Paper for ATINER Conference,
WHAT’S IN A NEWS FRAME?
A RHETORICAL
PERSPECTIVE
Herbert W. Simons
Abstract
Presented here is a rhetorical perspective on frames,
framing, and the like, with special consideration for journalistic news frames.
Offering a critique of objectivist
pretensions exhibited by the framing literature, the essay argues in support of
framing as a useful, indeed indispensable construct, albeit one that is
destined to remain ambiguous, murky, forever contestable.
WHAT’S IN A NEWS FRAME?
What’s ‘in” a frame? What do frames frame?
Does every text “contain” a frame? Where is the frame? How many frames can one
item of discourse “have”? How is news framing different from priming or from
agenda-setting? Why are these distinctions so often “confused”?
Questions such as these, drawn from the
framing literature (e.g., Johnson-Coatee, 2005), bespeak the mythic world of
objectivism, where ideas of in and out, have and have not, same and different,
container and contained are presumed to have knowable groundings or
foundations. (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Simons, 1990) But, to paraphrase Bill
Clinton, what if there is no “there” there?
The framing literature implicates itself
rhetorically on these issues. It seeks scholarly respectability via claims to
know-ability, distinctiveness, and theoretical coherence, as well as
stylistically via use of specialized jargon and imputations of discovery, as
though frames “existed” independent of the analyst. At the same time, it
defines and exemplifies frames (and related terms) in myriad ways, and cannot
escape the term’s varied metaphorical origins.
Iyengar’s (1991) “episodic” and “thematic” frames are a world apart from
Gamson’s “ideological packages” (1989); Gamson’s from Goffman’s (1974) “frame-altering”
or “frame-maintaining” responses to questions, etc.; and what gets called frame
analysis in some contexts bears strong resemblance to analyses by other names.
Presented in this paper is a rhetorical perspective
on frames, framing, framing theory, reframing, and the like, with particular
emphasis on journalistic news frames. Rhetoric, the art of persuasion, is
concerned with matters of judgment rather than certainty. Its “proofs,” if one
can call them that, are extra-factual and extra-logical, but not necessarily
counter-factual or illogical. Framing is rhetorical in the sense of being a
construction rather than a mirror-like representation, a way of structuring understandings and expectations.
Some will object that viewing
framing as merely rhetorical misses the point of journalistic framing at its
most consequential, which is to identify the most relevant competing news
frames in a story and then determine which best captures its essence. (e.g.,
Kent, 2006; Mander, 1999) When American troops entered
At stake in these questions
presumably are issues of truth and coherence. Arguably, then, they are not
matters of mere rhetoric. Yet, from my rhetorical perspective, the selections
of frames in these examples and the choices between frames remain matters of
judgment rather than certainty for which such metaphors as “capturing the
essence” overstate what the analyst can accomplish. Defending choices of frames
and choices between frames remain matters of persuasion rather than proof.
Rhetoric, yes; mere rhetoric, not necessarily.
If we abandon the unrealizable pretensions of objectivism, and shift toward a rhetorical perspective on frames, framing, reframing, and the like, what can we do to heal what Entman (1993) has called a “fractured paradigm”? Entman’s own attempt at repair highlights the rhetorical functions of promoting and making salient. To frame, suggests Entman (1993) on the basis of his review,
is to select some aspects of a perceived reality
and make them more salient in a communicative text, in such a way as to promote
a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation,
and/or treatment recommendation for the item described. (p. 52)
Entman (1993) adds that frames reside in
four locations in a communicative process, which may or may not coincide. These
are the communicator, the text, the receiver, and the culture.
Communicators make
conscious or unconscious framing judgments in deciding what to say, guided by
frames (often called schemata) that organize their belief systems. The text
contains frames, which are manifested by the presence or absence of certain
key-words, stock phrases, stereotyped images, sources of information, and
sentences that provide thematically reinforcing clusters of facts or judgments.
