Mother of the nation? Jacinda Ardern, social media and the politics of motherhood
Author Identifier
Claire Fitzpatrick: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3000-1664
Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Title
Political Science
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
School
School of Arts and Humanities
RAS ID
72743
Abstract
Three months after taking office as Prime Minister of Aotearoa New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern posted a now iconic image of hei matau (fish hooks) to her Instagram account announcing her pregnancy. Only the second leader of a nation in modern history to give birth while in office, Ardern’s announcement was significant not only in substance but also in style. In this article, we situate Ardern’s leadership in the international literature on motherhood and politics, analysing how she used social media to communicate with her followers about her experiences of motherhood and their responses to her posts. We employ a thematic analysis of multimodal data to explore Ardern’s personalisation of social media posts, focusing on content related to motherhood shared on her two most active platforms, Facebook and Instagram. We identify four key themes in how she portrayed herself as a mother and political leader and how followers responded to these portrayals: i. political presence of motherhood, ii. everyday motherhood, iii. making care visible, iv. mother of the nation. Our analysis shows that across her social media, Ardern challenged traditional conceptions of political leadership and motherhood. Her posts presented realistic expectations and experiences of motherhood as a working mother, contributed to more inclusive leadership norms and subverted neoliberal mothering scripts.
DOI
10.1080/00323187.2024.2443684
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Comments
Timperley, C., Fitzpatrick, C., & Neely, E. (2025). Mother of the nation? Jacinda Ardern, social media and the politics of motherhood. Political Science. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/00323187.2024.2443684