A Framer Reads the News
Susan Nall Bales and Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr.
While we have argued against confusing issue politics with electoral politicsi — different timelines, different goals, etc. — it is nonetheless true that electoral politics offers some great framing lessons. After all, it's not as if our brains work differently during elections than during non-elections — the same rules of cognition apply — it is just that electoral politics is a point-of-purchase end-game between a limited number of candidates. On the other hand, issue politics is about the long-term migration of public worldviews about a particular topic. In other words, issue politics requires a a decidedly different strategic game to solve global warming, raise the minimum wage or reduce racism in the society. That said, the 2008 presidential primary can be understood using the basic concepts and principles of Strategic Frame Analysis™ with its emphasis on the importance of Values, Tone and Simplifying Models to create an effective narrative.
With candidates enacting core principles and ordinary citizens defying the pundits and the oft ill-considered conventional wisdom from pollsters and media alike, we thought it would be fun to highlight just a few of the framing lessons embodied in the past few weeks of the presidential race.
1. The framing strategy embraced by the major candidates.
Senator Obama and Governor Huckabee are the Level Oneii candidates, putting forward Big Ideas and overarching principles, eschewing the details of this policy or that approach, and sticking to the lens they want people to adopt in evaluating all their proposals. And it's not just Change, Change, Change — a magic mantra that trumps Experience, as the press would have us believe — but rather the development of grand themes like Unity, Inclusion, Interdependence, and Respect. The result is the repudiation of Politics as Usual thus defying the conventional wisdom.
Senator Clinton is clearly operating at Level Three — all policy details, all the time. Witness her holiday ad where she organizes a series of level three policies as gifts for the nation, ending with her momentary confusion over where to put "Universal Pre-K." And while she has tried to reach for the bigger themes, it runs counter to her core claim to the presidency. When Clinton argues that she has the "experience" to deal with the complexity of national and international policy, she creates her own "frame clash" between Experience, on the one hand, and Change on the other.
And then there's John Edwards, the candidate of exemplification,iii typically using homely examples of individuals who have been ripped off by the system — whether by Big Pharma or Big Oil. Implicit in this strategy is the notion that poignant individual examples will add up to Big Ideas about what's wrong with American politics.
Looked at in this way, Strategic Frame Analysis™ proves a reliable predictor of the Iowa outcomes: Level One trumps Level Three as conceptual organizers for candidates, and exemplification is less powerful that Level One ideas. This is not to say that other factors (party affiliation, ideology, etc.) are not in play and will not play out in the months to come, but it is nevertheless the case that, in these early message tests, the choices made by the candidates proved important to their perceptions by the public. Words do matter.
2. The conventional wisdom that self-interest is at the core of public opinion is laid bare by the fact that public opinion — in this election at the very least — is tied to the ability to develop new cultural models to help the public understand the call to action.
This is the theme of an interesting op/ed by Economist Bryan Caplan writing in the Washington Post.iv Caplan argues, as have we, against the notion that people vote their self-interest. "In fact, there is only the tiniest correlation between income and party…Self-interest is also a bad predictor of views about specific issues," reminding us that men are actually more pro-choice than women. And, indeed, all those appeals to the struggling middle class that Edwards waged in Iowa seem to have been best received by….the wealthy. "John Edwards' populist message did not resonate with lower-income Iowans," concludes the New York Times analysis.v "He actually did better among those making over $100,000 than among those making less than $50,000." On the other hand, Obama's broad themed message resonated much better than expected with the lower and middle classes.
