Issue Framing

Oxford Handbooks Online

Issue Framing  
Thomas E. Nelson
The Oxford Handbook of American Public Opinion and the Media
Edited by George C. Edwards III, Lawrence R. Jacobs, and Robert Y. Shapiro

Print Publication Date: May 2011 Subject: Political Science, U.S. Politics, Political Behavior
Online Publication Date: Sep 2011 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199545636.003.0012

Abstract and Keywords

This chapter addresses two important questions on issue frames, namely what they do
and what they are. It notes that while framing has attracted a rather wide and diverse
assortment of scholars and revealed a number of valuable empirical findings, it has left
the entire field fragmented. The chapter then shows whether frames cheapen public
discourse or not, and reveals that framing research can serve as a representation of the
best in social science. It concludes that while political language may be confusing and
disorderly, framing can serve as a tool to help people understand it.

Keywords: issue frames, framing, public discourse, framing research, social science, political language

WHILE our leaders busy themselves confronting international terrorism, there is a far
graver public health menace that attracts comparatively little notice. This threat kills tens
of thousands of Americans every year; in fact, it is the leading cause of death among
some groups. Furthermore, a simple change in the law would dramatically lessen this
danger, saving hundreds or even thousands of lives without demanding great sacrifices in
our way of life. That legislators have failed to enact this simple measure is scandalous
enough; what's worse is that recent changes in government policy have actually
increased this risk. What is this great public scourge? Automobile travel. The change in
the law that would save so many lives? Lowering the speed limit (Vanderbilt 2008).

Does it seem inappropriate, not to say contrived, to call driving a “public health menace”?
Does it seem perverse to state that driving is a greater threat to American welfare than
terrorism? And yet the facts are plain. Framing automobile travel as a public health
menace might be unusual, but it is not unfaithful to the facts. There are many other ways
of framing automobile travel, equally faithful to the facts, but far more flattering to the
peripatetic American driver. The cost‐benefit frame depicts deaths and injuries due to
driving as an unfortunate but unavoidable price we pay for the many commercial and

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Issue Framing

recreational advantages that driving affords. The libertarian frame sees driving along the
open road as the quintessential embodiment of American freedom—an informed choice
that government dare not infringe (Sandel 2009).

Already we see two important qualities of issue frames. First, they include factual
assertions, but go beyond the facts to offer broader interpretations and characterizations
of the issue. Second, most of them are valenced, meaning that they support a distinct
position on a (typically) controversial issue. A close analogue would be the summary
statements offered at trial by plaintiffs' and defendants' counsels. Working from a
common set of facts, the antagonists provide diverging (p. 190) interpretations of the
events and points of law that suggest guilt or innocence (Pennington and Hastie 1992).

This chapter addresses two key questions about issue frames: what they are, and what
they do. Framing research has rushed to pursue the latter question before really settling
the former. This is probably because framing has attracted such a remarkably broad and
diverse assortment of scholarly prospectors, each unearthing valuable nuggets of
empirical findings, but leaving the field as a whole fragmented (Entman 1993). On
balance, framing scholarship is a terrific example of strength through diversity. By taking
stock of the various conceptualizations and operationalizations of framing across the
traditional disciplinary centers, we learn much more than we would have if the study of
framing had kept within the confines of a single discipline. This requires us, naturally, to
take that stock.

Defining Issue Framing

One widely quoted definition states that framing provides “a central organizing idea or
story line that provides meaning to an unfolding strip of events, weaving a connection
among them. The frame suggests what the controversy is about, the essence of the
issue” (Gamson and Modigliani 1987, 140). This is a good start, but is not sufficient,
because just as “framing” has been approached by different scholarly traditions, it has
been applied to different phenomena. We must strive to specify clear boundaries between
the different kinds of framing, while resisting the urge to call anything and everything a
frame.

