“Dealing with Jell-O”:
How Framing and Agenda Setting Affected Public Opinion In the 2011 Debt Ceiling
Debate
Christopher Guizlo
A Capstone Project
Presented to the Faculty of the School Communications in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of Masters of Arts in Public Communication
Supervisor: Professor Caty Borum Chattoo
April 25, 2012
COPYRIGHT
Christopher Guizlo
2012
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Professor Caty Borum Chattoo for her guidance, feedback, patience and
mentorship on this project. Without her exceptional guidance and funny pictures in class to keep
me going I could not have completed this project.
My parents for continually encouraging me to go after my dreams. Mom and Dad I just want you
to know that you are, and always will be, my heroes.
Kelsey Stefanik-Sidener for proofing my work, acting as a sounding board for my crazy ideas
and helping me when everything seemed to be going awry.
And finally, my peer salon group for their guidance and suggestions throughout the semester.
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ABSTRACT
The news media have the ability to shape public opinion through agenda setting, or
calling the public’s attention to issues by virtue of what is covered, and through framing, the
central narrative idea communicated by the news media. The purpose of this paper was to update
a study from 2007 by Jasperson et al. to examine the effect that media frames have on the
public’s opinion toward raising the federal debt ceiling after a heated debate over the issue in
2011. The study used a content analysis of 190 articles from The Washington Post and The Wall
Street Journal from June to August 2011, the time frame in which the issue was the focus of
contentious debate by members of Congress, the media, and the public. The articles were coded
for four specific frames that characterized the debate over raising the debt ceiling. Those frames
were then compared to the public opinion data on the issue. The findings show that there is a
direct correlation between the frequency of articles that were published and an increase in public
opinion and awareness on the issue of deficit reduction. The findings support the idea that the
frames used and the agenda setting potential the news media has will increase the public
attention to and awareness of an issue.
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Table of Contents INTRODUCTION 6 PROBLEM STATEMENT PURPOSE & OBJECTIVES STUDY SIGNIFICANCE BACKGROUND PAPER ORGANIZATION 7 8 8 9 10 LITERATURE REVIEW 12 INTRODUCTION: 1996 VS. 2011 ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CLIMATE OF 1996 ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CLIMATE OF 2011 FRAMING AGENDA SETTING FRAMING AND AGENDA-SETTING FOR DEFICIT REDUCTION 12 12 15 17 19 21 METHODS 25 RESULTS 30 FREQUENCY OF ARTICLES FREQUENCY OF FRAMES PUBLIC OPINION POLLING 30 31 34 DISCUSSION 36 WHICH MEDIA FRAMES WERE PRIMARILY USED HOW PUBLIC OPINION CHANGED THE IMPACT OF DIFFERENT FRAMES ON PUBLIC OPINION DO DIFFERENT FRAMES INCREASE THE PUBLIC ATTENTION TO THE ISSUE? 37 39 40 41 CONCLUSION 48 REFERENCES 51 APPENDIX 56 DEBT CEILING DEBATE - BODING SHEET 56 5
INTRODUCTION
A blog post from April 2011 by Phillip Greenspun, a professor at MIT and Harvard who
founded the software company ArsDigita, puts the current federal budget deficit in terms that all
individuals can understand. Greenspun believed that by lowering the numbers involved to the
level of a household budget, it would make it easier for the average American to understand. He
took the total amount of federal spending in fiscal year 2011, $3.82 trillion, subtracted the
estimated $2.17 trillion to government plans to collect in taxes and added in the additional $1.65
trillion the federal government would borrow from other sources. He then divided all of these
numbers by 100 million to get numbers that closely matched a budget for a family hovering
around the poverty line in the United States and used it to show how little impact a deficit cut of
$38 billion that was reached in 2011 would have on the actual deficit.
Greenspun wrote, “We have a family that is spending $38,200 per year. The family’s
income is $21,700 per year. The family adds $16,500 in credit card debt every year in order to
pay its bills. After a long and difficult debate among family members, keeping in mind that it
was not going to be possible to borrow $16,500 every year forever, the parents and children
agreed that a $380/year premium cable subscription could be terminated. So now the family will
have to borrow only $16,120 per year” (Greenspun, 2011).
This chart shows that when numbers are reduced to sizes that the average person can
understand, this kind of calculation can change the perception of the problem in the minds of the
public. In this case, the chart made the rounds on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook,
and people began to express their outrage at government spending levels. They started to
recognize that running huge budget deficits has the potential to create problems for the federal
government in the short term, and for the next generation in the long term.
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The past few years have been rough on the American economy. With the crash of the
housing market in 2009 and the systematic problems faced by some of the biggest banks in the
country, the nation plunged into a recession and an economic downturn from which it is still
recovering. Since the economic recovery began in 2010 there has been talk of ways to reduce the
deficit. For example, on February 18, 2010, President Barack Obama issued an executive order
that established the “National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform” that was
chaired by former Senator Alan Simpson (R-WY) and former White House Chief of Staff
Erskine Bowles. The Bowles-Simpson Commission, as it became known, was tasked to identify
“...policies to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term and to achieve fiscal sustainability
over the long run” (The White House, 2010). The commission reached a set of recommendations
and made them public, but none have been acted on by Congress or the administration. However,
the commission pushed the conversation around deficit reduction to the forefront and has made it
an issue of national concern. The debate about the federal debt – in media coverage, among
elected officials, and among the public – reached a fever point in the summer of 2011, when an
increase in the debt ceiling was almost blocked. This action would have prevented the United
States government from paying back its debt obligations, and the United States would have
defaulted on its loans. This incident would have sent the country into an economic tailspin, and
stalled the economic recovery.
Problem Statement
The growing problem of the U.S. federal budget deficit is something that only seems to
reach the consciousness of the public in times of economic struggle or in fights over federal
taxation and spending levels. The goal of this capstone is to study the fight over the federal
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government’s attempts to raise the debt ceiling on government borrowing in summer 2011 to see
how the public opinion was shaped by characterizations of the political debate.
