The Construction of
Frames in News
Journalism
Sigurd Allern, professor, dr.
polit, University of Oslo/Volda
University College
Framing theory
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Framing theory - or theories about framing today represent one of the most common
research approaches in the field of
communication and media studies.
The origins of the frame metaphor lie in other
fields like cognitive psychology, anthropology
(Bateson) and sociology (Goffman).
A frame specifies the relationship between a
number of connected elements in a text, helping
us to define or interpret what is going on, making
sense out of events
Why words matters
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Experimental studies by cognitive psychologists:
choices between risky projects can be powerfully
altered merely by changing the terms in which
equivalent choices are described. (“Will die” or
“will be saved”)
Preferences for tax policies can be manipulated
by framing the financial outcomes differently
(benefits or penalties?).
Surgery as cancer treatment: use statistics in
terms of survival rather than mortality!
A Swedish example
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Expressen (18.9.2001): 47% against US attack in
Afghanistan. DN (27.9.2001): “Seven out of ten
support US attack”
Expressen’s question: Do you find it right wrong
that the US invade Afghanistan with military
troops?
DN’s question: Do you find it right or wrong of
prime minister Persson and the other prime
ministers to support the US’s right to attack?
Media frames (Todd Gitlin, 1980)
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“What makes the world beyond direct experience
look natural is a media frame”.
“Frames are principles of selection, emphasis,
and presentation composed of little tacit theories
about what exists, what happens and what
matters”
“Thus for organizational reasons alone, frames
are unavoidable, and journalism is organized to
regulate their production”
Gaye Tuchman: News as frame
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News is a window of the world. Through
its frame, American learn of themselves
and others, of their institutions, leaders,
and life styles, and those of other nations
and their peoples…
…The view through a window depends
upon whether the window is large or
small, has many panes or few, whether
the glass is opaque or clear, whether the
window faces a street or a backyard.
(Making News, 1980)
Defining framing
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“Frames are organizing principles that are socially
shared and persistent over time, that work
symbolically to meaningfully structure the social
world” (Stephen D. Reese (2001: 11) in Reese,
Gandy & Grant (eds.):
“To frame is to select some aspects of a
perceived reality and make them more salient in
a communicating text” (Robert Entman 1993: 52)
“The essence of framing is selection to prioritize
some facts, images or developments over others,
thereby unconsciously promoting one particular
interpretation of events (Norris, Kern & Just
2003)
How frames work
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“The frame suggests what the controversy is
about, the essence of the issue” (Gamson &
Modigliani 1989, in Vreese: 27)
Frames are ..interpretative packages that give
meaning to an issue (Gamson & Modigliani,
1989: 3)
Framing involves implicit information between the
lines, the frame provides a context for the
interpretation of a news message
Journalistic tools in framing the news
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Choosing the news angle
Selecting the sources (and avoiding
others)
Formulating the headline, the lead of a
news story and selecting the visual image
Culture bound narratives: formulating a
new episode in a longer and well known
story.
Choosing the news angle
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Journalistens vinkling kan sammenlignes med:
”…en tøjsnor, hvor kun de relevante stykker
information er hængt til tørre, og den hjælper på
den måde journalisten at strukturere
informationerne omkring en central ide og er
dermed også med at koncentrere læserens
opmærksomhed om de udvalgte sider av emnet.”
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Mogens Meilby (1996): Journalistikkens grundtrin. Århus:
Ajour.
Framing contests
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The frame building process takes place in a
continuous interaction between journalists and
elites and social movements. The outcomes of
the frame-building process are the frames
manifest in the text (Vreese 2003: 24, 43)
If politicians or PR-practitioners are to succeed
getting their frames wholly or partly presented in
the media, they have to adhere to certain news
conventions and genre demands from commercial
news organisations giving priority to conflicts,
power struggles and drama (Allern 2001, Ihlen &
Allern 2007)
Frames are part of a culture..
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“Frames are part of a culture and are
institutionalized in various ways” (Goffman 1981,
p 63).
Van Gorps (2007) six premises:
1 There exist a cultural stock of frames,
alternatives are available (like in Vladimir Propps
Morphology of the folk tale)
2 The text and the frame is not identical; the
readers connect framing devices in a news story
with familiar cultural phenomena
..the cultural approach
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3 The use of frames seem normal, natural and
the social construction are often invisible. Frames
as a power mechanism.
4 Frames are part of the culture, more stable
than personal schemata
5 A frame changes gradually or little over time
6 Frames are negotiated and part of a social
interaction
Frames are not the same as topics
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Topic: Asylum seekers and undocumented
immigrants
Alternative frames (van Gorp 2007):
Misgovernment frame
Intruder/strangers frame
Our hospitality frame
The innocent victim frame
The donor/support frame
The “not in my backyard” frame
Frames as regular patterns
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“Through frames, apparently scattered and
diverse events are understood within regular
patterns…
..the terrorist frame can be used to explain the
nightclub attack in Bali, the Chechen rebels
holding hostages in the Moscow theatre, the
bombing of Israel tourists in a Mombassa hotel,
the suicide bombers in Tel Aviv, or the capture of
communist insurgents in the Philippines (Norris,
Kern & Just 2003: 11).
Bali, Moscow Theatre, Mombasa
hotel: The same Story?
Framing early student protest against
the war against Vietnam (1965)
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Todd Gitlin: The whole world is watching (1980):
analyzing the earliest framing devices in main
stream media outlets.