Imagine a debate about traffic laws that concerned itself entirely with competing
predictions about the effect of lower speed limits on driving casualties (Vanderbilt 2008).
Some argue, with considerable empirical backing, that the variation in casualties due to
speed alone is relatively minor, and so there is little benefit to lowering speeds. Others
argue, backed by their own mountain of research, that there is a meaningful relation
between speed and risk. As with most complex human behaviors, clean tests are hard to
come by; speed is hardly independent of other variables. A great deal of disagreement
thus focuses exclusively on which facts one chooses to believe. Both arguments exhibit
the same frame—a “casualty frame,” if you will (Jerit 2008). The messages express

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Issue Framing

alternative valences within the casualty frame (one favorable, the other unfavorable) with
respect to the central question of speed limits. These alternative valences might very well
influence attitudes, but it would be different from the potential effect of the casualty
frame relative to, say, the libertarian frame.

Now imagine a world in which the empirical questions were actually settled to everyone's
satisfaction. That is, the pro‐speed and anti‐speed forces agree that reducing the speed
limit would significantly cut fatalities. Even in such an unlikely world, the debate would
hardly end. Competing sides might remain just as entrenched, because they subscribe to
competing visions, characterizations, or interpretations—frames, in a (p. 191) word—of
the traffic issue. Pro‐speed forces might still claim that an overbearing intrusion by the
government into the freedom of the individual driver is an unacceptable price to pay for
protecting the lives of people who, through their own recklessness, are doubtless partly
responsible for their own fates. The only way to make the roads completely safe, after all,
is to ban driving altogether. To answer the libertarian frame, anti‐speed forces would be
forced to go beyond the empirical predictions to offer an alternative frame, perhaps
stressing that the roads are publicly owned and publicly shared, and therefore an
appropriate arena for judicious government regulation. Competing factual claims,
however important they are to public debate, are neither its beginning nor its end.

In the extreme, one can frame the same facts in different ways. Instead of talking about
how many lives might be lost under a given scenario, for example, one could instead talk
about how many lives could be saved. This is precisely what Kahneman and Tversky did in
their experiments on prospect theory, their alternative to strict expected utility theory
(Kahneman and Tversky 1984). Kahneman and Tversky demonstrated that attitudes
toward risk were significantly influenced by this gain–loss framing. Subjects were more
eager to take chances under the loss frame, presumably because they were willing to risk
a larger loss in order to have a chance of suffering no loss at all. To present these
alternative frames, the experimenters deftly manipulated the putative status quo. To
establish the gain frame, a specific number of deaths was assumed; every alternative,
therefore, was described as a positive change (or no change) from that reference point.
To establish a loss frame, the status quo was not specified; it must therefore have been
assumed to be “no change.” Every prospect was therefore worse than this reference
point.

These exercises are among the best‐known “framing effects,” but framing research
stretches across an astonishingly wide range of scholarly disciplines, and many framing
studies bear little resemblance to the Kahneman and Tversky experiments, nor do they
relate in any obvious way to behavioral economics (Schaffner and Sellers 2009). Framing
is a communal concept; perhaps alone among social science topics, it spans several layers
of systemic and individual phenomena. “Frame” refers to the peculiar habits and
institutional norms of news organizations; the strategic communication choices of mass
movement organizers and interest group entrepreneurs; the structure and content of
communication; and the mental organizations of citizens. “Frames,” therefore, are static

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Issue Framing

features of messages or thoughts; “framing” is the dynamic process of advocating or

applying a frame to an issue.

What makes Kahneman and Tversky's demonstration so effective is that the prospects are
precisely quantified and, to the fully informed observer, clearly equivalent in expected
value. These features make the departures from normative decision rules obvious, but
concordant with prospect theory's predictions. Druckman calls these “equivalence
frames” (Druckman 2001a), and political scientists have investigated their applicability to
political phenomena like strategic decision‐making (Boettcher 2004). They are atypical
exemplars of issue framing, however, because the prospects, or expected outcomes, are
being framed, but not the issue itself (Lau and Schlesinger 2005).

