Recently, widely reported studies assessed messages sent to UK female MPs online and concluded that they suffer high levels of abuse. However, these studies tended to focus on the most high-profile MPs and the worst instances of abuse or did not include male MPs in their study for comparison. This study aims to assess more subtle forms of incivility and othering and the experiences of less prominent MPs online. It takes a mixed-methods approach to analyzing 117,802 tweets sent to MPs over a 14-day period for evidence of incivility. Firstly, models assessing the factors associated with receiving incivility on Twitter are presented, and furthermore, an in-depth thematic analysis of gendered tweets is conducted. The findings suggest that for the receipt of certain types of incivility, there is little difference between female and male MPs. However, female MPs were more likely to receive generally uncivil tweets, tweets with stereotypes about their identity, and tweets questioning their position as politicians than male MPs. Qualitatively, in terms of gendered othering, we found several instances of tweets containing misogynistic abuse, tweets demonizing, and objectifying female MPs, as well as tweets feminizing male MPs.

This chapter provides an overview of the rapidly changing social and political context which is driving a contested social media landscape, and explores examples of othering and discrimination propagated and encountered by individuals online and in social media contexts and cultures. After providing an overview of literature on 'othering', we outline our concept of 'online othering' which problematizes and analyses the dichotomy presented between real and virtual space(s) by exploring the motivations behind othering behaviours and the impact this has on the targets of online abuse. It also explores the extent to which ICTs facilitate and exacerbate traditional offline offences (such as domestic abuse and stalking). Finally, we consider various responses to 'online othering' which recognise its oppositional nature and the agency of the othered.

Leaders' debates have become a feature of contemporary election campaigning. While they are an historical feature of the US landscape, in the UK they are a more recent phenomenon. The second UK 2015 general election leadership debate comprised seven candidates, of which three were women. While a Times poll reported Nicola Sturgeon as the 'winner', much of the coverage focused on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the candidates. Using qualitative thematic analysis, and adopting the notion that gender is 'performed' (cf. Butler, 1999) we explore three features of coverage of the debate. First, the ways in which the debate itself was constructed as a masculine activity through a series of highly gendered metaphors; second, how newspaper frames reinforced gendered notions of masculinity and femininity in respect of political leadership; and third, how the success of women in the debates was constructed as the emasculation of their male rivals. Crucially, we focus not just on the 'feminisation' of women in the political arena, but also on the ways in which masculinity is posited as a criterion for the evaluation of politicians of all genders. Main article There has been much public discussion of politicians' awareness of the media's ability to frame their public perception. Media play an active role in shaping how we perceive the behaviour of politicians (cf. Street, 2001), and a great deal has been written in terms of the techniques and strategies used by

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