Encyclopedia of Communication Theory

Framing Theory

Contributors: Ingrid Volkmer

Edited by: Stephen W. Littlejohn & Karen A. Foss
Book Title: Encyclopedia of Communication Theory
Chapter Title: "Framing Theory"
Pub. Date: 2009
Access Date: September 26, 2018
Publishing Company: SAGE Publications, Inc.
City: Thousand Oaks
Print ISBN: 9781412959377
Online ISBN: 9781412959384
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412959384.n151
Print pages: 408-409
©2009 SAGE Publications, Inc.. All Rights Reserved.
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Framing theory aims to identify schemes in which individuals perceive the world. The roots of
framing theory are often attributed to the sociologist Erving Goffman who argued that
interpretive designs constitute central elements of cultural belief systems. Goffman called
these interpretive designs frames that we use in our day-to-day experience to make sense of
the world. Frames help to reduce the complexity of information, but serve as a two-way
process: Frames help interpret and reconstruct reality. Goffman's concept of frames has its
conceptual roots in phenomenology, a philosophical approach that argues that the meaning
of the world is perceived by individuals based on their lifeworld beliefs, experiences, and
knowledge. Whereas traditionally, world meanings were conveyed through socialization
processes, creating a collective reality within a culture or society, today so-called mediated
communication delivers powerful frames of world perception that challenges and renegotiates
these lifeworld experiences.

Not surprising, then, is that framing theory has become important for a variety of sectors
within today's transnational media society. Knowledge about framing theory is crucial for the
planning of media campaigns in advertising, public relations, and political sectors. Framing
theory is, for example, utilized by spin doctors for the tailoring of a political issue in election
campaigns for a specific audience. However, one of the important areas of framing theory is
media research in journalism and political communication. As media maintain a fourth estate
role in democratic societies, media researchers find framing theory helpful to analyze the
imbalances and underlying power structures that mediate political issues. For example, the
frame of a story about the environment can be quite different in conservative or liberal media
outlets. However, the use of framing theory not only identifies the difference framings of one
story across a number of news outlets, but allows us to detect journalistic bias. The use of
stereotypical framing, frames along gender lines, or imbalances of the representation of
relevant societal communities, such as ethnic minorities within a national or transnational
public, are examples of different frames that might be used.

Framing theory emerged in the mass media age of the 1970s. In the United States, this was a
time when media research moved away from a unidimensional media-effects model and
began to address quite specific forms of media influence on audiences. Among other issues,
media research began to address the powerful role of national mass media in shaping
political issues within the national public. As audiences were exposed to continuous
information streams, it became obvious that media not only influence audiences during
election campaigns, but powerfully create world perceptions and political discourse. As
Benjamin Cohen argued, although media are not especially effective at telling us what to
think, they do tell us what to think about.

During the 1970s, a variety of studies began to further investigate this important distinction.
Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw developed the agenda-setting approach that claims that
there is a relation between the amount of coverage of a certain political issue and the
perceived relevance of this issue among the audience's political agenda. An example for this
phenomenon is the coverage of humanitarian crises in national media in the United States
and the subsequent relevance of this issue among audiences (which has then, in
consequence, formed foreign policy initiatives in the United States).

In addition to such an agenda-setting process, framing theory studies the different schemes
in which these issues are told. Early studies in framing research identified key frames in
television news: an episodic frame—definition of a particular event frame—and a thematic
frame, which positions an issue in a wider context of public discourse. Others have addressed

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frames being used in election campaigns.

More recently, framing theory has been conceptually refined. More recent research addresses
specific sets of frames, such as those around elite discourses because many news stories
favor the perspective of the powerful societal stakeholders. Others have focused on slant or
content frames that identify ways in which framing favors one side over the other in a dispute.
Another type of framing research addresses the underlying social processes of frame
building. Some theorists have repositioned framing within the terrain of other research
methodologies in political communication and argue that framing consists of a macro-level
and microlevel component. Whereas the macrolevel relates to modes of presentation and
overlaps with agenda setting, the microlevel relates to the way the audience uses this
information as they develop attitudes toward certain issues that overlap with priming
processes. Priming refers to the way media offer a prior context by which an audience will
interpret subsequent information, thus creating frames of reference for audiences.

In the early 20th century, Walter Lippman, a journalist and writer, noted in his book Public
Opinion that the world is perceived through stereotypes that serve as pictures in our heads.
As the mass media age, as news stories delivered through a small number of national
television channels influenced national audiences and as media transformed into a networked
media world where individuals actively select information, framing theory needs to be
repositioned. Lippman's notion of individual worldviews seem to determine more than ever
which information channels are being used. In this sense, framing theory needs to include the
individual as an actor within the framing process. More recent approaches to framing theory
highlight these social constructions of frames. In these debates, frames are viewed as
organizing principles that structure the social world. However, much more needs to be done to
reposition this important concept of public discourse in today's networked information culture.

IngridVolkmer
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412959384.n151
See also

Agenda-Setting Theory
Audience Theories
Broadcasting Theories
Journalism and Theories of the Press
Media and Mass Communication Theories
Media Effects Theories
Political Communication Theories
Public Opinion Theories
Social Interaction Theories
Spiral Models of Media Effects

Further Readings
Cohen, B.(1963).The press and foreign policy.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Entman, R. M.F r a m i n g b i a s : M e d i a i n t h e d i s t r i b u t i o n o f p o w e r .J o u r n a l o f
Communication57(2007).163–173.http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00336.x
Goffman, E.(1974).Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience.Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Iyengar, S.(1991).Is anyone responsible? How television frames political issues.Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Lippman, W.(1922).Public opinion.New York: Macmillan.

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McCombs, M. E., and Shaw, D. L.The agenda-setting function of mass media.Public Opinion
Quarterly36(1972).176–187.http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/267990
Reese, S.(2001).Framing public life: A bridging model for media research. In S.Reese,
O.Gandy, & A.Grant (Eds.), Framing public life (pp. 7–31). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Scheufele, D. A.Framing as a theory of media effects.Journal of Communication49(1999).103–
122.http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1999.tb02784.x

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