Contrast these characteristics with the driving example that opened this chapter,
(p. 192)

or any of the other popular or scholarly examples of framing effects. In such cases, the
issue or policy solution is subject to competing characterizations. For example, Jacoby
(2000) compared opinions toward “government spending” with support for more specific
programs like food stamps. Support was stronger for the narrow framing of spending
than for the broader framing. Alternative frames often consist of more colorful,
interpretive language than the simple quantitative expressions in Kahneman and
Tversky's exercises. In a simple demonstration, Smith found greater support for “aid to
the poor” than for “welfare,” even though they amount to the same thing (Smith 1987).

Contestants in the health care debate disagreed strongly about its likely cost to the
taxpayers, and whether citizens can choose their own doctor. When the President claimed
that his health care proposal wouldn't cost the taxpayer another penny, while his
opponents predicted a tax‐and‐spending debacle, they were debating, but not framing. An
issue frame could, however, emphasize the cost dimension and deemphasize the choice
dimension, or vice versa. As persuasive speech, framing is, among other things, an
exercise in keeping the public's attention focused on those aspects of the issue that cast
the most favorable light on one's own position (Jacobs and Shapiro 2000; Jacoby 2000).

Issue frames embody a complex semantic structure that confounds easy definition and
measurement. The efforts are reminiscent of the painstaking work by international
relations scholars to describe and capture the complex, synthetic world views of global
leaders (Holsti 1970). They also call to mind disputes over whether the schema concept,
also imported from cognitive psychology, provides any comparative advantage over tried
and true concepts like attitude (Kuklinski, Luskin, and Bolland 1991). Defining issue
framing remains an ongoing project (Iyengar 2009), as scholarship walks a fine line
between comprehensiveness and distinctiveness.

News Framing

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Issue Framing

Framing simplifies issues. The end of the twenty‐first century's first decade will be
remembered for the global credit crisis and consequent economic recession. How does
the average citizen understand this labyrinthine phenomenon? Many of them don't, but
that cannot be an option for all citizens, since we are expected to evaluate policies
intended to rescue the world from this calamity. Rather than constructing a
comprehensive mental model that incorporates all the moving parts of this crisis, we
might choose a convenient frame that tells a relatively simple story about who's at fault,
and what should be done (Morris 2008). One popular frame puts most of the blame on the
shoulders of Wall Street hotshots, who concocted obscure financial instruments and sold
them to callow investors. Another blames consumers who took on more debt than they
could handle, especially home mortgages. Still another blames the lenders, brokers, and
realtors who pushed houses and mortgages on those underqualified consumers, and so
on.

Who especially needs compact, easily digested summaries of today's top stories?
(p. 193)

The news media, of course. News organizations can apply any number of frames to just
about any kind of story (Price and Tewksbury 1997). There is the personalization frame,
which boils down complex political–economic stories to comparatively simple narratives
about individuals (Iyengar 1991). Some media stories about the economic crisis focus on
detailed portraits of newly unemployed workers or homeowners facing foreclosure, while
stories about health care feature disheartening tales about families enduring economic
ruin over a costly illness. The conflict frame, by contrast, defines issues by their
competing groups.

Issue frames may be reported by the media, or even supply the theme around which a
news story is organized (de Vreese 2003; Nelson, Clawson, and Oxley 1997). They are not
the same as news frames, however. The difference is that news frames are generic; they
apply to just about any kind of issue. Indeed, that is their main function and appeal for
news organizations. One could write a conflict‐framed story about a war, of course, but
also about a budget battle in Congress or a variance request placed before the local
zoning commission. Issue frames are comparatively specific and ad hoc: they capture the
essence of an issue, and perhaps only that issue; they do not necessarily transport to any
other kind of topic. Furthermore, they are valenced, rather than neutral. They lay blame
and favor particular solutions. The “pro‐choice” and “pro‐life” abortion frames summarize
and simplify, to be sure, but they also wear their preferences plainly on their sleeves. In
short, media frames are templates, whereas issue frames are themes.