Purpose & Objectives
In the summer of 2011, the United States came dangerously close to going above the
government mandated “debt ceiling,” an amount of borrowing that the government cannot
exceed (Tritch, 2012). This paper will attempt to examine the main media frames, or central
narrative idea, that characterized news stories during the debate over a solution to raising the
debt ceiling and these frames will be compared against public opinion polls on the issue of the
need for deficit reduction to see if there is a correlation between the frame that is used and public
opinion. In short, this paper will attempt to characterize how media frames can potentially
change the public opinion on issues like deficit reduction.
The paper will specifically try to measure how different characterizations of a debate
about raising the federal debt ceiling has the potential to affect public opinion on the importance
of deficit reduction. The objectives of this capstone are as follows:
1. Determine which media frames are primarily used to characterize the political debate on
raising the debt ceiling.
2. Determine how the public opinion on the issue of deficit reduction is changed as the media
frames are changed.
3. Determine whether or not a correlation may exist between media frames and public opinion.
4. Propose future research that can be used by communicators to influence public opinion of the
issues the federal government is tackling to better engage with their stakeholders.
Study Significance
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This study serves as a road map for communicators who try to influence the public to
support their positions on federal government issues. The study is also important because it
represents an update to a previous study on this issue. It helps to add or detract from the
causation claims made by the previous study – and in this regard, it also has the potential to show
how different economic climates have the potential to affect the public perception and opinion on
federal government issues.
Background
A study from 2007 (Jasperson et al., 2007) tracked the budget debate and government
shutdown of 1996 and determined that the frames the media used to characterize the debate over
a solution had the ability to change the publics opinion on the issue of deficit reduction. This
paper will strive to see if there is any correlation between the Jasperson study and the debate
over raising the federal debt ceiling, which restricts government spending, from summer 2011.
The budget deficit is defined by Economy Watch as a scenario in which “the government
spends more on government programs than it takes in through revenues” (Economy Watch,
2011). The United States budget deficit has grown significantly over the last decade, peaking at
$1.3 trillion in 2011 (USA Today, 2011.) As the chart below by the Federal Reserve Bank of St.
Louis shows, the deficit of the federal government has been growing significantly since 2002.
The grey shaded bars represent times when the economy dipped into a recession, with the most
recent duration indicated as late 2007 to the middle of 2009.
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Source: The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
Paper Organization
To begin, the paper features a literature review that provides a conceptual understanding
of the concepts of framing and agenda setting and how they play a hand in political debates, as
well as a discussion of the Jasperson et al. study from 2007 to give a framework for the primary
research of the paper. Next, the literature review includes a discussion of the economic
conditions of the United States in 1996, the timeframe presented in Jasperson, and 2011, the
timeframe studied in this paper. This comparison gives a picture of the differences and
similarities in economic and political conditions in the two different timeframes.
Following the review of the literature, the paper focuses on primary research – a content
analysis that examines the debate over raising the debt ceiling in the summer of 2011. The
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content analysis focuses on newspaper articles in The Washington Post and The Wall Street
Journal over the summer of 2011 to see which frames are used by the media to characterize the
situation. These frames are then compared to public opinion polls over the same time period and
analyzed to examination correlation between the frame used and the public opinion present.
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Literature Review
Introduction: 1996 vs. 2011
During the last 20 years, there have been many votes to increase the federal debt ceiling
to keep the government operating. These votes were usually non-controversial and passed
quickly through the Congress. But, two separate occasions almost brought the United States
government to the brink of disaster. In 1996 and 2011 a raise in the debt ceiling almost failed to
pass Congress, the result of which would have been a default on the debt that the United States
government had borrowed. If the debt ceiling was not raised, and if the government did default
on its debts, it would send the United States into an economic downturn and a recession that
would have killed the economic growth of both years. The 1996 debate is the basis for this
capstone and it will serve as a guiding principle to compare it to the 2011 debt ceiling debate.
Economic and Political Climate of 1996
To effectively update the Jasperson (2007) study it is important to understand the
similarities and differences in political climate between the two years of comparison, 1996 and
2011. To this end, the study will examine two leading economic indicators: the consumer price
index (or level of inflation as it is often known) and the unemployment rate. The study will also
look at the budget deficit for these years to compare the need for deficit reform. These numbers
will give a general picture of economic health for the United States at that time. The study will
also compare the political picture of the two years by looking at who is in power in each house of
Congress and in the White House.
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In 1996, the United States was in a very good economic position. In 1994, the economy
was overheating and inflation was rising, causing goods to cost much more than they were
actually worth. The Federal Reserve used its power to raise interest rates in an effort to limit
economic growth to a sustainable pace. The results were seen in 1995 when the economy slowed
down and inflation dropped (Gillette, 1997).
The benefits of the economic slowdown were seen in 1996 when the United States saw
growth in the consumer price index (CPI) of around 3.3 percent (Commerce Department, 2011).
This means that the purchasing power for consumers in the United States when compared with
the prices of goods in the United States had grown at a rate of 3.3 percent that year. This is
considered to be an acceptable rate of growth by most economists and does not represent a huge
growth in inflation that would threaten to make goods much more expensive for consumers. The
employment picture was also very good in 1996. According to The Federal Reserve Bank of St.
Louis (2011) the unemployment rate for 1996 ranged from a high of 5.6 percent to a low of 5.1
percent. Most economists would say this is an acceptable level of unemployment, as no nation
will ever achieve an employment status of 100 percent.
In 1996 the government was starting to see a reduction in government spending, but for
most politicians the government was running a very high deficit. According to the Office of
Management and Budget (2011) the government ran a budget deficit of $107 billion in 1996.
This was a reduction from the 1995 budget deficit of $163 billion. In the coming years the
budget deficit would change to a surplus as the nation entered the 2000s and would continue
until 2002.
President Bill Clinton was elected to office in 1992 defeating sitting President George H.
W. Bush after one term in office. The first two years were rough as the economy was coming out
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a brief recession in the early 90s and inflation ran out of control. Clinton took over and started
the economy on the right track again but faced dissension from citizens who believed he was
adopting too much of a big government philosophy. In 1996 he was dealt a huge blow when the
1994 election brought on a wave of Republicans who took control of both houses of Congress for
the first time in 40 years. The gains were mostly driven by Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA) who
developed a “‘Contract with America,’ which was a 10-point legislative plan to cut federal taxes,
balance the budget and dismantle a host of welfare programs enacted and expanded during the
decades of Democratic rule” (Politico, 2007).
