Francesca Maddii, Marie Sonnet, Kirstine Bunde-P, Silvia Alfaro, Laura Faure

In times of crisis, people turn to governments and their leaders for reassurance, comfort, and security. During the global pandemic of Covid-19, leaders took onto traditional and new media to communicate with the public, oftentimes in very effective ways, resulting in them sometimes gaining both the approval and the “affection” of the citizens. Given the diversity of our group, we decided to focus our attention on the leaders of our countries during 2020, and how the public, through comments on social media, perceived their frequent presence on their TVs or other devices. Based on our countries, the respective prime ministers were: Giuseppe Conte (Italy) M; Pedro Sanchez (Spain) M; Mette Frederiksen (Denmark) F; Sophie Wilmes (Belgium) F. We have noticed substantial differences between the genders, noticing how people started idolizing their male leaders compared to how weary and critical they became if their prime minister was a woman. The project outcome is an interactive infographic/presentation: the user can interact with the information given, move across the presentation in a dynamic and interesting way, while still being able to read and learn about the discrepancies in public perception of male and female leaders. The topic is highly relevant, as public perception can make or break the credibility and professionality of a political figure. Observing as one’s opinions and bias can change based on the gender of the politician in question is an issue worth discussing, given the ongoing discrimination that women in positions of power in politics are subject to.