Example of Framing

Framing. The news-report "formula" just described obliges the writer to order his information
in a top-down sequence of statements, with the initial ones serving to create a frame for the
story. In the case at hand, the writer has clearly chosen to frame the event as a simple
confrontation between a crowd of protestors and law-enforcement officials. The entire first
column is devoted to numerical details about how many demonstrators there were and how
many of them were arrested. The writer has also chosen to depict the officials in favorable
terms and the protestors in unfavorable ones. Notice, for example, how Energy Department
estimates are given priority over those from the protesting group, and how the DOE
(Department of Energy) spokesman's comments are presented before those of the
demonstrators. This framing succeeds in drawing attention away from the more substantive
aspects of the event, such as American military policies, public health, and environmental
protection.

Presupposition

The way this news story is framed presupposes that the most interesting feature of public
protests is the number of protesters arrested, not the issues behind the protest. The story also
presupposes that government officials are more correct in their actions than ordinary citizens,
and more reliable in their accounts. Another presupposition in this account is that the
behavior and movements of the protestors are of more significance than the behavior and
movements of the police.

Presuppositions

There are a number of sentence-level presuppositions operating in the verbal comments

embedded in this text... For example, when the DOE spokesman says that "Some of the
demonstrators were a bit more aggressive [emphasis mine]," he implies that all of the
demonstrators were aggressive to at least some degree. The demonstrator's sign reading "Give
Peace a Chance" presupposes that the government is presently not doing so. Another sign
reading "Stop Destroying Our Planet" presupposes that the government is presently
destroying our planet. Although there are more presuppositions attached to the protestors'
discourse, the one presupposition from the DOE official may actually carry more weight
because it is framed differently.
Newspapers as Independent Political Actors

Scholars suggest that newspapers should be considered as independent political actors who can
legitimately use their right to express their view in the public sphere to pursue their own political
interests and goals.

Theorizing newspapers as active and independent political actors in the political process through
their editorial role underpins the need to further research editorial journalism to address questions
about the issues newspapers choose to present as important, how newspapers present their
evaluation of issues, and what influences newspapers’ opinions.

Partisanship as expressed in editorials—specifically, support for parties at election time— is strongly

dependent on historical ties to political parties and traditional alignments. It is rare for newspapers
to break with tradition to declare support for a different political party. Newspapers base editorial
positions regarding social and political issues on their traditional partisan stance, but some questions
about contentious topics that cause division within political parties require internal debate
(Firmstone, 2008; Funt, 2017). For example, debates over Britain’s membership of the EU did not fall
neatly into the traditional partisan divisions of left and right. Many editorial boards deliberated
about endorsing Donald Trump despite their historical Republican allegiances (Funt, 2017).

. Editorial boards in the United States are male dominated, with few coming from ethnic minority
backgrounds (Harp, Bachmann, & Locke, 2014), and have been described as “cantankerous males of
fairly mature years” (Duff, 2008, p. 232). Given that the personal attitudes and values of journalists
significantly influence newspapers’ opinion leading (Firmstone, 2008), it is concerning that editorial
journalism is a male-dominated domain. In a discourse analysis of editorials about race, Van Dijk
argued that the dominance of white, male, middle-class leader writers results in the reproduction
and legitimization of their dominance of in society (Van Dijk, 1992).

Question 2: Editorial writers relied heavily on official government sources as they constructed their
frames. Ninety individuals, some of whom are cited in Figure 1, were named in the 104 editorials.
Sixty-six of all persons mentioned were government leaders, some elected and some not, and
virtually all expressed support for military strikes. Thirty-two of the 66 individuals served at one time
in the US government; 18 served in Middle Eastern governments; nine served in European
governments; and eight served in other governments. A negligible number of leaders (e.g. Saddam
Hussein, Moammar Gadhafi, Slobodan Milosovic) were viewed with disfavor. Nine alleged and
convicted terrorists, eight scholars and journalists and three religious leaders were mentioned, each
by only one editorial,

Opinionated News and How it affects (Mark Bouke)

News media are often considered to function as the fourth estate in society: Unbiased, impartial and
reliable news coverage is believed to be of fundamental importance for a healthy democracy
(McNair, 2009; Strömbäck, 2005).

