Topic: A Framer Reads the News
By: Susan Nall Bales, the FrameWorks Institute
This Framer has been reading the news in numerous cities across the country over the past months. As veterans of FrameWorks trainings know, one of the challenges is to apply framing lessons to the daily news — deconstructing the composition of op-eds, headline news and public service advertising. In the process, we analyze the way that various frame elements — metaphors, messengers, context, values, etc. — are used to drive home the frame. The following examples are those that rose to the top of the pile of news clips collected from workshops conducted for KIDS COUNT Networks and their broader coalitions in Minnesota, West Virginia, Illinois, and Alabama. And then a few crept in from our holiday reading! Each clip was chosen for its particular clarity in illuminating a fundamental framing principle. As always, FrameWorks welcomes examples from Kids Count for inclusion in this series; send us your frame follies and frame triumphs to help others understand the importance of coherent frame construction.
A Word About Context
Context remains one of the most difficult frame elements to understand and even more challenging to wield. Quite simply, context connects the dots between examples and illuminates the systems and conditions that constrain individual choice. Context is fundamentally a systems-orientation, an ecological approach to social conditions. To borrow C. Wright Mills' distinction in The Sociological Imagination, context is what distinguishes individual "troubles" from broader societal "issues." Importantly, when the frame is narrowly drawn, and context is left out, we attribute responsibility to individuals, expecting them to solve the identified problems. When context is well developed as part of the frame, we attribute responsibility to society, expecting public officials to fix the system that is broken.
Constraints of time and space in today's news media have taken their toll on context. Moreover, American individualism and the entertainmentization of news have yielded a public discourse that is too often a series of personal narratives of triumphant or failed individualism. In many of FrameWorks' content analyses, we find episodic frames dominant in as much as 80 percent of the coverage on a topic.
So finding context in your evening news or daily newspaper is usually a challenge. We set ourselves this challenge during a recent FrameWorks training and were surprised to find one of the best examples in recent memory in, of all places, USA Today. Why is this surprising? Because the usual push-back we hear from advocates is that context takes too long to explain and only long-form journalism can accommodate such framing techniques. To see context in the McPaper contests this assumption.
Even more surprising is the way the story begins, rolling toward a classic environmental frame contest of Man vs. Animal. Here's the header:
Endangered predators thrive in West
Gray wolves, some grizzlies may soon be taken off the protected species list. But success may mean more confrontations with humans.
(USA Today, October 3, 2003, 19A)
For those unfamiliar with stereotypical frames applied to environmental issues, this is a classic in which environmentalists are revealed as extremists who favor the viability of animals at the expense of humans' needs, livelihood and lifestyles. This article seemed intent on pursuing that frame, until it took a strange turn toward genuine science education:
Adept predators, wolves have altered life in Yellowstone in many ways. With wolves in the neighborhood, for instance, elk are gathering less often near streams and rivers. That has spurred the growth of willow and aspen trees, which in turn has attracted beavers to new areas. Elk killed by wolves are now an important source of food for grizzlies, which frequently push aside feeding wolves.Wolves have also reduced the number of coyotes by half. As a result, the number of small animals that are hunted by coyotes, such as foxes and ground squirrels, is increasing. That provides more food for hawks and eagles. "We think Yellowstone will be a different place 20 to 30 years from now because of the restructuring of the ecosystem wolves are causing," says Douglas Smith, the park's wolf project leader.
(USA Today, October 3, 2003, 20A)
Why is this framing important? Because it substituted a Cooperation frame for a Competition frame (see E-Zine "Competition, Cooperation, and Connection: How These Metaphors Affect Child Advocacy" for more on this important distinction). Faced with the stand-off between man and wolf (whose side are you on?), most people are likely to side, even if reluctantly, with humans. What this framing accomplished was to reintegrate the wolf into the ecology and to show how, by protecting this important element of the ecosystem, the entire system benefited.
How can children's advocates think about getting more context into the frame on children's issues? One example comes from the application of recommendations by our colleagues at Public Knowledge, on framing the economy (see www.douglasgould.com for more on this research). Instead of focusing on winners and losers in the economy (episodic portraits of the rich and the poor), focus on the way the system must be improved to allow children to become productive adults and full participants in the economy. By substituting a Cooperation or Systems frame for the Competitive, Zero-sum frame, you increase the odds that people will want to fix the system, not the individual.
Context, Community and Kids
Advocates' attempts to break out of the Family Bubble frame (in which everything that happens to children is reduced to parental responsibility) are as difficult as breaking out of the Human v. Creature frame has proven for environmentalists. Even a cursory review of images associated with children will demonstrate that young children are normally portrayed within a tightly constructed frame of parental relationship and responsibility. As the children age into adolescence, peers are included, further reinforcing the attribution of responsibility to the children themselves. Indeed, in those content analyses which FrameWorks has reviewed, it is rare that any other actor from the community is included in the frame as a positive influence on the child.