There is symbiosis between media framing and issue framing, which contributes to the
confusion. The news media's predilection for simple summary statements, and their
reliance on skilled spokespeople for quotables, means that news organizations become
the carriers of issue frames (Kellstedt 2003). This is all to the good for the creators of
these issue frames, for frames acquire priceless credibility when reported by a news
organization. Some tough cases have characteristics of both news frames and issue
frames; for example, the strategic game frame that dominates news coverage of both
elected leaders and political candidates. This frame assumes that leaders' explanations

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Issue Framing

for their behaviors cannot be taken at face value; that some hidden venal motive provides
the true energy for their actions (Cappella and Jamieson 1997; Patterson 1993). This
frame, like other news frames, easily transports to all kinds of topics, but it has qualities
in common with issue frames, also. Political communicators outside of the journalists'
ranks rely on this frame to tarnish their opponents and the causes they represent.

Frame Elements and Effects

The most complete set of ideas about issue‐frame substance and consequences can be
found in the writings of William Gamson (for example, Gamson and Lasch 1983; Gamson
and Modigliani 1987), although reviewing his framing theory requires yet another side
trip into terminology. Gamson argues that social movements wrap their positions inside
holistic issue packages, composed of many signature elements, one of which is the frame.
Other elements include caricatures, or exaggerated, cartoonish depictions of the
opposing side (fat‐cat businessmen, eco‐terrorists, feminazis, etc.) In Gamson's view,
frames are brief summary depictions of the entire package. We know, for example, that
the “pro‐choice” frame in the abortion debate conveys a lot more than a simple homage to
personal choice. Frames are not to be confused with catchphrases: pithy, shoutable
slogans such as “keep your laws off my body.” In a process of scholarly metonymy, the
frame element has come to be treated as synonymous with the entire package.

Frames can be more or less comprehensive. “Whole story frames” are the broadest
perspectives or points of view on an issue (Gray 2003). Environmental disputes, for
example, often feature competing sides whose entire world views seem mutually alien.
The groups do not represent differing interests so much as clashing cultures. Such
diametrically opposed outlooks help explain why these disputes often prove intractable.

Framing happens at the sub‐issue level, too. Key concepts or ideas can be subject to
differing interpretations or depictions. In the perennial debate over teaching
“alternatives” to evolution in public schools, disputants have wrangled over the meaning
of the term “science” (Ruse 1996). Alternative framings of this household word can be
more or less hospitable to theories such as intelligent design, which have more than a
whiff of the supernatural about them. Evolutionists insist that real science assumes
methodological naturalism: natural phenomena must be explicable in terms of natural
forces. Intelligent designers insist on a broader definition that makes room for the
deliberate actions of a super‐powerful but obscure designer. This framing contest is not
just an idle exercise in lay epistemology; disputants have tried to codify their preferred
frame in state education policy. Everyone agrees that students should learn science; the
disagreement centers around what counts as science. In this dispute, the power to frame
has quite tangible policy consequences.

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Issue Framing

Contemporary communication scholarship tends to lump framing with priming and

agenda‐setting as examples of “subtle” communication effects (versus learning, a more
overt effect). A complete understanding of issue framing thus requires disentangling it
from these sister concepts. The differences are real, but people can be forgiven for
scratching their heads over all these terms.

McCombs, a pioneer in agenda‐setting research, sees continuity rather than divergence

between framing and agenda‐setting (McCombs 2004). He likens framing to “second
order agenda‐setting.” Agenda‐setting theory argues that mass media attention to a
public issue begets heightened public concern about the problem. The prototype is crime
coverage. Media attention to crime, especially sensational crime such as road rage or
kidnapping, can raise public concern about the problem, even if the relative occurrence
of such events is steady and slight (Glassner 1999). Such is first‐order agenda‐setting:
media attention elevates concern about one type of issue (p. 195) (e.g., crime) relative to
others competing for our interest and attention (e.g., the economy).

