A Framer Reads the News
By Susan Nall Bales, October 2002
ELEPHANTS! ELEPHANTS!
A little opinion research can be a dangerous thing. That's especially true when it leads people to confuse the research with the message. We suspect that's what happened to CDC's Mark Rosenberg in commenting on the release of the WHO Report on Global Violence, as reported in the Washington Post:
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"Usually, people think of violence as fate. It just happens, and you can't do anything about it, so go lock your doors and stay away," Rosenberg said.
"Here, they're saying there are patterns in common in various types of violence all around the world, and that we have the goods to prevent it all around the world."
WHO Report Details Global Violence, The Washington Post, October 3, 2002, A16
How many frame problems can you name, veteran Kids Counters?
One, he begins by reminding us of the dominant frame in order to then rebut it — an "elephants" problem (see Ezine, "Don't Talk About Elephants: Avoid This Trap in Your Communications). Being fast and frugal cognators, we are appreciative to the speaker for having reminded us of what we thought all along so we can process this thought and go back to our laundry. End of conversation.
Two, he has confused the problem for the solution. This happens to many smart people who invest in public opinion research but don't go the added step of figuring out how to reframe in order to get people to see a different perspective. The truth - neither the policy solution nor the public opinion perception — will set people free unless subjected to a translation process: reframing.
Third, he thinks he has to acknowledge where people are in order to engage them or get them to learn the issue in a different way. Salience is not reframing. The fact that they think of the issue this way does not mean you need to re-invigorate it; quite the opposite.
MORE IN THE "IT'S ABOUT" HALL OF FAME
This great example comes via our own Don Crary who just couldn't resist pointing out how this debate is being framed:
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Estate-tax debate affects only very rich
Is it about farmers and the owners of small businesses? Or is it about multimillionaires? The national debate over whether to abolish the tax that the federal government levies on large estates revolves around enduring images of "American Gothic"-style family farms and mom-and-pop shopkeepers struggling to stay in business. Those images aren't terribly accurate. The full article will be available on the Web for a limited time: http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/nation/4134369.htm
(c) 2001 twincities and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
LEVEL ONE AND METAPHORS
There are a lot of framing lessons to be derived from the soundbite wars in an article about mountain bikers in California ("Mountain Bikers Up Against Calif. Conservationists, The Washington Post, October 2, 2002, A3).
What's the strategy in this quote?:
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"Becky Bell, a marketing consultant who leads a mountain biking group with 1,500 members near Lake Tahoe, said she is worried the sport is getting a bad rap. 'Most of us are good stewards of the land,' she said. 'We have some bad apples, but so does every group. Look at Enron executives. Or Catholic priests. Just the other day I was out riding and someone told me, 'I know you guys are trying to be nicer, but I still just hate seeing you on the trails.' That's what we're up against."
Good Level Ones, don't you think? Stewardship, tolerance (hate/prejudice). Good metaphorical set-up: you can't judge us all by the one bad example. And, more subtly, an erosion of mountain biking as a public problem; in effect, Bell is saying: is this really where you want to spend your attention, or are there more important issues that require your attention? And, finally, a displacement of responsibility: you should be focusing on those guys that hate us, not us. Not bad for a quick quote.
Even better is a quote from Gary Sprung, director of a mountain biking group:
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"The problem is that some people think we're motorcycles without engines, but the truth is that we're like hikers on wheels."
Apart from an unfortunate construct (stating the offending metaphor first), this is a great attempt to reframe via metaphor.
In fact, this entire article probably merits a read, as a lot of think time went in to the framing of the two sides. A good discussion piece for Framing Fridays.
COWS! COWS!
Question: When is a concern not an issue?
Answer: When it's framed with vivid case examples that assign responsibility to individuals.
Democrats, take note!
The Washington Post reports that Democrats are puzzled by the fact that the economy has not emerged as the trump card it was trumped to be in recent polls ("Economy a Concern, Not an Issue," October 2, 2002, A4). With corporate scandals right and left, declining stock portfolios, etc., why isn't corporate greed sticking as a political issue?
Leave it to a smart Republican to figure out the framing mistake:
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"The one economic issue that has touched a nerve appears to be corporate malfeasance, pollsters say, but Democrats over the summer were so effective in castigating corporate chief executives that voters are now much more apt to blame CEOs for the nation's economic problems than the GOP, said Republican pollster Ed Goeas."
If the villain is Andrew Fastow, and we learn all the intricacies of how he did it, will we hold Congress, the President, the economic system accountable? Try reasoning within the frame and see if you can connect the dots. For more on the cows problem, check out FrameWorks' new "Framing Children's Issues" CD-Rom, or the section on "Context" in your FrameWorks Toolkit.
THOSE "O SO WISE" POLITICAL CARTOONS
Political cartoonist Tom Toles again reveals in its starkest terms the political strategy of naming and framing Level Ones (Thursday, The Washington Post October 3, 2002, A18). In this cartoon, the UN announces to Bush that he can no longer "hang this tag" on it - and the tag reads IRRELEVANT. Bush reaches into his desk drawer and pulls out another label: EVIL. In the subscript, the UN says "it's like you were ready," to which Bush replies, "I have a lot of those." Get those Level Ones ready, veteran framers! I have a feeling we're going to need them.
Over and out.