After the 1994 elections Gingrich was elected to be the Speaker of the House and Senator
Bob Dole (R-KS) was elected to lead the Senate as the Majority Leader. Gingrich and Dole
worked to combat President Clinton and implement the items in the “Contract with America.” In
1996 the tension finally came to a head when Clinton, Gingrich and Dole could not come to
terms on raising the debt ceiling and passing a budget with proper deficit reduction items (Fram,
1995). The end result was two government shutdowns that kept government workers stuck at
home and unable to provide essential services (Clinton, 2004).
The economic and political picture in 1996 was optimistic. The economy was recovering
well from the recession of the early 90s and the small overheating that was seen in 1994.
Economic growth was well within the expected and acceptable means and the nation’s
unemployment was the lowest it had been in decades. The political picture was one of divided
government that was striving to balance the need for a reduction in government spending while
keeping essential services intact. The end result eventually led to a government that ran a surplus
until 2002 and saw a huge economic boom for all Americans.
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Economic and Political Climate of 2011
The economic and political climate of 2011 is a very different one than that of 1996. The
United States suffered a recession from late 2007 to 2009 when the housing market collapsed
and a mortgage crisis threatened to collapse the world economy (St. Louis Federal Reserve,
2012). The economic recession came shockingly close to rivaling the Great Depression of the
1930s (Wolf, 2009).
As we did with 1996, it is important to take a look at some of the most prominent
economic indicators to see how well the economy was doing in 2011 as it recovered from the
recession that ended two years before. The first economic indicator to examine is the consumer
price index (CPI), which for 2011 leveled out at around 3.0 percent inflation over the year
(Commerce Department, 2011). This, again, is a good level of growth for the country like we
saw in 1996. The difference is this time it was an important step toward seeing real recovery in
the United States economy after a few years of low to no growth in CPI.
The second economic measure to consider is the unemployment number. The picture of
unemployment in 2011 is a very different one from 1996. Unlike in 1996, where the growth out
of an almost recession was finally taking hold, the growth out of the recession of 2007-2009 was
taking much longer on the employment front. The unemployment rate for 2011 ranged from a
low of 8.5 percent to a high of 9.1 percent (St. Louis Federal Reserve, 2012). The encouraging
factor is that the rate declined over the year to the low of 8.5 percent in December, but the
troubling part is there was not a general trend down over the whole year. The unemployment rate
bounced around as more people entered or dropped out of the workforce. Most of the declines
and increases were seen from workers giving up looking for a job or jumping back in the hunt,
rather than through actual job creation.
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The final economic indicator we need to examine is the debt level, which like the
unemployment level had seen huge amounts of growth since 1996. As mentioned previously, the
United States came into the 2000s with a government surplus for the first time in years. The main
reasons for the huge explosion of debt, according to Teresa Tritch of The New York Times
(2011), were “Bush-era tax cuts, war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, and recessions.”
According to the Office of Management and Budget (2011) the result was an estimated
deficit spending level of $1.2 trillion for 2011. The huge budget deficit is the reason that the
government reached the debt ceiling and sparked the heated debate over the summer of 2011.
The debate over the debt ceiling was created by a divided government that had many
different ideas on the proper way to address government spending, and different ideas on how
important raising the debt ceiling was. Just like in 1996, the government was divided in 2011.
The main players in this case were President Barack Obama (D), who had proposed a grand
bargain that would raise the debt ceiling while also working to implement spending cuts to
address the deficit. On the congressional side the main players were Speaker John Boehner (ROH), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)
and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Like the divided government in 1996,
the government of 2011 featured a House of Representatives that was full of new Republican
members who were elected in the wave election of 2010 on many of the same ideas as the 1994
Republicans. The difference was this time the Democrats controlled the Senate, creating a need
for compromise to get a solution through both houses to prevent a government default and
shutdown. The political players in 2011 also had the benefit of hindsight from the 1996 debate to
know that pushing the government toward a shutdown would only result in the country blaming
one or both parties.
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Framing
The concept of framing is defined by Gamson and Modigliana (1987) as a “central
organizing idea” or “story line” that helps provide meaning to an event. Framing plays heavily in
political messaging and the political process. Lane (1962) showed in his studies that when people
are asked to express their political views they often exhibit a considerable amount of uncertainty
and stress. This often leads them to give contradictory statements on their own beliefs.
Researchers believe that this is a reference to the framing that occurs with political messaging
and the direct wording of political messages. Sullivan, Piereson and Marcus (1982) showed that,
when asked their opinions on dissent and dissenting groups, Americans were more tolerant of
dissent when it was framed as a democratic right. However, they were less supportive of dissent
when it was framed through the lens of groups that are considered dissenters. This indicates that
the opinion of Americans may easily be swayed just by changing the frame of how the political
messaging is approached.
The first research into communications framing focused on how frames can organize
information for both journalists and media consumers (Goffman and Gitlin, 1974 and 1980). As
the work surrounding framing in communications advanced through the 1980s and into the early
90s, Entman (1993) redefined the definition of framing to apply it specifically to
communications by saying that framing is, “to 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” (p. 52).
The key difference in the definition from Entman as opposed to earlier definitions is that
framing specifically works to make issues more salient to the receiver. Vatz (1968) says that
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salience is used as a measure of how prominent or relevant perception coincides with reality.
With respect to communications framing, increasing the salience of an issue through framing has
the ability to elevate issues to the forefront of human psyche by making it easier to access and
apply to everyday life. The key is that the message must increase the accessibility and
applicability for the receiver to consider adopting it. Scheufele and Tewksbury (2007) have
pushed the definition even further to say that framing, “...is based on the assumption that how an
issue is characterized in news reports can have an influence on how it is understood by
audiences.”
Political strategists have recognized how important framing is when it comes to
developing messages. Republican pollster Frank Luntz released a memo in 1997 that told
members of Congress that if they wanted to communicate effectively they need to create
messages that stir emotion in people, or, as he put it, “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it”
(Luntz, 1997).
In other arenas of research, Quattrone and Tversky (1988) found that the best way to
change political judgment on issues of economic and foreign policy importance was to frame
them as questions of gains versus losses. Kinder and Sanders (1990) found similar results when
looking at affirmative action when it came to differences in compensation among employees of
different races and genders.
How an issue is framed also has an impact on how journalists shape and present the issue.