Presupposition, Ideological knowledgement and gender (Polyzou)’

Van D ijk’s definition o f ideology is compatible with other approaches, which I briefly discuss here.
The connection of ideologies and social group interests bears obvious similarities to the M arxist
definition of ideology as ‘a view o f society from the standpoint of a particular social class acting in
accordance with its own interests’ (Jones, 2001: 235). There are, however, two significant
differences: in the Marxist approach it is the dominant class (or, in the broader terms o f van Dijk,
social group) that uses ideology as a system of ideas in order to legitimate the unequal social
relations and make them appear commonsensical (Jones, 2001). Thus, (and this is the second
difference) ideology is a result of certain power relations and social structures, rather than a pre-
existing system of ideas that shapes people’s actions and society. Van Dijk though (1998) argues that
systems of beliefs that defend the rights and interests o f dominated groups are also ideologies (e.g.
feminism or anti-racism), and suggests a relationship o f mutual constituency between ideology and
society. Indeed, ideology can be seen as pre-existing and shaping social reality when even members
of privileged social groups become aware of social inequalities and are willing to participate in social
change, such as men contributing to the acknowledgement of wom en’s rights or white activists
against racism. Social reality may be conductive to certain groups developing certain ideologies, in
order to perpetuate a privileged position or resist domination, but there is no straightforward, fixed
group-to-ideology correspondence.

Fairclough (1992: 87 ff.) also discusses the difficulties with defining ‘ideology’ only as a tool for
maintaining the status quo - he points out that struggle to transform social (including discursive)
practices is ideological and may have an impact on society. Therefore, ‘discursive practices are
ideologically invested in so far as they incorporate significations which contribute to sustaining or
restructuring power relations’ (1992: 91). This is perhaps the most clear criterion of distinguishing
ideological from nonideological beliefs, while at the same time avoiding the issue o f truth and
falsity.16 That is to say, it is not the case that ‘ideological’ beliefs are false and oppressive, while
‘non-ideological’ beliefs are true and liberating.

Rather, all (systems of) beliefs which are related to unequal social relations in a way that they either
affirm or contest them (or create them, I might add), are ideological (because contestation in
discourse at least contributes to a change o f power relations, although it is not the only factor).
Thus, ultimately, determining whether a belief is ideological or not is not a matter o f a different
cognitive representation (to non-ideological beliefs), but a matter o f the social context in which it
emerges, and the social entities it refers to.

2.5.1 Frames - definitions and related terms

Fillm ore’s characterisation of ‘fram e’ later shifts towards a more broadly cognitive, less language-
oriented one, where frames are viewed as ‘specific unified frameworks of knowledge, or coherent
schematizations of experience’ (1985: 223). There is also an explicit link with the phenomenon of
presupposition, as frames are ‘cognitive structures ... knowledge of which is presupposed for the
concepts encoded by words’ (Fillmore and Atkins, 1992: 75).

In studying background knowledge (including ideological knowledge) and the ways it may surface in
discourse, the notion o f ‘presupposition’ often appears as a relevant parameter to look at, for a
number of reasons. First, as van Dijk (2003) points out, what is shared knowledge (and,
consequently, accepted as common ground) is normally not asserted but presupposed. Therefore,
this gives us a lead for ideological representations which have become naturalised and commonly
accepted. Second, it has been claimed that the usage of ‘presupposition’ by a speaker makes it more
difficult for their interlocutor to contradict the presupposed proposition (Borutti, 1984; Harris, 1995),
thus reinforcing the status o f the proposition as ‘common sense’, again significant in the case of
ideological propositions. From the above two claims it follows that finding ‘presuppositions’ in a text
helps us identify what ideological representations underlie a text, but also how the language o f the
text contributes to these representations being maintained and reinforced rather than contested or
at least reflected upon.

In addition, ‘presupposed’ is knowledge that is required in order to access and construct meaning,
and knowledge that is taken to be or made relevant by the text producer. That is, the text producer
not only has the knowledge underlying the surface of the discourse they produce, but also has
awareness and expectations in relation to whether and to what extend various audiences have
access to the relevant knowledge too. For meaning-making this means that the audience may not
necessarily agree with the presupposed assumptions, but that they are able to decode them and
understand them. Thus, my definition of presupposition does not require necessarily that
presuppositions be mutually accepted (this is related to the social aspects of presupposition and
presupposition questioning), but that they should be mutually accessible.

4.6 'Ideologicity'

In Chapter 2 I mentioned a few times that not all linguistic expressions are necessarily ideological, or
not to the same degree. In order to explain this I would like to link this the issue of extra-textual
context and to two points from this chapter: the levels of presupposition and the issue of scope.

