Framing (social sciences)

In the social sciences, framing comprises a set of concepts and theoretical perspectives on how individuals, groups, and societies organize, perceive, and communicate about reality.

[17][18] Anthropologist Gregory Bateson first defined the concept of framing as "a spatial and temporal bounding of a set of interactive messages" (A Theory of Play and Fantasy, 1954, reproduced in his 1972 book Steps to an Ecology of Mind).

Frames, Gitlin wrote, are "persistent patterns of cognition, interpretations, and presentation, of selection [and] emphasis ... [that are] largely unspoken and unacknowledged ... [and] organize the world for both journalists [and] for those of us who read their reports".

[16] For example, Iyengar explored the impact of episodic and thematic news frames on viewers' attributions of responsibility for political issues including crime, terrorism, poverty, unemployment, and racial inequality.

Visuals consist of rhetorical tools such as metaphors, depiction and symbols to portray the context of an event or scene graphically in an attempt to help us better understand the world around us.

[17] In an effort to provide more conceptual clarity, Entman suggested that frames "select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described".

For example, Kahneman and Tversky asked participants to choose between two "gain-framed" policy responses to a hypothetical disease outbreak expected to kill 600 people.

[34] For example, Nelson, Clawson, and Oxley exposed participants to a news story that presented the Ku Klux Klan's plan to hold a rally.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to monitor brain-activity during a financial decision-making task, they observed greater activity in the OMPFC of those research subjects less susceptible to the framing effect.

According to Kuypers, "Framing is a process whereby communicators, consciously or unconsciously, act to construct a point of view that encourages the facts of a given situation to be interpreted by others in a particular manner.

Beginning with the 19th century transcendental movement in which Henry David Thoreau penned his novel On Walden Pond detailing his experiences with the natural environment and augmented by the work of other transcendentalists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, climate activism has taken many forms.

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, published in 1962, revealed the environmental and human health harms of pesticides and successfully advocated for the cessation of DDT usage.

This frame reduces the sense of ambiguity and dissociation often elicited by talk of melting ice sheets and carbon emissions by placing climate issues in a local context for the individual, whether in their country, state, or city.

[53] In a 2017 study, it was found that activist interviewees from the Global North embrace fear as a motivation, but "emphasize hope, reject guilt, and treat anger with caution".

[53] Research has shown that dire messaging reduces the efficacy of advocacy initiatives through demotivation of individuals, lower levels of concern, and decreased engagement.

[51] Research contends that prognostic framing—which offers tangible solutions, strategies, targets, and tactics—coupled with motivational framing is most efficacious in moving people to act.

This intergenerational, positive approach generates a sense of excitement about climate action in individuals and offers creative solutions that they may choose to take part in.

[54] For example, a public service announcement pertaining to climate change could be framed as follows: It's 2050, your electric vehicle is parked and ready to go next to your zero emission home, but you choose to take the extremely efficient, green, clean, rapid transit system that is accessible from most places in the United States and subsidized for low-income citizens.

Maybe you live in the beautiful Appalachian mountains of West Virginia, where the coal industry became supplanted by massive hubs for green energy jobs and innovation.

Using emotional triggering words, focusing on eliciting fear or anger, to change the way the public feels about a policy is facilitated by the short attention span created by social media.

[57] Thus, when climate activists are in conversation with conservative-leaning individuals, it would be advantageous to focus on framing that does not provoke fear of constraint on the free market economy or that insinuates broad-sweeping lifestyle changes.

Specifically, people take risks when they believe it helps them avert a loss, but when they face a gain, they opt for risk-averse strategies that maintain status quo".

[61] This is evident throughout the study, which goes on to indicate that the "mobility patterns, behavior, and attitudes of women suggest norms that are more conducive to decarbonized and more sustainable transport policies".

[63] In media, to frame is "to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communication context, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, casual interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described".

According to The New York Times: Even before the election, a new political word had begun to take hold of the party, beginning on the West Coast and spreading like a virus all the way to the inner offices of the Capitol.

[17] One particular example of Lakoff's work that attained some degree of fame was his advice to rename[72] trial lawyers (unpopular in the United States) as "public protection attorneys".

[73] The New York Times depicted similar intensity among Republicans: In one recent memo, titled "The 14 Words Never to Use," [Frank] Luntz urged conservatives to restrict themselves to phrases from what he calls ... the "New American Lexicon."

"We should never use the word outsourcing," Luntz wrote, "because we will then be asked to defend or end the practice of allowing companies to ship American jobs overseas.

Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber in Trust Us, We're Experts illustrate how public-relations (PR) firms often use language to help frame a given issue, structuring the questions that then subsequently emerge.

For example, one firm advises clients to use "bridging language" that uses a strategy of answering questions with specific terms or ideas in order to shift the discourse from an uncomfortable topic to a more comfortable one.