Second‐order agenda‐setting applies the same logic within rather than between issues.
Issues such as the global credit crisis are usually multifaceted problems, inviting many
different perspectives or approaches. Each approach isolates and elevates the
prominence of one element of these complex phenomena. The consequences of second‐
order agenda‐setting for public policy can be significant. If the credit crisis is all about
reckless proliferation of investment instruments, then some regulation of the financial
services industry would seem warranted; if it's all about bad mortgages, then the home
lending industry would seem due for stricter oversight.

Put this way, the barriers between framing, priming, and agenda‐setting seem translucent
at best. Consider one of McComb's own examples: news coverage of election campaigns.
Suppose that, during an election campaign, the news media lavish attention on one
thorny problem (e.g., the economy) to the neglect of other, arguably equally important
issues (e.g., foreign policy). The media will have thus set the agenda for the public, such
that the economy becomes the number one concern for most citizens. A consequence of
this agenda‐setting would likely be that candidates in the upcoming election will be
evaluated, first and foremost, on their economic aptitude. This is priming, or determining
the criteria by which political actors are evaluated (Iyengar and Kinder 1987). Notice that
neither of these effects depends on the media making overt connections between the
economy and the upcoming election. They probably would, but the effects are presumably
accomplished merely by keeping the public's thoughts occupied by the economy, rather
than something else. Thus occupied, subsequent political judgments and decisions
(What's the most important problem facing the nation? Whom should I vote for?) will be
disproportionately affected by economics (Iyengar and Kinder 1987; Vavreck 2009).

Suppose the media do make overt connections between the upcoming election and the
candidates' relative ability to manage the economy. This is second‐order agenda‐setting,
or framing, according to McCombs. Elections are complex decision problems, to be sure.
There are many issues that could be considered determinative, to say nothing of

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Issue Framing

candidate qualities, party reputations, and so on. In second‐order agenda‐setting, the

media don't make our decision for us, but they provide direct instruction about how to
make our decision. They say, in effect, “it's the economy, stupid voter.”

Second‐order agenda‐setting accounts nicely for many issue‐framing effects, but cannot
subsume them all (to be crystal clear, McCombs does not advocate abandoning the term
“framing”). It works best in cases where we envision framing as an exercise in narrowing
or simplifying an issue. It is less convincing when we consider the interpretive or
explanatory function of frames, as in the example of alternative frames for science.

De Vreese's research on media frames for European integration provides important

findings in its own right, but presents further challenges for researchers seeking
coherent and consistent conceptual boundaries around all of these communication
effects. Through content analysis, de Vreese found media coverage of European Union
(p. 196) expansion dominated by an economic frame. Moreover, some stories emphasized

potential economic costs of expansion, while others concentrated on benefits. Sure

enough, such variations in coverage influenced audiences' attitudes. De Vreese calls
these framing effects; but according to the criteria outlined above, it's not so clear. To
find that economic frames of alternative valences (positive versus negative) are influential
says nothing about the impact of economic frames versus some other frame (e.g.,
cultural, legal). Perhaps it's splitting hairs, but we could refer to de Vreese's effects as
effects of frame valence, rather than frame.

This extended discussion of what issue frames aren't has, I hope, not only helped explain
what they are, but also clarified sometimes maddening overlap among all these instances
of the framing concept. The similarities and differences, however aggravating, tell us a
lot about the origins and structure of mass communication. But this is only half of the
story; what of the consequences of issue framing?

Cognitive and Audience Frames

Many cognitively oriented framing researchers conceptualize frames much like social
stereotypes: they have a cultural representation outside of the individual, as well as a
mental representation within the individual (Scheufele 2004). They suggest that mass
communication frames correspond to a structured set of cognitions, emotions, and
evaluations at the individual level. Perhaps the most obvious and straightforward
“framing effect” would therefore amount to communication frames shaping these
individual frames, or activating existing frames that resemble the communication frame.