Caplan also provides some interesting reminders about why people "make mistakes" in the way they view issues and tie them to candidates. He assails the assumption that "voters' errors balance out," because it is presumed that, "for every voter who overestimates the benefits of tariffs, carbon taxes and the Iraq war," another voter is presumed to make the opposite mistake. In fact, Caplan says, "voters are frequently wrong in the same wayvi." From a Strategic Frame Analysis™ perspective, this is a symptom of the presence of bad cognitive models. As a group of researchers famously asked about Americans' attitudes to the environment:vii
"If American environmental values are so pervasive and strong, why is there not more environmental action? The cultural models available to understand global warming lead to ineffective personal actions and support for ineffective policies, regardless of the level of personal commitment to environmental problems."Unfortunately, the Environmental Defense Action Fund's adsviii that ran in Washington markets during the Democratic debate in New Hampshire Sunday night failed to recognize the necessity of providing a new cultural model for global warming. While one ad made a clear case for bipartisan consensus to address global warming, virtually no new information was imparted about how it works, what causes it, etc. Instead, the tired old equation of "Greenhouse Gas Pollution" was flashed on the screen. Greenhouses, FrameWorks research shows, are for many people "places where nice plants grow." Pollution? Keep that up and we'll all be endorsing nuclear power and clean coal. And the combination of Politicians, Crisis, Greenhouse and Pollution? A likely reversal of that same fragile consensus, if FrameWorks' research in Canada holds for the U.S. That's why framing is different from spin — to frame effectively, you really do have to help people get smarter. Simplifying Modelsix are badly needed in all of the electoral discussions — from cap-and-trade to health care reform and globalization. Who will teach the public new ways to conceptualize these complex issues in ways that prove enduring once the election is history? For instance, will the Democrats finally come up with a potent metaphorical explanation of how the economy works to counter the highly effective Simplifying Model of "trickle down" tax cuts?
3. The importance of Tone has been evident throughout the campaign.
For instance, in order to embrace Change and repudiate The Past, candidates have tried to avoid stepping into the Just Politics Frame which features a rather rabid rhetorical tone. It isn't easy. One New Hampshire voter offered up an interesting example of Responsible Manager thinking, when she used a vivid metaphor to explain her repudiation of Clinton's Politics as Usual.x According to a Washington Post interview with New Hampshire voter Laurie Tostenson, "(W)hen Clinton said President Bush has marred America's reputation and made wrong-headed policy decisions, Tostenson thought Clinton was doing too much blaming. 'If someone tracks all over your floor, I don't care who did it, I just want someone to clean it up,' she said." Tostenson's response shows how easily Tone can serve as a trip-wire. And her Everyday Action Scenario metaphor leads her to want responsible management, not partisan attacks.
The most recent polls suggests that adopting a rhetorical tone — in the form of Senator Clinton's aggressive attacks on Senator Obama in the final days leading up to the New Hampshire primary — is not effective; Obama continues to gain ground. Tone clearly matters.
In short, why is there such distortion between what the pundits and the pollsters tell us, on the one hand, and the framing effects we outline above? One reason is, as political scientist Ted Braderxi explains, is that the "art" of campaigning has little to do with the science. In fact, based on interviews with many of the top advisors in both parties, the conventional wisdom about "what works" is almost wholly at odds with the literature of political and social psychology. Interestingly, when we talk about framing, everyone wants to talk about niche marketing and branding the candidates; but this election cycle causes us to ask: what about framing???
So enjoy the framing exercises afforded by the election season — and don't forget to test your own hunches and the prognostications of the experts against the science of campaigning!
- See our paper, "Communications for Social Good." April 2004. Washington, DC: The Foundation Center. posted at www.frameworksinstitute.org.
- For more on levels of thinking, see FrameWorks EZine #8: A Five Minute Refresher Course in Framing.
- For more on exemplification, see FrameWorks EZine #33:Vivid Examples: What They Mean and Why You Should Be Careful Using Them.
- "Five Myths About Our Ballot-Box Behavior, Bryan Caplan, The Washington Post Outlook Section, January 6, 2008, B3.
- "A First Glimpse of the Electorate," Ford Fessenden and Farhana Hossain, The New York Times, National Edition, January 5, 2006, A12.
- Emphasis in the original.
- See Willett Kempton, James S. Boster and Jennifer A. Hartley, Environmental Values in American Culture, MIT Press, 1995.
- See www.environtaldefense.org: Operation Climate Vote/Governors Challenge Congress to Cap Global Warming Pollution.
- See FrameWorks E-Zines #19, 34 and 37 at www.frameworksinstitute.org for more about Simplifying Models.
- "Seeing Beyond Gender, Despite Shared Struggles," Krissah Williams, Washington Post Campaign 2008, January 6, 2008, A9.
- Campaiging for Hearts and Minds: How Emotional Appeals in Political Ads Work. University of Chicago Press, 2006.