Scholars like Ball-Rokeach & Rokeach (1987) have argued that the way a journalist
characterizes an issue works to shape the reality of that issue for an audience. A salient example
of this was illustrated by Allen et al. (1994) who found that public opinion of the Gulf War was
greatly influenced by media framing. The media presented frames that were heavy in patriotic,
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technological and euphemistic language, as opposed to dissent, error and human loss. These
frames helped to shape public opinion about the Gulf War and were heavily dominated by the
framing that was done by members of the media.
Iyengar (1990) put it best when he says, “In short, mass media news presentations loom
as powerful vehicles for political framing effects. For virtually all Americans, political issues are
defined primarily through news reports, and since news coverage is inevitably expressed in
particular frames, the influence of the media on public opinion can be significant.” (p.21).
Agenda Setting
With the knowledge of how frames tend to increase the salience of an issue for the
receiver of the message and how much members of the media can shape the news through
framing, it is important to look at how the news media tends to present those frames, and
specifically which actually tend to make it to the receiver. We also want to examine how agenda
setting then plays in the policy and political arena because it is important in understanding the
tactics in deficit reduction messaging. Finally it is important to look at how the agenda setting
process of the media works to influence what people believe to be the most important issues of
the day, even if those issues are not that important to them personally.
Brosius & Kepplinger (1990) define agenda setting as the process, “in which changes in
media coverage lead to or cause subsequent changes in problem awareness of issues,” (p. 190).
But before this definition Cohen (1963) stated that “the press may not be successful much of the
time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to
think about,” (p.13). This explains why certain issues hold a higher perception of importance
than others based on their coverage by the media (McCombs & Shaw, 1993). Further, Iyengar et
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al. (1982) says that experimental evidence suggests that issues that get more media coverage are
more likely to be cited by people as the most important issues facing the nation.
In the political and policy context Baumgartner and Jones (1993) make it clear that
agenda-setting is not just about the left-right policy preferences, but which issues or dimensions
of issues will be the focus of attention. In the case of deficit reduction there has been a rise in
discussions about the issue because the problem has had a big impact on the economy and is on
its way to hurt the average American, if it isn’t already. This validates the points of Baumgartner
and Jones because talks about deficit reduction have come from both sides and seems to prove
that left-right policy preferences don’t matter when an issue reaches a level that gives it a high
level of attention.
Further, research indicates that certain issues tend to have a higher level of influence on
the media and tend to be set higher in the agenda-setting process and make it to the receiver.
MacKuen & Coombs (1981) found that issues with a high degree of conflict have a greater
influence on the agenda than those that have a low degree of conflict. In fact, Wanta and Hu
(1994) found that “the agenda-setting influence of the mass media on the public [is] contingent
to a great degree upon the sub-issue, or news frame, reported” (p. 251).
The degree of conflict that is involved in an issue has the ability to rank it higher or lower
in the media’s mind and thus has the ability to determine if it will actually make it to the
receiver. Jasperson et al. (2007) state, “Further investigation needs to consider the differing
political language used to characterize a single issue to explore, in combination with the amount
of coverage the issue receives, the impact of these news frames on the importance assigned to
that issue by the public” (207).
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When trying to measure the impact of news frames and the importance they are assigned
by the public the measure that is most often used in public policy research is the question, “what
is the most important problem facing the nation (or country) today?” (Benton & Frazier, 1976;
MacKuen, 1981; Zhu & Boroson, 1997; Tsfati, 2003; Holbrook & Hill, 2005 as cited in Huck,
Quiring & Brosius, 2009, p.140). Further, Huck, Quiring & Brosius (2009) believe that people
are subject to a “third-person perception” which shows that, “individuals tend to believe that
media messages have a greater impact on other people than themselves” (p. 140). This leads
people when asked what the biggest problem the nation (or country) faces that they will be more
likely to not report what issues are at the top of their mind, but rather the issues that they believe
the media has made the issues of the day (Huck, Quiring & Brosius, 2009). This is one of the
strongest statements that demonstrates how much of the agenda the media can influence – and
how much media can influence what people believe are the issues that are most worthy of
concern.
Framing and Agenda-Setting for Deficit Reduction
Framing and agenda setting have been employed to specifically address the
communication strategies surrounding talks of deficit reduction. Jasperson et al. (2007)
developed a model that studies “both traditional agenda-setting effects and ‘second-level’
framing effects in order to provide a richer account of changes in aggregate public opinion” (p.
207). The researchers specifically looked at the controversy surrounding the 1996 federal budget
and they argue that the media coverage surrounding the budget had the ability through the
quantity and nature of the media coverage have the ability to predict shifts in the opinions of
Americans on the issue. The researchers developed a content analysis using the Ideodynamic
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model and the InfoTrend content analysis computer program (p. 207) to study the news during
the 1996 budget struggle.
The political climate of1996 featured a wave of new Republican members of Congress
who were focused on balancing the budget and fiscal responsibility. The researchers found that
Republicans claimed Democrats were not serious about deficit reduction. On the other side
Democrats insisted that Republicans were trying to dismantle social programs like Medicare,
rather than actually reducing the deficit. The differences in priorities resulted in a government
shutdown that put 800,000 federal workers on furlough (Jasperson, 2007).
In the lead up to the budget talks, and after the fact, researchers found that data from the
Roper Center indicated that the public’s perception of the federal budget deficit as the “‘most
important problem’ facing the country increased from 5 percent during October 27-30, 1995, to
20 percent by the first part of 1996” (Jasperson, 2007, p.208).
The researchers used this data to conduct an in-depth analysis of media content on the
issue in an effort to answer the following questions:
1. How were the media presenting coverage on the budget issue?
2. Was this coverage affecting public perceptions of this issue as the most important
problem?
They next used the data to determine whether a change in media coverage had an impact on
public opinion over time. They focused specifically on how change in news media characterized
the politics surrounding the debate and how coverage contributed to shifts in public opinion of
the most important issues facing the nation (Jasperson et al., 2007).