As sensible as such a claim sounds, it is the rare study that has tried to demonstrate a
clear communication frame–individual frame linkage (Neuman, Just, and Crigler 1992).
The paucity of efforts is doubtless due to the considerable difficulties of conceptualizing,
defining, and measuring a “cognitive frame.” Just as with their extra‐individual mates, an

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Issue Framing

individual frame's holistic character defies easy description. Individual stereotypes are
often conceived of as a list of traits that distinguish a social category (men are assertive,
women are emotional, etc.) Frames are thought to be something more. We would not say
that an individual's stereotype constitutes the totality of their attitudes toward that social
category; presumably, feelings about the other group come into play, perhaps joined by a
kind of ideology about intergroup relations. Likewise, individual frames have to be more
than just a collection of discrete cognitions; there is a sense that the systemic
interrelations among these components are also important.

This puts framing closer to the structural depictions of cognitive organization, such as
script, schema, narrative, or mental model. In old‐fashioned terms, it is the gestalt that
establishes the frame, not its individual components. Borrowing from the “story model” of
jury decision‐making (Pennington and Hastie 1992), Berinsky and Kinder (2006) argue
that frames supply a plausible narrative that assembles and organizes otherwise discrete
facts. In so doing, frames help citizens “make sense” of politics.

It is fascinating to pursue questions about the individual mental representation of issue

frames, and about the mutual influence between such frames and mass‐communicated
frames. Strictly speaking, however, it is not necessary to establish frames as a viable
model of cognitive representation in order to sustain the idea that framing is an
important communication phenomenon in its own right. Indeed, many experimental
studies of framing do not assume that there must be an isomorphic relation between
communication and cognitive frames. Many studies look at framing effects on familiar
constructs such as beliefs or opinions.

In examining the individual effects of frames, research has stressed three broad classes
of concepts: attributions, values, and group attitudes. Attributions are paramount in the
work of the social movement theorists (Gamson and Modigliani 1989; Snow and Benford
1992) as well as Iyengar's research on news frames (Iyengar 1991). To mobilize their
followers, social movements must identify specific actors who are responsible for an
injustice, as well as who should take responsibility for resolving the problem. In Iyengar's
view, news frames do much the same thing, although far more subtly. Values are idealized
conditions or behaviors that provide standards for evaluating policy solutions. Political
controversies often embody several values, which might conflict. Frames can stress which
value deserves the greatest recognition (Brewer and Gross 2005; Nelson 2004; Shah,
Domke, and Wackman 1996). Finally, group admiration or enmity can powerfully affect
political attitudes. Frames can emphasize a linkage between evaluations of a group and
evaluations of a policy (Grant and Rudolph 2003; Nelson and Kinder 1996).

The common depiction of framing's simplification function puts it squarely within the
bounded rationality paradigm that dominates today's cognitively oriented political
psychology. The major claim of the paradigm is that citizens only think as much about
politics as necessary to make judgments, formulate opinions, and reach decisions.
Expending extra cognitive effort on politics, unless it's your job or your hobby, is a waste.
To accomplish these tasks with minimal effort, the citizen skims the surface of his or her

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Issue Framing

political memory, rather than digs deeply. What's at the surface of memory isn't
necessarily the most valuable, relevant, or important fragment of information; more than
likely, it simply happens to be something we heard relatively recently—say, an issue frame
we just encountered. As reviewed above, such an account makes framing of a piece with
priming and agenda‐setting.

I've never been convinced that this is the whole story behind framing effects (Nelson,
Oxley, and Clawson 1997; see also Slothuus 2008). It turns out it might not be the whole
story behind agenda‐setting, either (J. M. Miller 2007). More recent models of framing
effects also emphasize more mindful processes such as judging the importance or
relevance of different considerations (Slothuus 2008).