The frames that guide the receiver’s thinking and conclusion may or may
not reflect the frames in the text and the framing intention of the
communicator. The culture is the stock of commonly invoked frames. In
fact, culture might be defined as the empirically demonstrable set of common
frames exhibited in the discourse and thinking of most people in a social
grouping. (pp. 52-53)
I find
Entman’s compendium of possible “locations” for a frame appealing; it reflects
the ambiguities of the term and the difficulties with which communicators and
message recipients must contend in sense-making. It underscores as well the
role played by culture as a repository of framing possibilities and as a major
source for individuals’ rhetorical repertoires. To Entman’s four locations we
might add a fifth, that of the frame analyst’s perspective. This adds a
critical, reflexive component to frame analysis but also opens up the
possibility for crediting the frame analyst with identifying implicit but
previously unarticulated frames in the discourse under review.
On one
thing virtually all of us can agree: that frames are perspectives, ways of
seeing, or of understanding. But this point of entry tells us too little. What
kind of understanding? Earlier I referred to framing’s metaphorical origins. Depending
on one’s conceptual metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980), the understanding may
be akin to that of a picture frame, a kind of context or surround that
influences our perception of the picture. Or, switching to film, as Goffman
does on occasion (1974), a frame is a selection from among possible ways of
shooting and editing a scene—the resultant film strip telling the story from
the cowboy’s perspective, for example, rather than the Indian’s. And then there is the frame-as-building
metaphor, as in a theory’s conceptual framework. Mander’s (1999) edited
collection of essays on media and social conflict uses the term “framing” as a
synonym for paradigm construction. She calls the book Framing Friction.
To get a
clearer sense of the distinction I’m posing between objectivist and rhetorical
perspectives on news framing, let us consider some examples.
(1) An
introductory textbook on news reporting (Lawson and Faught, 1999) invites its
readers to “find stories by looking at a conventional event from a less
predictable perspective, or point of view.” Unlike the objectivist, it does not
assume that there is one best description of a phenomenon. A murder trial, for
example, can be viewed: (a) through the eyes of the victim reliving the crime;
(b) through the anguish of the suspect’s family; (c) through the talk in the
neighborhood where the crime was committed; (d) by reading the face and
questions of the jurors; (e) by capturing the drama of the dueling lawyers; (f)
from the perspective of those who analyze evidence under a microscope; (g) from
the carnival of media coverage. Lawson and Fought speak of news “pegs” such as
these as frames, but because they are “less predictable” perspectives, perspectives
that go outside the proverbial box, the frames might also with some
justification be labeled as “reframes.”
(2) The metaphor of reframing as “going
outside the box” is nicely illustrated by the 9-dot problem of connecting all
of the following nine dots with four continuous (i.e. connected) straight
lines. A hint is in order: to solve this problem, two of the four lines must go
outside the imagined boundaries set up by the configuration of dots.
. .
.
. .
.
. .
.
9-dot problem (Watzlawick, et al. 1974)
What makes this problem particularly attractive to objectivist frame theorists is its seemingly incontrovertible solution. At last we communication scholars can produce a problem that has an answer; better yet, a non-obvious answer. But its real value is as a rhetorical exemplar, an emblematic stand-in for other alleged frames or reframes whose framing properties are less apparent. Indeed, I use the 9-dot problem in my textbook on persuasion (Simons, 2001) as an example to would-be politicians, psychotherapists, and other persuaders of how the same or similar perceived reality may be “spun” in various ways.
(3) Recall
the news reporting textbook with its many interesting examples of the way a
story about a courtroom trial can be told.
Should we conclude that for every such story there are many possible
framings, perhaps an infinite number? Goffman
(1974) lends authority to this conclusion with his example of a simple exchange
about the time. Asked the time, a respondent could say: (a) around 5 pm; (b)
4:51 going on 4:52; (c) quitting time; (d) time for a beer; (e) If you’ve got
the money, honey, I’ve got the time; (f) Your English is improving; (g) What is
time, anyway?
I find
Goffman’s example to be humbling. In contrast with the 9-dot problem, which
seems to have but one solution, Goffman suggests that there are at least as
many framing possibilities as there are contexts and purposes. By virtue of
their plentitude, the concepts of frames, framing and reframing are difficult
to pin down conceptually.
(4) To
the study of framing metaphors, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) distinguish usefully
between perceived prototypes of a thing and resemblances to those prototypes. No
doubt there are times when terms like framing and reframing can seem jargony,
mere substitutes for ordinary words like “organizing” or “rethinking.” But
there are other circumstances in which these terms seem especially appropriate.
