Notes on "Framing"
Shaping opinion and response through language.

Source: The Future of Public Engagement
Matthew C. Nisbet & Dietram A. Scheufele, The Scientist, Volume 21, Issue 10, p.38.

The facts never speak for themselves, which is why scientists
need to "frame" their messages to the public.

[...]
HOW FRAMING WORKS
The earliest formal work on framing traces back 25 years to research by the cognitive psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. In experiments examining risk judgments and consumer choices rather than content itself, the two psychologists discovered that the different ways in which a message is presented or framed can result in very different responses. They concluded in their Nobel Prize winning research that "perception is reference-dependent."⁴

Image Credit: TheScientist.com

Over the past two decades, research in the fields of political communication and sociology has added to previous work on framing to explain how media portrayals in interaction with cultural forces shape public views. In this research, frames are identified as being used by audiences as "interpretative schema" to make sense of and discuss an issue, by journalists to craft interesting and appealing news reports, and by policymakers to define policy options and reach decisions.⁵

In each of these contexts, frames simplify complex issues by lending greater importance to certain considerations and arguments over others. In the process, framing helps communicate why an issue might be a problem, who or what might be responsible, and what should be done.⁶ A typology of frames specific to science-related issues summarizes a common set of frames specific to science. Past research suggests that these generalizable interpretations play out over and over again across science debates.⁷ [...] [Read more]

More on "Framing":

• Simple Framing: An introduction to framing and its uses in politics.
  George Lakoff, Rockridge Institute, (14 February 2006)



• The framing effect and risky decisions: Examining cognitive functions with fMRI
  Cleotilde Gonzalez, Jason Dana, Hideya Koshino, Marcel Just.
  Journal of Economic Psychology, 26(2005)1–20



• The Framing Effect of Price Format
  Marco Bertini and Luc Wathieu, Working Paper, HBS Working Knowledge, (16 May 2006; pubdate: June 2006)
  See also: Fixing Price Tag Confusion
  Q&A with Luc R. Wathieu, by Sean Silverthorne. (11 December 2006), HBS Working Knowledge



• Framing (social sciences) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



• The Environment: A Cleaner, Safer, Healthier America
  Frank Luntz. A 16-page memo (2003) that outlines a public relations strategy to help Republicans and President George W. Bush address vulnerabilities in their position on the environment and the matter of global warming.
  See also: Words that Work: It's Not What You Say it's What People Hear
  Frank Luntz (Hyperion Books; pubdate: 31 January 2007)



• Scientific American Mind: When Words Decide
  Researchers are discovering the myriad ways in which language can have a profound effect on the choices we make - from the foods we eat to the laws we support. [...]
  Barry Schwartz, Scientific American Mind, (August/September 2007:37-43)