In recent focus groups on child abuse and maltreatment conducted by Public Knowledge for FrameWorks and Prevent Child Abuse America, participants had a difficult time describing what a responsive, nurturing community would look like. Too often, they defaulted to a kind of Mayberry nostalgia in which children were taught traditional values by parents who disciplined them.
That's why this example of context and community in a Wall Street Journal article is both rare and instructive. In a story about a child in Chicago's public housing developments that appears episodic at first glance, reporter Jonathan Eig provides a stunning example of the Community frame as context to a child's environment of relationships:
Lately, Jeremiah has enjoyed the kind of easy afternoons that have become rare in most urban communities: He runs from one friend's home to another, from the basketball courts to the swimming pool at the nearby park, from the candy store to his boxing classes at the neighborhood gymnasium, all under the watchful eye of neighbors and relatives.
On a recent day, when his mother wanted to know where to find him, she shouted his nickname from her window: "Miah!"
"He's down here,'" came a cry in return.("Chicago Hope: In Doomed Project, An Unlikely Twist: Community Thrives," The Wall Street Journal, October 3, 2003, A1)
Why is this framing important? Because it shows the child in the context of the community, illuminating all the places, activities and people that support that child's healthy development. The unknown neighbor supports the mother, keeping a watchful (but not disciplinary) eye on the child. Community in this rare article is alive and well.
How can children's advocates think about getting more community into the frame on children's issues? Some important recommendations emerge from Public Knowledge's research for Prevent Child Abuse America (Developing Community Connections: Qualitative Research Regarding Framing Policies, August 2003). Significant energy needs to be devoted to creating images that show other adults interacting with children in meaningful ways: growing community gardens, fishing, coaching, etc. And the importance of these relationships to the child's development must be underscored by showing that these kinds of important connections also create connections in the child's brain that expand their capacity for learning, living and loving. The good news is that the public strongly believes this to be true, but the relative unavailability of these kinds of community images leads them to default to the old Family Bubble frame instead of asking how communities can do a better job of supporting children and families. To help them over that impasse, we need more highly developed Community frames.
Attribution of Responsibility: Information Not Access
Whether you set out to do it intentionally, or try to avoid it altogether, the frame you sponsor will assign responsibility to someone. And, unless you work hard to assign that responsibility to society, it's likely the locus of responsibility will be the individual. That's why our Framing Checklists always prompt advocates to ask and answer questions about their frames such as: Who made the problem? Who should fix it?
Case in point. A report from the American Cancer Society announces the good news that more than 90 percent of breast cancers are now diagnosed at early stages. The news coverage in USA Today ("Most breast cancers now diagnosed at early stages," October 3, 2003, 15A) leads with this explanation: "Public awareness campaigns on the benefits of mammography are paying off." This explanation is then reinforced by a quote from an advocate:
"It's great news. It truly is. I think it is large part (sic) due to efforts for raising awareness and early detection that all of us have been pushing for lo these many years," says Susan Braun, president and CEO of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.
At this point, however, the story takes an unexpected turn. We learn that "black women have continued to be diagnosed at later stages and today have 30 percent higher death rates from breast cancer than white women."
So follow the logic of the framing. We have learned that breast cancer is a problem that is largely solved by better information. If that is the case, why are black women not getting treatment? Following the frame, you would have to surmise that they didn't get the information, didn't pay attention, or maybe it is due to some cultural peculiarity, like suspicion of the medical system. But, in any event, you reason within the frame equation that Better Information = Better Health.
Only in paragraph seven of a nine-paragraph story do we find any hint that the frame explanation does not hold. Michael Thun, head of epidemiology for the American Cancer Society, explains that "the difference between white and black women appears due to socioeconomic factors that allow more affluent women to get regular mammograms and better therapies." The article then goes on to show that "disparities also exist in how often women get mammograms and in the quality of follow-up care they receive."
Whether these advocates set out to tell a story about the success of public awareness campaigns or whether it was done to them by the reporter makes little difference. The solution to the problem was defined early in the story as Better Information and the relative lack of access of black women to health screening and services fell out of the frame. Faced with this story, the well-intentioned public is more likely to want to help black women by sponsoring more public awareness efforts, not resolving their health access problems. Good cause, bad frame.
Deconstructing the News: A Near Perfect Op-ed
Representative John Lewis' "Freedom Riders of 2003" is one of the best framed op-eds in this framer's recent memory (The Washington Post, October 1, 2003, A23). Worthy of a brown bag discussion among frame sponsors, this op-ed offers frame lessons about values, credentialing, sequence, and metaphor.