Consider the following examples.
(4a)
“This beef is 75% lean” vs. “This beef is 25% fat.” (Kahneman and Tversky,
1984)
(4b)
“Women who do breast self-examinations (BSE) have an increased chance of
finding a tumor in the early, more treatable stage of the disease.” vs. “Women who do not do BSEs have a
decreased chance of finding a tumor in the early, more treatable stage of the
disease.” (Kahneman and Tversky, 1984)
In
these prototypical cases of framing, the differences in wording make an
empirically identifiable difference in subjects’ responses. In the first
example, focusing on positive product attributes yields more favorable ratings.
In the second example, the negatively worded message produces greater
compliance. (Kahneman and Tversky, 1984)
(4c)
“The glass is half-empty.” vs. “The glass is half-full.”
This again illustrates the
framing prototype, the conventional sense that the same available information
can be interpreted in radically different ways. Of course the pessimist and
optimist in this example are likely to highlight and downplay different aspects
of the situation, but that too is a characteristic of the framing prototype.
(4d) During the Security Council debate in March 2003
over whether the Council should authorize the U.S.-led invasion of
This example involves a frame
and a prototypical reframe, not simply a choice between opposing
interpretations of the available information, as in 4c. The French ambassador’s
retort has the quality of shock or surprise, characteristic of the best
reframings, as in the solution to the 9-dot problem, discussed earlier. It
prompts appreciation of what Kenneth Burke (1969) called the “resources of
ambiguity” in language, not just consideration of whose account was more
accurate. It is framing “outside the box.”
Finally:
(4e)
In studying how leading questions can influence eyewitness testimony in the
courtroom, Loftus and Palmer (1974) showed participants a film depicting a
multi-car accident. After the film, participants were asked one of two leading
questions:
A. About how fast were the cars going when
they smashed into each
other?
B. About how fast were the cars going when
they hit each other?
Participants presented with wording A not
only estimated that the cars were going faster but also were more likely to
report having seen broken glass at the accident scene, although none was shown.
This
example again illustrates the dramatic differences in perception that seemingly
similar wordings can make. But the sense of opposed frames is a bit looser
here, a resemblance to the symmetries and oppositions in examples 4a, 4b, and
4c, but not so clearly a prototype.
Summary
and Conclusions
Presented
here has been a rhetorical perspective
on frames, framing, and the like, with special consideration for journalistic
news frames. The concept of framing in journalism and communication is at once
extremely muddled and at the same time indispensable. It has not been helped by
objectivist pretensions to scholarly respectability in reified treatments of
framing and in representations of the framing literature that sidestep the
ambiguities surrounding the terms in the
framing “family,” as though to escape framing’s embarrassing metaphorical
origins.
Framing theories are most usefully seen as
rhetorical constructions, some better than others by virtue of the theorist’s
capacity to argue for them convincingly to competent critical readers. Moreover,
efforts at “capturing” the essence of a controversy by one’s choice of frames,
and choices between frames, are normally a matter of persuasion rather than
proof. Framing is likewise a matter of promoting and making salient, as Entman
has argued.
Framing
is prototypically apparent when opposed constructions of the same basic idea
are shown to yield difference in responses by research subjects, or when symmetrically
matched expressions of competing perspectives are juxtaposed. But what we experience as different frames
need not be prototypically opposed or competing; our sense of them as frames or
frame-like derives from their perceived resemblances to frame prototypes.
As
Goffman has illustrated, framings in response to the same questions need not be
opposed or competing; rather, they may reflect differences in purposes and
contexts. There is a lesson here for news journalists: alternative framings of
a news story can be complementary, cross-cutting, or overlapping, and not
necessarily competitive. The most arresting of them reframe in the prototypical
sense of inviting us to play with the
rules of language and logic and not simply by
the rules.
Solution
to the 9-Dot Problem
. .
.
. .
.
. .
.
Works
Cited
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33, 157-61.
Goffman, E. (1974) Frame analysis.
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Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M.
(1980). Metaphors we live by.
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Loftus, E.E. & Palmer, J.C.
(1974). Reconstruction of automobile destruction: An example of the interaction
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(1999). News in a new century.
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(2003). Weapons of Mass Deception.
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