Opinion commentary from pundits on TV panel shows have become a mainstay of the American media. These programs are known to have an influence on how people view government and politics, and so who panelists are and how they are treated during discussions is important. In new research which examined over 6,000 panel-style conversations on 26 programs, Daniel Naftel, Jon Green, Kelsey Shoub, Skyler Cranmer find that the typical panel discussion is nearly 70 percent male, and less than half include a person of color. In addition, when programs are centered around debate and most of the panelists are men, women speak less.

Modern American television is dominated by opinion content. Prized for its relatively low cost and ability to attract viewers, cable and broadcast news programs frequently bring on large panels of political pundits to provide real-time reactions to current events, debate policies, and offer subject expertise to viewers. While these panel-style segments are frequently derided by some in the media as “cheap-shot yelling matches” and lampooned by shows such as Saturday Night Live, they have become one of the most prominent ways in which political elites interact with one another and communicate their views to the public, reaching millions of Americans per day through direct viewership and their online re-circulation.

Pundits’ influence on audiences

Political scientists find that the way that these television pundits interact with one another can have substantial effects on audiences. Exposure to the style of aggressive, “in your face” debates featured on shows like Hannity and Hardball can erode political trust and respect for opposing viewpoints (while being more engaging than more sober alternatives). We also know who appears on these shows matters. Research on political decision-making bodies, such as Congress and the Supreme Court, shows that women’s visible representation can improve the public’s views of government and politics and provides important diversity in preferences and perspectives, while women’s underrepresentation can lead women to speak less and be interrupted more than their male counterparts.

Recent reports from the Women’s Media Center highlight the lack of women on political talk shows, but we know far less about how the women who do appear on these shows are actually treated. Are female pundits able to speak with the same authority and respect as men, or are they often cut off and interrupted?

To understand the scale of gender (in)equality in televised opinion content, we analyzed over 6,000 panel-style conversations on 26 of the most-watched cable and broadcast news programs of the past two decades, which aired on ABC, CNN, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, and Fox. Given the scale of our data, we can observe pundits who appear on a variety of segments throughout their careers, allowing us to identify the types of conversations where women are more likely to achieve parity with men.

TV panel discussions are overwhelmingly white and male

Using this unique data set, we first echo prior studies, finding a stunning lack of representation. The typical panel discussion is nearly 70 percent male (not including the show hosts, who are also overwhelmingly men), and less than half of these discussions include at least one person of color. Only one percent of panels did not include a male guest vs. 20 percent which were male-only.

We also find that this numerical underrepresentation interacts with the increasingly hostile, debate-driven nature of many TV news programs to influence how often women’s voices are heard.

Previous work finds that men and women come into political discussions facing different expectations about their voice and authority. While men are often rewarded for assertive and aggressive styles of communication, women who speak this way are often viewed as less competent and likable and are more likely to be cut off by other speakers. However, the power of these gendered stereotypes are thought to be shaped by both the gender composition of the group, and the rules governing the discussion. In formal deliberative bodies operating under majority rule, scholars find that increasing the number of women can empower each woman in the deliberating group to speak more. This relationship is less consistent under a consensus rule, as the rules protect the voices of those in the minority.

The unwritten rules of TV panel discussions

Although most televised political opinion shows aren’t designed to pass laws or to make other sorts of binding resolutions, they are still governed by norms and procedures that determine how the discussion plays out. In new research, we categorize the 26 shows in our study based on the outward manifestations of these invisible rules.

“Anderson Cooper, Abby Phillip & Scott Je” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Gage Skidmore

These rules are often integral to a show’s brand and reinforced by the hosts who typically act as moderators. Shows like All In with Chris Hayes, Hannity, The Ingraham Angle, and The O’Reilly Factor often resemble majoritarian systems where the primary goal is to win—guests are frequently invited on to represent a particular party or viewpoint and encouraged by the host to engage in hostile and dramatic debates. Other shows like Face the Nation, Meet the Press, and The Situation Room resemble more cooperative systems. Hosts will call on pundits to provide insight, analysis, and a variety of viewpoints, with the expectation that they will respect the speaking time of others and engage in rational argumentation.

Women speak less on programs centered around debate

Like juries and legislatures, the effects of numerical underrepresentation depend on the norms under which conversations take place. As Figure 1 shows, women generally speak more (and men speak less) when they are in the majority, but only on “majoritarian,” debate-centered programs. This relationship fades on “cooperative,” consensus-oriented programs, where women speak slightly less than men regardless of the gender composition of the panel. We find similar patterns in interruptions, with women being particularly likely to be interrupted when in the minority on majoritarian shows.

Figure 1 – Average speech participation of pundits by gender, gender composition of panel, and show type.

Values less than 1 indicate guest commentators spoke less than would be expected under equal participation. Bars give 90 and 95 percent confidence intervals. Originally appears as Figure 3 in “Meet the Press: Gendered Conversational Norms in Televised Political Discussion.”

This last point is worth emphasizing–our findings imply that women are particularly disadvantaged when they appear on debate-driven shows and most of their co-contributors are men. This is a common occurrence in today’s media environment given the rising incivility in news content and the severe representational deficits we see in how pundits are made up. Even “professional talkers” who have strong career incentives to maximize their airtime still see their ability to do so subjected to gendered conversational norms. Together, this has implications for how political discourse is modeled for the public–including whose voices should be heard and respected.

• This article is based on the paper, “Meet the Press: Gendered Conversational Norms in Televised Political Discussion” in The Journal of Politics. 
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• Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USAPP – American Politics and Policy, nor the London School of Economics.