The purpose of the op-ed is to frame the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride as the next step toward civil rights for all Americans. In essence, Lewis has set out to answer the fundamental framing question of "what is this issue about?" with the answer, "civil rights." In so doing, he is displacing the dominant frame in discourse that it's about "immigrants," especially illegal immigrants. In essence, Lewis wants to map on to our minds images from the civil rights era to help us reason within this frame with respect to immigrants and society's responsibility in addressing their grievances.
How does he do this? First, he credentials himself. He reminds us that he was on the bus, a Freedom Rider in the dark days of Jim Crow, fighting against the evils of segregation. He was "beaten and firebombed, reviled and incarcerated." If anyone should be allowed to testify to what the Civil Rights movement was really about, it is someone like this, we reason. Further, these highly charged images ignite memories in our minds, reminding us that we have made progress and do not want to go backward.
Second, Lewis assigns responsibility. "The power of people united in nonviolent action became the political power necessary to make the federal government accept its responsibility to protect the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of all Americans." Protests are used to make government do its job, he reminds us.
Third, he sets the values frame. "For me and my fellow Freedom Riders from the 1960s, the civil rights movement cannot and will not come to an end until every one in America enjoys the rights and liberties guaranteed by the founding covenants of our nation." Lewis' message is one of inclusion. Importantly, it is not about special interests or group interests.
This theme of sameness, of equal justice for all, is extended in a long paragraph that attempts to hold the democracy accountable to all. "Reward work,….renew our democracy…restore labor protections…reunite families…respect the civil rights and civil liberties of all…." are used as the familiar values frames against which Lewis measures society's actions with respect to immigrants. "(T)hese new Freedom Riders are just like you and me — seekers after the American dream, makers of the American dream," Lewis asserts. Not special, separate and apart, but the same and equal. Concluding the op-ed, Lewis borrows a quote from the Rev. Martin Luther King that deserves to be enshrined on every framer's desktop.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."
This quote effectively asserts interdependence. Not only has Lewis created a frame in which the Other is Us, but he cements this frame by making us part of an integral system in which no one can win at the expense of another.
What a masterful piece this is! Casebook framing.
Deconstructing the News: Framed in Minnesota
Striking clerical workers and their union got a rude awakening on October 22, when they opened the pages of The Pioneer Press to read the coverage of their grievance against the University of Minnesota, which was threatening a wage freeze and reduction in health benefits. Admittedly, it's hard to control the news, so this is not meant as a critique of the union's performance. But, at the same time, it helps to know what you are up against. And each day's news accrues in the public domain, reinforcing old stereotypes and making it harder to break the frame.
Here's the header and lead:
U says strike impact is minimal
Pickets say they have deep support:
Some classes held at off-campus sitesA strike Tuesday by the University of Minnesota's biggest union moved dozens of classes off campus and produced noisy picket lines, but campus life continued with few other disruptions….
Framers beware! Might this news not suggest that the opposition had set the frame? And that frame would be…..Business As Usual. Here's how the article continues:
"It's been largely business as usual at the university,"said the university vice president for human resources…For students, the strike produced a variety of inconveniences and disruptions…
Why was this a clever, and perfectly predictable, tactic for the opposition to pursue? First, because it conforms to traditions of journalism, making the issue easy to cover. All the opposition has to do is to suggest how to cover the strike: has it been disruptive? So a few students have had classes in bookstores, so what? Reporters then, predictably, flocked to these classes where they found amusing and highly visual cameos of dissident professors leading classes in scenes reminiscent of the 1960s. Next came a series of Man on the Street interviews responding to the question, has the strike disrupted campus life? "I don't know anything about the strike other than it's annoying," answers one student.
What could the union and the strikers have done to overcome these predictable distractions from the merits of their grievance? For openers, the Business As Usual frame has important entailments, or consequences, that can be exploited. The University was not pursuing business as usual but rather revoking its responsibility to offer adequate benefits to its workers. The fact that it chose to drop coverage for some of the poorest among its workers is irresponsible. No information was offered in the coverage about the highest-paid university employees and whether they were partaking equally of the need to drop benefits. Presumably, they went about their Business As Usual, unaffected by the proposed cutbacks. Importantly, the strikers would need to avoid a Class Warfare frame in pursuit of an Equal Justice frame. In fact, these folks could learn a few lessons from John Lewis' careful inclusionary framing above.
Deconstructing Campaigns: Let's Fix This!