’. As with presupposition, it is easier for an analyst to identify textual elements which are ideological
on the frame level, and it is easier to make a more convincing case about it. Nevertheless, by
considering what is presupposed (taken for granted) for the production of the discourse we analyse,
we can find evidence for the more elusive discourse level ideological presuppositions.

Media and the Construction of Social Problems (William Hoynes)

Media play a prominent role in the process of defining social problems. News and entertainment
media call attention to some issues and, in so doing, they help to identify the social issues that merit
concern and action. In contrast, by neglecting to shine a light on other issues, media imply that some
issues are not serious social problems.

For constructionists, objective measures of the prevalence, severity, or risk of a social issue are not
the major determinants of a social problem’s status. Instead, constructionists ask how issues
become problems, and media are a central part of the process of defining social problems. Media
are among the primary arenas where social problems advocates direct their efforts. Moreover, when
a specific social problem is highly visible in popular media, constructionists see such media
prominence as evidence that a social issue has attained the status of social problem.
In the dynamic process of defining social problems, media play an increasingly important role.
Claimsmakers often identify media as a primary site for circulating their interpretations of social
problems to the public and to policy makers, and media portrayals of social problems are often a
source of controversy, with claimsmakers competing to describe a specific social problem.

Culturally Resonant Themes

News accounts of social problems result from routine media practices and are shaped by
enterprising issue advocates. Since news organizations are in the business of attracting audiences,
reporting on social issues often focuses on stories that are dramatic and unusual. In this context,
news coverage often relies on culturally resonant themes, invoking widely held beliefs, values, and
preferences that are familiar to potential audiences. Media framing of health-related social
problems – overweight/obesity and anorexia/bulimia – are a prime example of how news portrays
social problems in ways that are rooted in powerful assumptions about our bodies and our eating
habits, individual responsibility, and public health. In the 2000s, the news media described obesity as
a growing health crisis in the United States, characterizing the problem as an epidemic (Boero 2013).
Much of the news reporting drew on scientific research to describe the problem, but journalists
were selective in which studies they highlighted, often simplifying and dramatizing the research
findings (Saguy and Almeling 2008).

The Impact of Editorial Content on the Political Agenda in Germany:

Theoretical Assumptions and Open Questions Regarding a Neglected
Subject in Mass Communication Research (Christiane Eilders)
It may be assumed that the impact of editorials on the political system depends on the degree of
issue focusing and opinion consonance: If different newspapers comment on the same issues and
express similar opinions, considerable pressure is put on the political system.

2. The media as actors in political communication In modern societies deliberation does not take
place “face to face” any more, but is mediated by the mass media. Professional communicators,
namely political experts and journalists rather than ordinary citizens talk to each other and to the
public. They “assemble, explain, debate, and disseminate the best available information and ideas
about public policy, in ways that are accessible to large audiences of ordinary citizens” (Page 1996a:
7-8). The citizens form their opinions about relevant issues, adequate interpretations and possible
solutions by paying attention to the information supplied by the media and by observing the
discourse between the professional communicators. The political actors themselves also need the
media to observe public affairs. Thus, they do not only directly - in terms of “face to face” interaction
- participate in the political process, but also collect information on issues and opinions through the
media..

Through editorials the media are explicitly authorized to publicly express their opinions and by
noticeably commenting on public affairs they make use of their right to present themselves as
autonomous actors.

It can be assumed that media regard their editorials as a means to position and stabilize themselves
on the audience market since editorial stance corresponds with certain political segmentations of
the public. This applies in particular to national prestige newspapers whose editorial stance can be
located on a left-right-scale. There are more liberal and more conservative media outlets and their
distance to political parties differs considerably (Kepplinger 1985, Voltmer 1997). It can be assumed
that editorials reflect the political views of the papers and serve as a forum of presentation for the
media´s own view of public affairs.

In editorials and commentary the media legitimately express their views of relevant issues, their
positions on particular policy options, their opinions about certain events or actors and arguments in
support of these.

Editiorials or commentaries, however, give them an additional chance to emphasize a certain issue.
By selecting one issue out of the stream of events continuously taking place they signal that it is
important enough to comment on it and give it extra space.

In editorials and commentaries media not only communicate their relevance assignments for
complete issues and events, they can also assign relevance to certain aspects of an issue or event by
putting special emphasis on these aspects or highlighting certain actors or particular dimensions of a
problem. This accentuation already implicitly indicates the author´s opinion on the subject and
establishes a certain mode of interpretation. If it holds true that mass media content affects
perception rather than attitudes, the instrumental accentuation of dimensions relevant to
judgement can have a greater impact than explicit opinion (Kepplinger et al. 1989).