The researchers found four specific frames that were strongly used by the media when
talking about the federal deficit and budget debate:
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1. A “talk” frame
2. A “fight” frame
3. An “impasse” frame
4. A “crisis” frame
“These frames represented varying levels of intensity in how the budget issue was
discussed and its status in political discourse” (Jasperson et al, 2007, p. 210). The researchers
found that the media would use the above frames to escalate the perceived tension in the talks. It
started with “talks” about the budget, moved to “fights” when there were disagreements. This
then moved to an “impasse” when the talks broke down. Finally, there was a “crisis” frame that
was used to show how important the issue was, and why it needed to be solved. The level to
which the messages were assigned was then assumed to characterize the importance to the
journalist who was writing the story. The higher the frame, the more important the journalist
perceived it to be.
The results of the Jasperson et al. (2007) study found that there was a correlation between
the way an issue is framed paired with the frequency of the coverage and how important the
issue would appear to be in the mind of the public. Their data indicates that the shift in public
opinion toward deficit reduction as one of the most important issues between 1995 and 1996 is
comparable to shifts in how the news about the budget discussions was framed. The researchers
also indicated that it was important to remember that the status of the budget deficit never
changed; rather, the frames in which it was presented changed and changed the issue’s priority in
the public psyche. The final conclusion of the researchers is that media influence must be
considered in the following terms:
1. The quantity of coverage
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2. The characterization of the issue, or the attributes that the journalists choose to make salient in
their coverage.
“In this way, both quantity (agenda setting) and quality (framing) are important pieces of
a comprehensive explanation of media influence on aggregate opinion on the budget issue”
(Jasperson et al., 2007, p 220).
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Methods
Now that the power framing and agenda setting has to influence public opinion has been
examined it is important to set up a research design that allows the researcher to track the “media
conversation” surrounding the 2011 debt ceiling battle, and how that conversation matches up
with public opinion on the issue. This research was derived from the framework and key frames
established in the study described earlier from Jasperson et al (2007), in which researchers
examined the affect that different frames had on public opinion on the 1996 budget debate. As
mentioned earlier in the “Purpose & Objectives” section, the overall objectives of this capstone
are as follows:
1. Determine which media frames are primarily used to characterize the political debate on
raising the debt ceiling.
2. Determine how the public opinion on the issue of deficit reduction is changed as the media
frames are changed.
3. Determine if a correlation can be found between media frames and public opinion.
4. Propose future research that can be used by communicators to try and affect public opinion of
the issues the federal government is tackling to better engage with their stakeholders.
The objectives provide a framework to answer the key research question of this study: Do
different frames surrounding deficit reduction make messages more likely to align with the
agenda-setting priorities of the media, and in turn, make them more likely to rise as an important
issue to the American public?
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In order to effectively address the objectives and attempt to answer the proposed research
question a content analysis of newspapers during the main parts of the debt ceiling debate was
completed to analyze the prominent frames and how those frames changed as the debate moved
forward. A content analysis is defined as “a research tool used to determine the presence of
certain words or concepts within texts or set texts. Researchers quantify and analyze the
presence, meanings and relationships of such words and concepts, then make inferences about
the messages within the texts...” (Colorado State University, 2012).
The framework of this content analysis was derived from the original Jasperson et al.
(2007) study described in detail in the literature review above. In the Jasperson et al. (2007)
study, researchers conducted a content analysis using a computer that looked for keywords to
analyze articles from newspapers across the country. The researcher did not complete this
content analysis with the same computer tool, but did employ the same content analysis method
and coding framework because the original framework used by Jasperson et al. was well defined
and encompassed the different frames present during the 2011 debt ceiling debate.
This content analysis of the 2011 debt ceiling debate examined two national newspaper
publications that are well-known as the leading newspapers for coverage of politics and financial
news, respectively the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. The Washington Post is the
sixth largest paper in the United States by circulation, according to the Audit Bureau of
Circulations, but a majority of its circulation is located in the Washington, D.C. area. The Wall
Street Journal is the number one newspaper for circulation in the United States as rated by The
Audit Bureau of Circulations (Huffington Post, 2011). The Washington Post was chosen because
it is recognized as a leader in the news business with has a readership that features, “…opinion
leaders, elected leaders, and wide range of others” (Byerly, 2009). The Wall Street Journal was
26
also voted as the “most influential for financial news” in a survey of 350 financial journalists
(Garcia, 2012). These two papers are a trusted source of news for opinion leaders in the worlds
of finance and politics.
After the publications were selected, the researcher developed search terms for the
database to look for; a search of the two publications was then completed via LexisNexis for the
Washington Post and in ProQuest Newsstand for the Wall Street Journal. For this search the
terms “‘debt ceiling’ and ‘debate’” were used to define the parameters of the search. The search
was also limited by the date range of June 1, 2011 to August 8, 2011. This two-month period was
the approximate time period during which most of the debate surrounding an attempt to raise the
debt ceiling took place. The initial sample from these defined parameters yielded a sample of 202
articles from the Washington Post and 187 articles from the Wall Street Journal. The researcher
then examined the initial sample and removed all editorial and non-relevant articles were
removed. This process resulted in a sample of 115 articles for the Washington Post and 75
articles for the Wall Street Journal, or a total of 190 articles to be coded.
The code sheet for the content analysis was developed using the framework presented by
the Jasperson et al. study (2007). Each article was examined to see if it contained at least one
sentence that characterized the debate over raising the debt ceiling. If it did not characterize the
debate, it was discarded as not relevant. If it was deemed to be relevant it was then coded for the
relevant frames were present in the article. It was possible for more than one frame to be present
in the article. The frames, as originally defined by Jasperson et al. (2007), were four separate
characterizations of the debate that represented an escalation of the debate as they moved from
frame to frame. The coded frames, along with examples, are below:
27
1.
A “talk” frame, which characterizes the debate as a discussion or talks between
government officials to work towards a solution. The tone of the “talk” frame should be a civil
dialogue:
“The civil tone that's emerged in the battle over raising the $14.3 trillion debt limit this summer
appears to be a product of the cordial working relationships that have developed among the
principals in the White House-led talks, particularly between Vice President Biden and House
Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.)” (Sonmez, 2011).
2. A “fight” frame, which characterizes the debate as a heated discussion over what needs to be
done to solve the problem:
“A Wednesday meeting between President Obama and House Republicans about the nation's
debt ended with neither side showing a willingness to give ground on any substantive points or
rhetorical differences” (Goldfarb and Kane, 2011).
