that in many ways were similar to 
those found in television campaign advertising for higher offices. They 
promoted issues more than other appeals, rarely critiqued their oppo­
nents, and focused slightly more on "female issues." I Iowever, IllOre traits 
claimed were masculine lending support to Kahn's work (1993; 1994) 
rather than the work of others (Benze & Declercq, 1985a; Williams, 1994). 

The great range of appeals used in the brochures demonstrates how 
this form of campaign communication gives candidates an opportunity 
to take positions on many issues and dern.onslrate both masculine and 
feminine traits. Candidates do not seem to treat campaigning through 
brochures as a zero-sum game, thus forcing them to choose between ap­
peals. In this way, brochures are a very different form of communication 
than television ads, which are much more expensive and brief. The scar­
city of television ad time provides less flexibility for making multiple 
appeals. In these brochures, rather than choose between appeals (femi­
nine or masculine, this kind of issue or that kind, issues or not), candi­
dates make variety of claims. Nevedheless, for the most part the empha­
sis in women's ads follows that of television advertising: emphasis on 
issues, few opponent attacks, and more masculine traits than feminine. 

Notes 

1. The author would like to thank Martha Bailey, Kathy Dolan, James 
Hoefler, Stephanie Slocum-Shaffer, and the reviewers for their sugges­
tions. She would also like to express appreciation to Vickie Kuhn for her 
invaluable help acquiring the brochures and to the women candidates 
who provided them. An earlier version of this article was presented at 
the Southwestern Political Science Association Meeting in March 1998. 

2. The names and addresses were obtained from the "Official Results 
for the 1996 Geneml Dlection" issued by the Perms y 1 v anLa Bureau of Com­
missions, Elections, and Legislation. Only individuals with clearly iden­
tifiable female names were sent letters. Those with androgynous names 
(such as Pat, Chris, and Tracy) were not contacted, even though women 
were among this group. 

3. It is likely that some of the WOInen who did noL reply uiu nut issue 
brochures due to a lack of resources or a lack of competition. Therefore, 
it would be inappropriate to consider the response rate 38%. 

4. Of the 55 candidates with female names who were running, 25 won. 
Thirty were Democrats, 21 were Republicans, and foUl' were Independents; 
therefore, Republican candidates were underrepreseuLeu in the :;ample. 

5. This means that 100% of the references made by "losers" were made 
by challengers and 92% of the comments made by "winners" were made 
by incumbents. 

66 



1999 Commonwealth.max

6. These included references for voters to "make a change." 
7. It is important to note that the theoretical justification for this di­

chotomy is underdeveloped despite its frequent usage. In fact, the con­
tinued assumption that traits and issues are gendered might reinforce 
unfounded stereotypes. This article does not address or rectify this po­
tential problcm since thc focus on comparing State Assembly brochures 
to the literature on television advertising necessitates use of the same 
concepts and definitions. 

8. The relationship between appeal types and winner / loser is Chi 
square 53.3; Cramer's V= .29; Significant at .001 level. When "attack" 
and "other" were omitted, the relationship ~s Chi Square 41; Cramer's V 
= .26; Significant at .001 level. 

9. Of the 234 issue statements, 23 could not be coded because they 
were too vague. 

10. Even when the "neither" category was excluded from the analy­
sis, these differences remained insignificant. When Democrats and Re 
publicans were compared artd Independents were excluded, there was 
still no significant difference. 

11. These were: independent, strong (or aggressive, fighter, tough, 
courageous, assertive), leader (or experienced, proven, respected), knowl­
edgeable (or intelligent, expert, know how, informed, thoughtful, well 
traveled), active (or involved, outspoken, tireless, feisty, energetic), car­
ing (or empathetic, listens, concerned, accessible, works for you, respon­
sive, or can be counted on), outsider / new, honest (or trustworthy, reli­
able, keeps promises, integrity, principled, ethical, or responSible), coop­
erative/coalition builder, learns (or open-minded, nonidcological), ex­
cited (or eager, spirited, enthusiastic), effective / gets results, hardworking 
(or industrious, committed, studies), and other (hopeful, thrifty, orga­
nized, proud, or ready). 

12. We need to recognize that Kahn did not have a neutral category. 
When references coded as "other" are omitted from the brochures calcu­
lation, 68% of the traits claimed were "masculine." 

13. Nor were there significant differences when "other" traits were ex­
cluded from the analysis and when Independent candidates were omitted. 

14. Nor were there Significant differences when "other" traits were ex­
cluded from the analysis and when Independent candidates were omitted. 

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