One way of implicitly expressing an opinion on a given issue is referred to as framing. The concept of
framing can be traced back to Goffman (1974)3 who sees frames as a means to organize experience
by supplying the context within which a particular occurrence or event is interpreted. Frames thus
enable individuals “to locate, perceive, identify, and label” occurrences within their life space and
the world at large” (Snow et al. 1986: 464). The concept of framing is applied in a variety of different
research areas.

Framing in communication research refers to the more or less intentional use of frames for reporting
an event or commenting on an event. Editors can thereby influence the interpretation and
evaluation of an event. There are two main framing strategies in media coverage. “The episodic
frame depicts issues in terms of specific instances, for example a homelesse person, a terrorist
bombing. The thematic frame, by contrast, depicts political issues more broadly and abstractly by
placing them in some appropriate context. In appearance, the thematic frame takes the form of a
backgrounder report (Iyengar 1996: 62). Results of a number of experiments showed that episodic
framing breeds individualistic as opposed to societal attributions of responsibility” (Iyengar 1996:
62).

The significance of framing strategies in political contexts can be explained by the fact “that people
are exquisitely sensitive to contextual cues when they make decisions, formulate judgements, or
express opinions. The manner in which a problem of choice is ‘framed’ is a contextual cue that may
profoundly influence decision outcomes” (Iyengar 1991: 11). “Framing should be particularly
significant as a determinant of choice when the choice problem involves politics. Political issues are
typically complex, political discourse is ambiguous, and levels of public knowledge about and interest
in politics are low” (Iyengar 1991: 13).
The accentuation of issues and events or even small aspects of these can also affect the judgement
of a political actor. According to the concept of priming the performance of a political actor is
measured against the issues or subissues previously highlighted by the media (Iyengar/Kinder 1987,
Krosnick/Kinder 1990). The reception of a media report on unemployment would then have a
different effect on the audience´s perception of political performance of a political actor than the
reception of a report on economy.

Explicit opinion, however, as opposed to the above mentioned more implicit modes of judgement,
has its legitimate place in editorials and commentaries. Only there, the media are free to openly
express their own views, explain their standpoint, support or criticize political positions and - last but
not least - simply judge events and political actors. Considering all these forms of evaluation, it
becomes clear that in editorials and commentaries the media can employ a variety of strategies in
order 8 to express their opinions and getting the editorial stance of the particular media outlet
across to their audience.

Due to the dominant role of the national prestige press in the German media system and its
significance for the political actors, the editorials of five prestige newspapers will be analyzed. The
five papers are distributed across the political spectrum. “Welt” is located on the very right-hand
side, “Tageszeitung” on the very left-hand side4 of the leftright-scale. Between these poles - starting
from the right - “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, “Süddeutsche Zeitung” and “Frankfurter
Rundschau” are located (Kepplinger 1985:19pp, Hagen 1992, Donsbach/Wolling/Blomberg 1996;
slightly different: Voltmer 1997.

Which issues are dealt with in the editorials, which views are expressed, and which actors are
mentioned? How are they evaluated?

Presupposition (Ideological) knowledge management and geder

I would link his discussion of the latter to the issue of framing, namely, the question of what
information is presupposed and communicated as part of the frame of a word used, as opposed to
information which is not communicated because it is not explicitly stated but also not part of the
frames/mental representations evoked.

‘Informative presupposition’ is a case where new but incontestable information is introduced

through ‘presupposition triggers’ (Abbott, 2000). Karttunen (1974/1991: 411) observes that through
the sentence ‘We regret that children cannot accompany their parents to commencement
exercises.’ the audience is actually informed that children cannot accompany their parents (as well
as that the source of this information claims to be sorry about this.

Persuaasive presupposition (Sbisa)

Research Question 1 :What is the tone of coverage on Venezuela in U.S. and U.K.
editorials? Do the two groups of newspapers differ in tone?
Research Question  2: Which frames dominated in the overall coverage and was there
a significant difference between the two countries in terms of the frames used?

Research Question  3: Which issues dominated the overall coverage country-wise?

Research Question  3: Do positions on issues covered reflect National Interest of the

two countries?

Research Question 4: Do these editorials rely on government sources in arriving at

opinions and conclusions?

Research Question  5: Which issues are most prominent in all the coverage?

Research Question  6: Do the editorials lean towards a kind of political or economic

ideology?

