Frames in politics - The Concept of Frame in the

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In 1988, Irwin Levin and Gary Gaeth conducted a study on the effect of framing attribute information on consumers before and after product consumption (1988). In this study, they found that in a study of beef, people who ate beef labeled 75% lean rated it more favorably than people whose beef was labeled 25% fat. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of loss versus gain framing was studied in messaging used to communicate COVID-19 risk to the public. Messages framed in terms of gain would read: «Wear a mask, save lives». Messages framed in terms of loss would read: «If you don't wear a mask, lives will be lost». The results of this study showed that there was no effect on (1) behavioral intentions to follow recommendations for preventing COVID-19 transmission, (2) attitudes toward COVID-19 prevention policy, (3) participants' decision to seek additional information about COVID-19; however, an increase in self-reported anxiety was observed when media messages were framed as a loss.

Linguist and rhetorician George Lakoff argues that in order to persuade a political audience to one side of an argument, facts must be presented through a rhetorical frame. It is argued that without a frame, the facts of an argument are lost on the audience, making the argument less effective. Political rhetoric uses a frame to present the facts surrounding an issue in a way that creates the appearance of a pressing problem requiring a solution. Politicians use a frame to make their own solution to the pressing problem appear most fitting compared to the opposition's solution. Counterarguments become less effective at persuading the audience once one side has framed the argument, since it is argued that the opposition then bears the additional burden of arguing the framing of the issue in addition to the issue itself.

The formulation of a political issue, political party, or political opponent is a strategic goal in politics, especially in the United States. Both the Democratic and Republican political parties compete to successfully use their persuasive power. According to The New York Times:

Even before the election, a new political word began to spread within the party, starting on the West Coast and spreading, like a virus, all the way to the inner offices of the Capitol. That word was "framing." What exactly "framing" of issues means seems to depend on which Democrat you talk to, but everyone agrees that it involves choosing language to define the debate and, more importantly, fitting individual issues into the context of broader storylines.

Because framing can change public perception, politicians disagree over how issues are framed. Consequently, how issues are framed in the media reflects who is winning the battle. For example, according to Robert Entman, a professor of communication at George Washington University, in the run-up to the Gulf War, conservatives successfully steered the debate over whether to attack sooner or later, without mentioning the possibility of not attacking at all.

One specific example of Lakoff's work that achieved some degree of fame was his advice to rename trial lawyers (unpopular in the United States) as "public protection attorneys." Although Americans generally did not adopt this proposal, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America renamed itself the "American Association for Justice," which the Chamber of Commerce called an attempt to disguise its identity.

The New York Times described a similar tension among Republicans:

In one recent memo titled "14 Words Never to Use," [Frank] Luntz urged conservatives to stick to phrases from what he calls... the "New American Lexicon." Thus, a smart Republican, in Luntz's view, never advocates for "drilling for oil"; he prefers "exploring for energy." He should never criticize "government," which clears our streets and pays our firefighters; he should attack "Washington" with its relentless thirst for taxes and regulations. "We should never use the word outsourcing," Luntz wrote, "because then we'll be asked to defend or end the practice that allows companies to move American jobs overseas."

From a political standpoint, framing has far-reaching consequences. For example, the concept of framing is linked to the concept of agenda-setting: by consistently referencing a particular frame, the framing party can effectively control discussion and perception of an issue. Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, in their book "Trust Us, We're Experts," illustrate how public relations (PR) firms often use language to help shape a particular issue, structuring the questions that subsequently arise. For example, one firm advises clients to use "bridging language," which employs a strategy of answering questions with certain terms or ideas in order to shift the discourse from an uncomfortable topic to a more comfortable one. Practitioners of this strategy may try to draw attention away from one frame in order to focus on another. As Lakoff notes, "The day George W. Bush took office, the words 'tax relief' began coming out of the White House." By reorienting the framework away from one frame ("tax burden" or "tax obligations"), people can set the agenda for the questions that will be asked in the future.

Cognitive linguists point to the example of framing in the phrase "tax relief." In this frame, the use of the concept of "relief" implies the notion (without mentioning the benefits derived from them) of taxes as a burden on the citizen:

The current tax code is full of inequities. Many single mothers face higher marginal tax rates than the wealthy. Couples often face a higher tax burden after marriage. Most Americans cannot deduct their charitable donations. Family farms and businesses are sold to pay the death tax. And owners of the most successful small businesses share nearly half of their income with the government. President Bush's tax cuts will significantly reduce this inequity. It is a fair plan designed to provide tax relief to everyone who pays income tax.

