They're stereotypes about the national capital that Canberrans are all too used to from outsiders, stereotypes that Prue Robson used to believe were true before she moved to Canberra.

"My husband moved to Canberra for work in 2013 and the first time I visited I felt dread because of Canberra itself and the unfavourable reputation it had," Ms Robson said.

"Basically I thought it would be stale and sterile and boring, but it turned out those stereotypes no longer exist and I loved it."

Now a PhD candidate at the University of Canberra, Ms Robson is researching why perceptions and stereotypes of Canberra exist as part of her thesis.

Ms Robson said she was looking at how the media had perceived Canberra, compared to the experience of people who call the ACT home.

As part of the research, the PhD candidate looked at representations of Canberra from 11 newspapers between 2006 and 2018, along with tourism and campaign material for the city.

She said aside from mentions of Canberra as a by-word for federal politics, the stereotypes of Canberra were still there, despite the city undergoing many changes in recent years.

"One of the overarching themes was that the stereotype is alive and well, that Canberra was a dull and boring public service town with nothing to do," Ms Robson said.

"It also paints Canberrans as self-righteous and condescending, and that Canberrans are Australia's tallest poppies, and we all know what happens to tall poppies in this country."

Out of the data set across the 12-year period, there were just 70 articles presenting Canberra as a place to work and live, compared to almost 600 describing federal parliament.

While Ms Robson said there was strong evidence of the media perpetuating stereotypes of Canberra, they were very slowly evolving.

"There's evidence to show in the articles that Canberra is changing, particularly around urban development and new developments like the Kingston Foreshore and Lonsdale Street," she said.

"There's also chatter in the news about the explosion of food and wine and art."

While Ms Robson said she was only halfway through in her research, she said there was also interesting insights into the ACT government outside of Canberra.

"[The media] paints the ACT government as rogue, and attempting to push through legislation and break the rules, like the short lived same-sex marriage legislation in 2013," she said.

Despite Canberra changing and evolving away from the negative stereotypes, Ms Robson said it would take a while before more people see the city beyond the opinions formed on obligatory school trips and seeing the daily shenanigans of Parliament House on the news.

"Stereotypes take a long time to disappear, and Canberra is not the only political national capital to suffer from being a home to federal government," she said.

"Still, I think it will change as the population grows and more people experience Canberra, but it will be slow going."