Discourse and Ideology (fb)

It could be argued, as it is done in discursive psychology that, at least in a social
context, (mental) opinions, even if these should exist, are of no (social)
consequence (Billig, 1991). What is relevant is how people express themselves,
and it is merely their manifest opinions and their formulations that are available to
others. There is one point in this argument that is obviously sound: We also need to
study, in detail, the ways opinions are expressed and persuasively communicated,
as well as the possible social effects of these opinions discourses. However, in
order to describe and explain the fact that despite contextual variations, the same
people (or groups) may express the same or similar opinions in different contexts,
we need to postulate some underlying invariant..

Thus, we conclude first that many opinions of editorials are not expressed
explicitly, and that the degree of explicitness depends not only on the nature of the
opinions themselves, but on the context (or rather context model), viz., the role and
political position of the Washington Post as a conservative newspaper, its relation
with Congress, and hence its relation to a U.S. ally and (female) president. This
alone allows for very complex relationships between ideologies and concrete
opinions, whose textual formulation must be managed with care, so as not to
offend Congress or an allied, conservative foreign president.

Secondly, we have found that opinions may not only be expressed implicitly, but
also be implied indirectly by specific factual statements. Such statements may as
such be true, but have negative consequences, and presuppose negative opinions of
those who are involved. Indeed, mentioning some 'facts' (e.g., about Sandinista
control over the army) and not other 'facts' (earlier U.S. intervention in the
elections, U.S, support of Chamorro, the backing of the murderous Contra war by
the "democrats" appealed to here, etc. etc.), is one way of expressing opinions. Or
more generally, what this analysis shows is how a model and its opinions is
undergoing several processes (selection, emphasis, de-emphasis, etc.) before its
propositions are 'fed' to the semantic representation construed during text
production, and how such processes are a function of the (model of the context),
featuring, e.g., the identification of the WP with a conservative view of Nicaragua
and U.S. foreign policy.

In other words, what this editorial is doing is expressing the stylistic, rhetorical and
argumentative devices that strongly suggest readers to construct a preferred
model of the current event (the finding of the cache) in particular, and of the
situation in Nicaragua, in general. In such a preferred model we thus find a focus
on some preferred facts, viz., positive ones in which we are involved, and negative
ones in which the Others are involved. In this case, the anti-marxist crusade against
the Sandinistas may seem ludicrous, and is therefore not emphasized, although not
absent ("Marxist"). However, more effective, is to explicitly associate the
Sandinistas with international terrorism, and hence clearly evaluate them as a threat
to the U.S.A.

Once this preferred model is strategically expressed and construed by the readers,
together with the implicit and explicit opinions that mark who is good and bad, and
what actions were good and bad, another model is being constructed, viz., a
contextual one, in which the WP is seen as legitimating a decision of the Senate, as
recommending one to the House, as well as to Mrs. Chamorro. That is, having
described and evaluated the situation in the rest of the text, the WP now takes the
contextual, pragmatic step and draws practical conclusions about what should be
done -- It not only expresses an opinion or conveys a biased event model, but
engages itself in an illocutionary act of making strong recommendations, or even
veiled threats ("if she cannot make these changes..."). It is this speech act itself that
places the WP as an actor in the complex field of international policy, viz., of a
long tradition of U.S. intervention in Central America. The final disclaimer of the
editorial precisely confirms the strategic way such editorial intervention in
international policies and politics takes shape.
 

Presupposition, (ideological) knowledge management and gender: a socio-cognitive discourse

analytical approach Alexandra Polyzou B.A. English Language and Literature

Polyzou (2012) proposed cognitive approaches to presupposition in his dissertation titled

‘Presupposition, (ideological) knowledge management and gender: a socio-cognitive discourse
analytical approach’. He also explores empirically a sample of texts in order to examine knowledge
management in relation to gender, sexuality and sexual health in Greek lifestyle magazines.

In terms o f empirical critical discourse analysis, I chose to examine three texts on the issue o f sexual
health, one from Status (m en’s magazine), one from Cosmopolitan and one from Marie Claire (wom
en’s magazines) in relation to the negotiation between traditional and more recent
(hetero)normative beliefs in relation to gender and sexual conduct. The analysis has focused on the
frame and sentence levels and has indicated that although there is a higher degree o f
permissiveness in relation to female sexuality, women in Greece still have to choose or balance
between traditional ideals of chastity and modesty and equally pressing imperatives o f (penetrative
heterosexual) sexual activity circulated (and taken for granted) in popular culture texts.