In the course of reviewing materials from all over, we came across this recent campaign supported by the Minneapolis Foundation to engage people in addressing homelessness (see it online at www.nfg.org). In one ad, a group of people are shown lifting sandbags with superimposed text as follows:
We conquer floods, tornadoes and blizzards. Yet tonight over 3,050 Minnesota kids are homeless…. Let's fix this.
Here is how the sponsoring organization described this campaign:
The 'Let's Fix This' campaign reached out to the community with an information booklet, bus shelter ads, television spots, and highly visible billboards. The booklet presents the facts of homelessness in Minnesota and calls citizens to action. Using a metaphor that resonated with the public — the effects of a natural disaster on a Minnesota community — the campaign encouraged the public to rally around the tragedy of homelessness in the same way it rallies around tragedies of floods, tornadoes, and blizzards. The campaign included a full-day conference that brought together the governor, state policymakers, and advocates to discuss solutions.
Reasoning within the frame set by this campaign, what solutions do you think were elevated? Certainly, rallying the community around people in distress and providing emergency assistance. Temporary shelter, hot meals, clothing — all these go with the disaster frame. But how about prevention and addressing root causes? Why would these solutions fall out of the frame? And what about chronic homelessness? Are there chronic victims of weather disasters?
Because the campaign chose to frame the social problem of homelessness as the metaphorical equivalent of natural disaster, it put all the remedial emphasis on after-the-fact treatment and undermined those solutions that might have gotten ahead of the problem. The emergency orientation is episodic, and avoids more systemic explanations of how people get to be homeless in the first place, and what keeps them in this condition.
It's too bad, because the tagline — "Let's fix this" — is a perfect call to Responsible Management. In fact, there is a lot that is right about the framing of this campaign. But by choosing a metaphor that "seemed natural to people" without playing out its entailments, they failed to fully understand the frame they wielded and its implications for public policy. There is an important frame lesson here. Just because people "resonate" to a proposed frame doesn't mean it will work to engage them in policy solutions to a social problem.
An excellent effort. But one that could have benefited by deeper framing insights.
Simplifying Model: Let's Fix This!
From our colleagues at Cultural Logic comes this observation on another frame element: "Simplifying models are a kind of metaphorical frame that both capture the essence of a scientific concept, and have a high capacity for spreading through a population. Numerous studies in the cognitive sciences have established that both the development and the learning of complex, abstract or technical concepts typically rely on analogies. An explanation that reduces a complex problem to a simple, concrete analogy or metaphor contributes to understanding by helping people organize information into a clear picture in their heads, including facts and ideas previously learned but not organized in a coherent way. Once this analogical picture has been formed, it becomes the basis for new reasoning about the topic. Better understanding also leads to an increase in engagement and motivation." You can read more about simplifying models in "Opening Up The Black Box: A Case In Simplifying Models".
In a brilliantly argued op-ed appearing in The Washington Post (January 7, 2004, A21), Manhattan Institute researchers Jay P. Greene and Greg Forster argue against the importance of affirmative action. It's a tricky goal since, even by addressing the issue, they call attention to it. They achieve their goal, nevertheless, by using a simplifying model that shuts affirmative action out of the frame. Think of it as a "it's not what you think it is" strategy. Here are the opening two paragraphs:
College Diversity: Fix the Pipeline FirstAffirmative action in college admissions is among the most controversial issues in education, but both sides in the debate overestimate its importance. The truth is that affirmative action is largely irrelevant to increasing minority representation in higher education. The primary obstacle to getting more minority students into college is that only one in five of such students graduate from high school with the bare minimum qualifications needed to even apply to four-year colleges.
Think of the K-12 educational system as a pipeline: Students enter the pipe in preschool and, if all goes well, flow all the way though and out the other end into college. But some students "leak" out of the pipeline by dropping out of school or failing to acquire college-ready skills. And when it comes to minority students, the pipe is currently so leaky that only a trickle of those students flow into college. Expanding affirmative action policies and financial assistance is like opening the spigot at the end of the pipe wider: It's beside the point if the pipe is leaking badly. We can beef up affirmative action all we like and it won't increase the flow of minority students into college, because the K-12 system just doesn't produce enough college-ready high school graduates.
Once they've set up the model, they provide data that demonstrates its veracity — the facts fit the frame. And throughout the editorial, the authors continue to push the model onto the data and their assertions, so that it becomes not a polemic but more like a science lesson. The reasonable tone adds to the editorial's persuasive power. This doesn't appear "political" to readers, just practical problem-solving.
Importantly, this call to action to "fix it" — part of a Responsible Manager frame — makes sense to us in a way that the previous example did not. We know we can and must fix a leaky pipeline, unlike "fixing" natural disasters.
Keep passing on those framing examples, questions and challenges. More E-Zines are on the way in 2004!
January, 2004
