Rita Himmel
Maria Manuel Baptista
Angela Merkel is a figure placed at a point of intersection that is particularly conducive to understanding the interaction between the categories of power and gender, being the leader of one of Europe’s most powerful countries, for the last fifteen years, in a period marked by a succession of crises in the E.U., and, at the same time, being one of the few women* in this position of power. This article proposes an exploration of media representations of Angela Merkel in two Portuguese media outlets, in key electoral moments, between 2011 and 2017. Through a qualitative analysis (Bardin, 2007) of these representations, we were able to identify three frames, that interact and combine with one another, illustrating the value of intersectional empirical approaches (Hancock, 2007): gender, power and national origin.
Keywords: Gender, Power, Angela Merkel, Intersectionality