3. An “impasse” frame is characterized by one or both sides of the argument saying that they
have reached a standstill in negotiations and do not believe a deal is possible. This will often be
characterized with blame being placed on the other sides demands:
“Just before the House vote Friday, Mr. Boehner lashed out at the White House and Democrats
after a tough week.
In a speech on the House floor defending his bill, he blamed the White House and Democrats for
the debt impasse.
28
"I stuck my neck out a mile to try to get an agreement with the president of the United States,"
Mr. Boehner said” (Bendavid et al., 2011).
4.
A “crisis” frame is the most “extreme” frame, it is characterized by a description of the
events that would take place if a deal is not reached. It describes how dangerous it would be
for the government to not be able to meet their debt obligations:
“‘We absolutely must avert the looming crisis that could force the United States government to
default and put our ailing economy into a tailspin,’ said House Rules Committee Chairman
David Dreier (R., Calif.) at the start of debate” (Boles, 2011).
After the articles were coded using these guidelines, the final relevance sample was 109 articles
that featured at least one or more of the four frames. The data was analyzed with SPSS software.
29
Results
The results are organized around how often articles were published that featured at least one
frame, how often each frame was used, the public opinion data on the debate surrounding the
debt ceiling and finally the public opinion data in comparison to the frequency of articles that
were published. These results will guide the discussion section to determine if the public opinion
was shaped by the media’s agenda setting ability in the debate over raising the debt ceiling.
Frequency of Articles
One of the main elements of this study is the number of articles that were published that
characterized the debate surrounding the debt ceiling. Below is a graph that shows the number of
articles that were published over the life of the study.
As the debate continued on, the number of articles increased until it peaked around the end of
July when a solution was finally reached among lawmakers. The lowest number of articles per
30
day was one – and it was seen 15 times through the life of the content analysis. The highest
number of articles per day was 13 articles and it was seen once, on July 26, 2011. Over the 49
days of the life of the content analysis a mean of 3.87 articles were published per day.
Frequency of Frames
The researcher then examined the sample to assess the frequency of each of the four
frames in both newspapers.
31
The “talk” frame was the most prevalent frame for this content analysis. The data
indicates that out of a possible 109 articles that were coded, the “talk” frame appeared 67
separate times. This shows that in 61.5 percent of the articles that were coded, the “talk” frame
was present.
The “fight” frame was the second least-used frame out of the 109 articles that were
studied in this content analysis. It appeared in 49 articles, in comparison to the 60 articles in
which this frame did not appear. This works out to a valid percent of 45 percent of the articles.
32
The “impasse” frame was the second most used frame in the life of the content analysis.
Out of the 190 articles that were coded for at least one frame, an “impasse” frame appeared 52
separate times, or 47.7 percent of the time. This is in comparison to 57 articles that did not
feature the “impasse” frame, or 52.3 percent of the articles.
33
The “crisis” frame was the least featured frame by appearing two less times than the
“fight” frame. Out of the 109 articles that were coded, the “crisis” frame appeared 47 times, or
43 percent of the time. By comparison, this frame did not appear in 57 percent of the full article
sample.
Public Opinion Polling
The researcher next examined public opinion data to establish if the public’s attention to
the issue of deficit reduction changed over the life of the study. A search was conducted on the
“Polling the Nations” database for polls from June 1st to August 2nd, 2011 that focused on the
34
debt ceiling and the budget deficit. A question from a poll by the Pew Research Center was
isolated and tracked over the dates of the study.
The question asked, “As I read a list of some stories covered by news organizations this
past week, please tell me if you happened to follow each news story very closely, fairly closely,
not too closely, or not closely at all. Discussion in Washington about how to address the federal
budget deficit.”
The poll was conducted in the United States with 1,000 telephone respondents (The Pew
Research Center, 2011). During the life of the study five Pew Research Center polls were
conducted and tracked the sentiments of those surveyed to the budget deficit. The results are
presented in the table below.
35
The researcher then took the data from the Pew Research Center poll and compared it to
the frequency of articles that were published and plotted them on a graph for analysis. When the
study began, the public stated that 51 percent were following the debate “very or fairly closely”
and 49 percent were following it “not too or not at all closely.” This number increased in the next
study to a 59 percent to 50 percent breakdown. It then dropped down to a 55 percent to 44
percent reading before elevating to a 66 percent to 34 percent reading. The highest registration
came on the last poll date when 68 percent said they were following it “very or fairly closely” to
the 32 percent that were following “not too or not at all closely” (Pew, 2011).
Discussion
36
The results of the study are key to examining the overall goals to see how influential the
media is on public opinion when it speaks about an issue. In this case the 2011 debt ceiling
debate was a perfect moment in time to see how the coverage given by the news media changed
the public’s opinion on the issue, and if any of the frames were more influential than the other.
This discussion section first outlines the overall goals of the study and then examines which
media frames were primarily used, how public opinion changed over the life of the study, the
impact that each frame had on public opinion, how the public opinion compared to how often
articles were published and finally a comparison of the results with the Jasperson (2007) results.
The goals of this study, as previously mentioned are:
1. Determine which media frames are primarily used to characterize the political debate on
raising the debt ceiling.
2. Determine how – and whether or not – the public opinion on the issue of deficit reduction is
changed as the media frames are changed.
3. Determine whether or not a correlation can be found between media frames and public
opinion.
4. Propose future research that can be used by professionals who use strategic communication to
shape and affect public opinion of the issues the federal government is tackling to better
engage with their stakeholders.
Which Media Frames Were Primarily Used
The data shows that the articles published in The Washington Post and The Wall Street
Journal relied primarily on a “talk” frame when they characterized the debate over the raising
the debt ceiling. The “talk” frame appeared in 67 separate articles, which is 15 times more than
37
the “impasse” frame which was the second most used frame. The dominance of the “talk” frame
in most of the articles shows that the media was writing to define the debate surrounding the debt
ceiling as an issue as a series of talks and debates between political leaders in Washington, D.C.
This large amount of times this frame appeared shows how much political leaders were working
toward a deal during this debate. The “talk” frame and its use to characterize the debate is inline with the definition of framing that was presented by Entman (1993) which said that framing
was, “to 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” (p.
52).