Alternative approaches may emphasize the concept of taxes as a source of infrastructural support for business:

The truth is that the wealthy have received more from America than most Americans — not only wealth, but also the infrastructure that allowed them to accumulate their wealth: banks, the Federal Reserve, the stock market, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the legal system, federally sponsored research, patents, tax support, military protection of foreign investments, and much, much more. American taxpayers support the infrastructure of wealth accumulation. It is only fair that those who benefit the most should pay their fair share.

Frames can limit debate by establishing the vocabulary and metaphors through which participants can understand and discuss an issue. They are part not only of political discourse but also of cognition. In addition to creating new frames, politically oriented framing research aims to raise public awareness of the connection between framing and reasoning.

• The Bush administration's initial response to the September 11, 2001 attack was to present the acts of terror as a crime. This framing was replaced within hours by a war metaphor, which led to the "war on terror." The difference between these two framings lies in the implied response. Crime implies bringing perpetrators to justice, trying them, and sentencing them, whereas war implies enemy territory, military action, and war powers for the government.
• The term "escalation" used to describe the increase in American troop numbers in Iraq in 2007 implied that the United States had deliberately widened the scope of the conflict in a provocative manner and perhaps implied that the US strategy entailed a long-term military presence in Iraq, whereas the wording "surge" implied a powerful but short-lived, transient increase in intensity
• The "bad apple" frame, as in the proverb "one bad apple spoils the barrel." This frame implies that removing one ineffective or corrupt official from an institution will solve the given problem; the opposite frame presents the same problem as systemic or structural to the institution itself — a source of contagious and spreading rot. [80]
• The "taxpayer money" frame, rather than public or government funds, which implies that individual taxpayers have the right or entitlement to set public policy based on their tax payments rather than on their status as citizens or voters, and that taxpayers have the right to control public funds that are the common property of all citizens, while also placing individual interests above group interests.
• The "collective ownership" frame, which implies that property belonging to individuals actually belongs to the collective of which those individuals are members. This collective may be territorial, such as a nation, or abstract, not tied to a particular territory.
• Program names, which may describe only the intended effects of a program, but may also imply their effectiveness. These include the following:
  • "Foreign aid" (implying that spending the money will help foreigners rather than harm them)
  • "Social security" (implying that the program can be relied upon to ensure society's safety)
  • "Stabilization policy" (implying that the policy will have a stabilizing effect).
• Based on public opinion polls and focus groups, ecoAmerica, a nonprofit environmental messaging and marketing firm, has put forward the position that global warming is an ineffective frame because of its identification as a left-wing propaganda issue. The organization suggested to government officials and environmental groups that alternative wordings of the issue would be more effective.
• In her 2009 book "Frames of War," Judith Butler argues that the justification of war and the atrocities committed during war in liberal democracies (referring in particular to the ongoing war in Iraq, as well as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo) entails representing "others" (especially Muslims) as pre-modern/primitive and, ultimately, not human in the same sense as citizens within a liberal order.
• Political leaders grant their personal photographers and videographers access to private moments unavailable to journalists. News media then face an ethical dilemma: whether to publish freely distributed digital material that presents the frame desired by the politician, but which may be newsworthy.

According to Susan T. Fiske and Shelley E. Taylor, people are by nature "cognitive misers," meaning they prefer to think as little as possible. Frames give people a quick and easy way to process information. Consequently, people will use the aforementioned mental filters (a series of which is called a schema) to make sense of incoming messages. This gives the sender and creator of information tremendous power to use these schemas to influence how recipients will interpret the message.

A theory published in 2020 suggests that evaluative applicability (i.e., the degree to which a consideration presented in a message is deemed suitable for a given subsequent judgment) may be an important mediator of cognitive media effects such as framing, agenda-setting, and priming. Emphasizing evaluative applicability leads to the finding that media coverage can not only elevate a particular consideration but also actively suppress a consideration, making it less suitable for subsequent judgments. The news framing process illustrates that among the various aspects of an issue, a particular aspect is selected among others to characterize the issue or event. For example, the unemployment issue is described in terms of cheap labor provided by immigrants. Exposure to a news story activates thoughts consistent with immigrants rather than thoughts related to other aspects of the issue (such as legislation, education, and cheap imports from other countries), while at the same time making the former thoughts salient, promoting their importance and relevance for understanding the issue at hand. That is, perception of the issue depends on the considerations presented in the news story. Thoughts related to ignored considerations recede into the background to the extent that thoughts about the presented consideration are exaggerated.

• Reality tunnel

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Часть 1 The Concept of Frame in the Social Sciences
Часть 2 Frames in politics - The Concept of Frame in the