Cognitive psychology suggests another pair of processes that might contribute to framing
effects: categorization and analogy (Holyoak and Thagard 1995; Pinker 2007). For
example, the 1970s and 1980s saw many of the United States' misadventures in (p. 198)
Central America come to a head. While the conflicts in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and
Guatemala followed their unique courses, they shared many similarities (entrenched
right‐wing oligarchy meets left‐wing insurrection; bloody civil war ensues; United States
aids counterrevolutionary forces). The casual observer might readily have lumped them
all together into a “Central American civil war” category. Passionate debates over US
policy in the region featured two general frames: (a) “communist conspiracy” and (b)
“banana republic.” Like all good frames, they explained the origins of the problem and
counseled appropriate action. The communist conspiracy frame blamed the hot spots on
cold war machinations by the USSR and/or Cuba. This frame advocated a military
response to quash the rebellions. The banana republic frame blamed the unrest on the
economic exploitation of the peasantry by the oligarchies, aided and abetted by US‐based
multinational corporations. The solution was democratic reform.

Categorization is one of our species' great mental assets. Recognizing community among
disparate exemplars confers great advantages with respect to understanding, prediction,
and action. Categorization means relating the novel to the familiar, applying stored
knowledge to new situations. Frames function like political categories, and framing—the
dynamic action—can be understood as making an assertion about the appropriateness of
a category for the case at hand. Similarly, an analogy relates a novel case to a familiar
one that represents a kind of exemplary type, from which we draw important lessons
(Khong 1992). To some, the war, or occupation, in Iraq is a hopeless quagmire, just like
Vietnam; to others, it's a noble effort to thwart a dangerous dictator, just like the Second
World War. Human reasoning across a range of subjects is dominated by analogy and
metaphor (Pinker 2007). Again, the exercise is not politically neutral; recognizing the
resemblance between a current crisis and a past one guides us to the proper course of
action.

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Issue Framing

Winning with Words?

Is language the key to the political kingdom? Does power accrue to the most adept at
manipulating? There is no question that political organizations, from major parties to
interest groups, see framing as an important tool for advancing their interests. No major
political actor would think of undertaking a significant public relations push without
thoroughly focus‐grouping and test marketing their frames for maximum impact. The
Democratic Party, convinced that Republicans have lately gained the upper hand in
message crafting, have pinned their hopes on the work of George Lakoff, a cognitive
linguist and framing researcher in his own right (Lakoff 2006).

Concern about the potential for public manipulation through framing increases to alarm
when we confront the large gaps in public knowledge and understanding about the issues
of the day. It is all too easy to find instances where popular ignorance (p. 199) threatens
to undermine sensible policy‐making. Roughly half the American public, for example,
either flatly rejects the theory of evolution, or expresses doubts about it (Miller, Scott,
and Okamoto 2006). Prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, large majorities of the American
public believed that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and had
something to do with the 9/11 attacks (Kaufmann 2004). Through careful framing,
political entrepreneurs can exploit popular ignorance to shift public opinion on these and
other issues (Jacobs and Shapiro 2000). The result? Dubious “alternative” theories of
evolution taught in public school science classes, and a hideously expensive war and
occupation.

Before we resurrect the paranoia of the post‐Second World War era, when scholars and
citizens feared that state propaganda machines could exert total control over public
opinion, it is worth remembering that citizens, though not always well informed or
thoughtful about politics, are no pushovers. The framing literature is replete with
demonstrations of factors that limit the impact of frames (Druckman 2001b). Even if
individual resistance fails, the diversity of well‐resourced political entrepreneurs means
that, for every frame pushing public opinion in one direction, another frame will likely
push back (Chong and Druckman 2007). This does not necessarily mean that each
individual will eventually reach a point of neutrality between opposing frames. Evidence
is accumulating that, in our current information‐saturated world, individuals exercise
considerable selectivity in their choice of media (Iyengar and Hahn 2009). For many
partisans, frame exposure is very one‐sided. Frames might balance each other in the
aggregate, but at the individual level their impact could be further entrenchment of initial
opinions (Slothuus and de Vreese 2010).