The most interesting result from how often the different frames were used in news reports
was the two least mentioned frames, the “fight” frame and the “crisis” frame. The agenda setting
feature of the media, as given by MacKuen & Coombs (1981) features the contention that issues
with a higher degree of conflict have a great influence on the agenda, than those of a low degree
of conflict. The results of this content analysis are in opposition to this idea. The frames, as
described by the researcher, show a general progression in conflict from “talk” to “crisis” on a
scale of conflict. The “fight” and “crisis” frame represent the third most serious, and the most
serious frames among those studied. The fact that the “crisis” frame was the least coded frame
also is in opposition to the agenda setting assertions of MacKuen & Cooms (1981).
Though the idea that conflict results in an increase in salience cannot be fully rejected
because the results of the content analysis show that the “impasse” frame which was the second
most serious on the conflict scale. But, the overall results show that the news media did adopt a
dominant frame in their characterizations of the debate over the debt ceiling. The question going
38
forward is did that dominant frame result in an increase in the public opinion of the issue through
the agenda setting function.
How Public Opinion Changed
The polling data from the Pew poll shows that there is a definite increase in the attention
that from the public to the issue of the budget deficit and the debt ceiling over summer of 2011.
The results from the first poll shows that an almost equal amount of Americans were paying
attention or not paying much attention to the issue of the budget deficit and its coverage in the
news. But that gap widens over the course of the study which indicates that a greater number of
individuals are paying attention to the media coverage on the issue. In the last two polls the
number of individuals who were paying close attention to the news coverage on the issue
increased by 15 percent and 17 percent, respectively. This indicates that there was a definite
agenda setting effect from the coverage of the news media on the issue of the budget deficit and
the debt ceiling.
The notion of an agenda setting effect was supported by the polling question that
addressed the public’s perception of the issues covered by the news media. Over the course of
this study the attention toward what the news media was covering showed that there was an
agenda setting effect very much in line with the contention made by Brosius & Kepplinger
(1990), who define agenda setting as the process, “in which changes in media coverage lead to or
cause subsequent changes in problem awareness of issues,” (p. 190).
39
The Impact of Different Frames on Public Opinion
The results show that a definite set of dominant frames emerged from the news coverage,
and those frames seem to show an effect on public opinion through agenda setting. The next step
is to examine how the individual frames tied into the changes of public opinion on the issue. The
charts below shows a comparison on the public opinion data with the frequency that the frames
appeared by date. For display purposes the public opinion data was reduced by moving the
decimal point to the left one digit (for example, if the reading was 55 percent, it was entered as
“5.5”).
The chart shows that as more articles were published on the issue of the debt ceiling
debate the attention paid by the public to the issue also increased. The largest number of articles
published per day occurred in late July, when the debt ceiling fight reached its climax. In one
instance seven separate articles featuring the “impasse” frame were featured on a single day. The
increase in the number of articles published also resulted in an increase in attention paid by the
public to the issue. These charts, and the subsequent charts, show that on a comparison basis
each frame saw an increase in the amount of articles that were written as well as an increase in
the public opinion and awareness toward the issue as time went on.
The charts show that when the number of articles that were published increased it was
correlated with an increase in the attention that the public was paying to the issue. Toward the
end of the study, this is shown when all articles saw an increase in frequency and the public
opinion numbers hit their peaks of awareness. Looking around the July 25, 2011 and July 31,
2011 time period, there is a clear correlation that comes from the number of articles that were
40
published, and then a direct increase in the public opinion and attention on the issue. This data
shows that for there appears to be a correlation between the media frames that are used, their
frequency and the amount of public attention that is paid to the issue through public polling.
Do Different Frames Increase the Public Attention to the Issue?
The original research question for this study asked: “Do different frames surrounding
deficit reduction make messages more likely to align with the agenda setting priorities of the
media, and in turn, make them more likely to rise as an important issue to the American public?”
The answer to this question seems to be that, yes, different frames do have the ability to make it
more likely that they align with the agenda setting priorities of the media, and in turn, make them
more likely to rise as an important issue to the American public. However, the results do not
fully support all of the contentions of the research question. It appears that it does not make a
difference what frame is used in the news articles. Instead there seems to be a correlation
between the frequency of the articles themselves and their overall impact on the public’s
attention to the issue at hand. The more articles the news media publishes corresponds with more
attention paid to the issue overall. This supports the theories of the agenda setting authors,
examined previously, such as Brosius & Kepplinger (1990) and Cohen (1963) who stated that
“the press may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is
stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about” (p.13).
The results of this study would indicate that the press still does a great deal of telling the
public exactly what to think about. Below that is a timeline of the major events in the debt
ceiling debate, which show how public opinion changed as events occurred. The chart shows that
when President Obama called congressional leaders to the White House to forge a deal in late
July started the increase in articles that were published about the debate. Next the articles
41
increased to their highest levels when President Obama made his televised national speech on
July 25th and then again when he announced that a deal had been reached on July 31st. These
results mirror the change in public opinion and attention in the same way that the increase in
articles published mirrored an increase in public opinion. These three elements together show
that there is a direct correlation between the events escalating toward a solution, an increase in
the number of articles about the debate and finally the public paying more attention to the debate
overall. They show that the agenda setting power of the media was in full force for this study.
Below the timeline is a series of charts that illustrate the overall frequency of the articles
published and then a breakdown of the frequency of articles on a frame-by-frame basis. The
charts start with the frequency of the “talk” frame by date and then go to the “fight,” “impass,e”
and “crisis” frames from there. The charts support the conclusion that as the frequency of articles
increase, so does the public attention to the issue and the idea that agenda setting is indeed at
play in this study.
2011 Debt Ceiling Debate Important Dates
7/9 Speaker
Boehner
leaves talks
with Pres.
Obama
5/31 Debt
Ceiling vote
fails in House
May
June
7/25 Pres.
Obama
addresses
America
July
6/23 Eric
Cantor
(R-VA)
leaves
talks with
VP Biden
8/1 and 8/2
House and
Senate Pass
Deals
August
7/23 Pres.
Obama
calls
Congressio
nal leaders
to White
House
7/31 Pres.
Obama
announces
a deal
42
43
44
45
Comparison With Jasperson (2007)
The Jasperson et al. (2007) study, which was the starting point for this study, found that
the 1996 budget debates also featured the “talk” frame as the most commonly used frame by the
news media. The researchers also found that as more articles were published on the issue, there
was a general increase in attention paid by the public.