“15000 White House pickets denounce Vietnam
War”
Framing devices in coverage of
Vietnam protests
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Trivialization (of age, dress, language, style,
goals)
Polarization (emphasizing
counterdemonstrations)
Emphasis on internal dissention
Marginalization (deviant or unrepresentative)
Disparagement by numbers (under-counting)
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Reliance on statements by government officials
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Framing the WTO
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“A few Starbucks windows smashed by a hundred
‘anarchists’ where all the shallower news reports
needed to see to decide “what’s the story”, even
if tens or hundreds of thousands of
demonstrators were marching by playfully, in
peace” (Todd Gitlin about Seattle 1999)
Contrasting guilt and innocence
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Robert Entman (in Projections of Power, 2004),
comparing the media coverage of a Soviet Air
Force Fighter who shot down Korean Air Flight
007 (1983, killing 269 people) and the coverage
of a US Navy Ship (Vincennes) who in 1988 shot
down an Iranian Air Flight 655 (killing 290).
The media framing varied dramatically. Soviet
covered with “the murder frame”, US by the
“technical glitch frame”. Contrasting magnitude,
causes and the use of humanizing or neutral
terms (quantitatively)
Episodic or thematic framing?
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Shanto Iyengar (1991): Is anyone responsible?
How television frames political issues.
Predominantly episodic or thematic news stories
in CBS, NBC and ABC. Key word search of
different topics (like crime and terrorism,
unemployment and poverty).
Experimental study: how did did the groups react
to different types of framing?
Conclusion: In the long run episodic framing
contributes to the trivialization of the public
discourse
Framing a scandal: The Valla case
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A personnel conflict inside the national trade union (the
LO). A international secretary decide to leave her job
Background: political conflicts inside the LO and the Labour
party
A dramatically press campaign (war and tsunami
proportions) follows. After two month the LO-leader, GerdLiv Valla resigns
The mother and the teddy bear..
Competing frames in the Valla-case
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The harassment frame
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The power-struggle frame
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The revenge frame
Framing the EU
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All news actors know that geographical and
cultural proximity will increase the audience
interest for a news story
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EU journalism is structured within national
practices
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“I have to, in effect, get Ireland into the first two
paragraphs, that’s my rule of thumb” (Irish
correspondent)
• AIM-study 2007 (Interview-study): Reporting the EU
from Brussels):
Framing the Tibet conflict
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The peaceful, democratic buddhist frame
(visualized by the ever smiling Dalai Lama)
The tibetan David against the Chinese Goliat
frame (monks against brutal soldiers/policemen)
Framing Tibet in Chinese media
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The Tibetan separatist- extremist frame
(obstructing the united China)
The Tibetan hooligan frame (harassment and
plundering in Lhasa)
The tragic death of Obiora
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Eugene E. Obiora (48), denied to leave a social
office in Trondheim. Arrested by four police
officers. A dangerous throat grip was used.
Lost consciousness. Transported handcuffed, with
his face down and feet up, to hospital. He died.
Framing the Obiora-case
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The legal action frame: A necessary, legal
action against an aggressive, strong man. The
throat grip and type of transport was standard
procedure. Because of unlucky circumstances he
died. No police officer can be blamed
The racism frame: A violent action against an
unarmed social client with black skin. Treated
especially brutal because he was of foreign
(African) origin. The police officers should be
punished
“State racism kills..”
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The ‘police frame’ influence and succeed in the
legal process (the case was in 2007 dismissed by
the Director of public prosecutions)
The ‘racism frame’ dominated the press coverage
and the public debate
The Ali Farah case (2007)
News picture of the year
A new case of racism?
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A seriously injured man (head damage after an
attack) is denied access to a hospital ambulance
because he pees on himself and on a driver. He is
abused by the drivers, who leave.
The treatment is linked to the Obiora case, and
after some days framed in the news (and by
activists and leading politicians) as a tragic
example of problems with racism in the public
sector
The racism frame is contested and debated
Reframing of the case
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The two drivers get warnings because of
maltreatment and are also fined by the
authorities
A-magasinet/Aftenposten 2008: The driver is “a
labelled man”. The driver: We did a mistake, but I
am not a racist”
Reframing the case as an unlucky accident.
Successful in the media. One of the drivers won a
court case about the fine.
Methodological alternatives
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Qualitative textual (discourse) analysis of framing
devices and latent meaning structures.
Quantitative content analyses of manifest variables
(like predefined framing devices)
Experimental studies of effects of different types of
framing
Interviews with journalist, frame sponsors and
audience members about the construction and
negotiations of frames
Conclusion:
Framing
matters!
Literature
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Carver, R, R. Waldahl & J. Breivik(2008): ’Frame that gene’, EMBO reports.
De Vreese, Claes (2003): Framing Europé. Television News and European
Integration, Amsterdam: Aksant
Entman, R. (1993): ’Framing. Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm’, Journal
of Communication 43 (4): 51-58
Entman, R. (2004): Projections of Power, Chigcago, University of Chigago Press
Gitlin, T. (1980): The Whole World is Watching.. (Berkely..: Universityof California
Press)
Goffman, E. (1974): Frame Analysis, Cambridge: Harvard University Press
Ihlen, Ø & S. Allern (2008): ’This is the Issue: Framing Contests and Media
Coverage’, in Strömbek, Ørsten & Aalberg (eds.): Communicating Politics,
Gothenburg: Nordicom.
Iyengar, S.: (1994): Is anyone responsible. How television frames political issues,
Chcago: University of Chicago Press
Norris P., M. Kern & M. Just (2003): Framing Terrorism, New York/London: Routledge
Reese, S.D., Gandy O.H. & Grant, A.E (eds.) (2001): Framing Public Life:
Perspectives on Media and Our Understanding of the Social World. Mahwaa, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
Tuchman, G. (1978): Making News. A Study of the Construction of Reality, New York:
Free Press
Van Gorp, B (2007): ’The Constructionist Approach to framing: Bringing the Culture
back’, Journal of communication, 57 (1): 60-78