While aspects of the frame's environment govern its effectiveness, there are also qualities
of the frame itself, interacting with the political climate, that can limit its reach and
power. Every frame has its season, and a frame out of step with its time might prove
ineffective. Frames with greater “resonance” have the greater potential for impact;
resonance being composed of “empirical credibility, experiential commensurability, and
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Issue Framing

ideational centrality or narrative fidelity” (Snow and Benford 1992, 140). Once again, the
intelligent design debate supplies an example. A master frame for intelligent design
promoters is “dogmatic Darwinism”. In this, the scientific establishment's pet theory,
Darwinism, is teetering on the brink of extinction. Rather than allowing honest, open
debate on the strengths and weaknesses of Darwinism, however, the establishment
censors Darwin's critics through its stranglehold on academic appointments, research
funding, publication outlets, and public school curricula (Dembski 2004). The result is a
captive public “brainwashed” into believing that Darwinism is the only viable explanation
for the development of life on earth, while a small cadre of heroic science outcasts keeps
alive honest inquiry into this topic.

Mainstream scientists scoff, but many people subscribe to this frame. What is remarkable
is how closely it resembles another conspiratorial frame once told by supporters of an
earlier fringe theory: the flat earth hypothesis. As entertainingly related by Garwood
(2008), the flat earthers once also claimed that the only thing standing between their
ideas and public acceptance was a stubborn scientific (p. 200) establishment bent on
protecting its pet theory at any cost. I do not mean to suggest that intelligent design is
just as laughable as the flat earth hypothesis. My point is that, while the frame retains
strong “resonance” for the intelligent design movement, it has long since crumbled as a
bulwark of the flat earth hypothesis. The coup de grâce was the Apollo space program.
The time for a popular flat earth movement has gone.

Conclusion
Do frames cheapen public discourse? In the extreme, frames substitute for authentic
attitudes, and generate an illusion of public opinion that lasts only until the next frame
comes along (Bishop 2005). The case can be made, however, that the average citizen's
response to frames is more reflective than reflexive. Consider the finding that framing
effects are moderated by source credibility, such that untrustworthy sources are less
effective framers (Druckman 2001b); or that it is often the relatively knowledgeable who
are most affected by frames (Druckman 2001a; Nelson, Oxley, and Clawson 1997). One
can go further: the ultimate effect of framing might not be merely benign, but beneficial.
To say that frames simplify complex issues is not to say that they oversimplify them.
What, after all, is the correct explanation for the worldwide credit crisis? There is no
consensus among experts; indeed, the US Congress convened special hearings simply to
get to the bottom of what happened. Various issue frames have stepped into this factual
and analytic void, serving as interpretive and explanatory guides (Porto 2007). Many were
surely composed with persuasive intent, but that does not necessarily make them wrong.
Yes, by emphasizing the causal and/or moral responsibility of a particular agent, such
frames might not tell the whole story, but any story we tell about such a complex

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Issue Framing

phenomenon will be incomplete. By satisfying our needs for explanation and prescriptive
action, such issue frames facilitate democratic decision‐making.

Framing research can exemplify the best in social science. It draws the concerted efforts
of an impressively wide range of scholarly talent; consequently, it forces researchers to
explore beyond their intellectual comfort zones. The result is a lively, fruitful, and
fascinating scientific enterprise. At the same time, unsettling disagreement and hand
waving attend the most basic of conceptual questions about frame structure and function.
We await better answers to these questions, but we should view them as signs of vitality
rather than hollowness. They arise from a renewed interest in understanding the social
and political effects of communication content, a topic that, astonishingly, was ignored for
decades by social psychologists and communication researchers alike (McGuire 1985).
Political language might be unruly, but it is not unfathomable, and framing is a tool of
uncommon power that will enable us better to grasp it.

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Thomas E. Nelson

Thomas E. Nelson is Associate Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University.

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