They found that the only frame that seemed to actually change public opinion, beyond the
amount seen with just the frequency of articles, was the “fight” frame. The researchers also
found that “impasse” and “crisis” frames did not exert a definite change in public opinion like
they had originally proposed. They believed that the increased conflict nature of the frames
would also see an increase in the public’s attention to the issue due to the agenda setting
tendency toward conflict. The researchers said that this finding to the contrary, “...suggest that
the notion that conflict causes the greatest increase in importance for the budget deficit issue
requires further clarification” (Jasperson et al., 2007).
The findings of this study of the 2011 debt ceiling debate very closely matched the
findings of the Jasperson et al. (2007) study. The results show that the “talk” frame is again the
most prevalent frame among the articles coded. The findings of this study also showed that there
was no direct correlation between the frames that featured more “conflict” by nature, such as the
“impasse” and “crisis” frames, and the effect on public opinion and attention to the issue. Where
the two studies differed is the power of the “fight” frame. The Jasperson et al. (2007) study
found that the “fight” frame was the only frame out of the four used that seemed to increase the
public salience of the issue. This study found that there was no apparent correlation to the “fight”
frame for the 2011 fight.
46
This study differed from the Jasperson et al. (2007) study as well in that it showed a
correlation simply between the number of articles that were published and the public attention on
the issue. That connection is as apparent in the Jasperson et al. (2007) study and shows that the
two studies were not just a “moment in time” event. Instead they both show that there is a direct
correlation with the number of articles that are published on an issue and the public’s opinion on
those issues. Both studies show that, despite differences in political and economic situations, the
powerful ability of the media to set the public agenda still exists.
47
Conclusion
The original research question, “Do different frames surrounding deficit reduction make
messages more likely to align with the agenda setting priorities of the media, and in turn, make
them more likely to rise as an important issue to the American public?” sought to see if there was
a direct correlation between the messages and frames that were present, and the effect or impact
of these messages and frames on the public agendaand the public’s overall opinion on the issue
of deficit reduction.
The study was guided by the principles of framing and agenda setting, which hold that
the news media use their power to set the public agenda – the “issues of the day” – through
media coverage and the use of central narrative themes. The scholars behind agenda setting
theory state that the media has the ability to tell the public what issues they should be thinking
about. This is accomplished through the frames that the media presents to the public.
The question in this study is, do the frames that are used have a direct effect on the public
perception on the issue? More in point, do specific frames create a direct impact on the public
opinion of the issue? The study was inspired by a study from Jasperson et al. (2007) which
looked at the 1996 budget battle to see if their findings could translate to the 2011 fight over the
debt ceiling.
The study was completed using the quantitative method of content analysis.. Through
analysis of 190 articles in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal four frames (“talk”
“fight” “impasse” “crisis”) were coded and analyzed. The results show that the most common
frame that was present in the articles was the “fight” frame. This was also seen in the Jasperson
et al. (2007) study. The results also showed that there was a direct correlation between the
number of articles that were published and the public opinion and attention to the issue. This
48
only differed from the Jasperson et al. (2007) study in that Jasperson et al. found that the “fight”
frame had a direct effect on the public’s opinion through its content, not just the number of
articles that were published.
The overall implications between these two studies suggest that there needs to be more
study on the issue to make a direct analysis between frames used and the agenda setting effect of
the media when it comes to matters of the government budget deficit and the debt ceiling.
The study was limited by the amount of public opinion data that was available during the
study timeframe. The questions asked by different polls did not work to create a complete picture
of the American public’s opinions that could have been seen with more data. The study was also
limited by the start of the Republican campaign for the 2012 presidential nomination. The
number of articles that were deemed not relevant were largely centered around the opinions of
the different candidates for the nomination. The study was also limited by the lack of a second
coder to check reliability. The study was also not a direct copy of the Jasperson et al. (2007)
study because it did not have the digital content analysis tools or the statistical analysis tools that
the Jasperson et al. (2007) study featured.
Future research could include additional investigation into the power of these four frames
and their impact on public opinion toward budget deficit and debt ceiling issues. Future
researchers should assess whether or not the correlation between the frames and public opinion
and perception changes over time, or if public opinion is simply shaped as an implication of the
number of articles that were published. There should also be further research into the power that
each frame has to shape public opinion using more opinion polls to create a stronger correlation
potential. A future study into these issues would optimally be completed during times in which
different political situations exist.
49
The power that the media has to set the agenda and tell people what they should be
thinking about is around us at all times. The news articles that we all read on a daily basis are
slowly shaping our belief system on particular issues at all times. The subtle framing devices,
international or not, are how our views on the issues change. In the case of the 2011 debt ceiling
debate there is a clear correlation between the amount of attention paid by the general public and
the number of articles published by two of the main newspaper in the United States. The power
of the media to set the agenda will continue into the future, and for that reason it is important for
communicators and public leaders to recognize the power that effective messaging and strategic
communications can have in working to shape the agenda in a way that works toward their
strategic goals. In the meantime keep watching media stories to see how quickly an issue can go
from a small problem to a national problem in a short period of time with the help of the news
media.
50
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Appendix
Debt Ceiling Debate - Coding Sheet
A. Treat each transcript as the unit of analysis. Each row of the spreadsheet should be used to
code a new transcript.
B. Finish coding for each transcript before moving on to the next one
C. While coding each transcript, use the following rules:
a. For each transcript, enter the Article Number, Date (MM/DD/YYYY) and Publication
(Washington Post or Wall Street Journal)
b. Is the transcript RELEVANT? Determine the RELEVANCE of the transcript. In
order for a transcript to be deemed relevant, at least one complete sentence should
characterize the debate surrounding the debt ceiling fight. If the transcript is irrelevant transcript,
fill in “no” in the RELEVANCE column. No further coding is necessary for an irrelevant
transcript. For a relevant transcript, fill in “yes” in the RELEVANCE column and continue
coding the transcript.
c. Is the “talk” frame used?
0 = No
1 = Yes
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e. Is the “fight” frame used?
0= No
1 = Yes
g. Is an “impasse” frame used?
0 = No
1 = Yes
i. Is a “crisis” frame used?
0= No
1 = Yes
57