Think about how you ‘frame’ the issue when painting the picture
The way that information is organised is important; this can be considered as how something is ‘framed’ (see box, right). Social issues can be framed in a variety of ways, which call for different solutions. For example, if a news story about homelessness follows a particular person’s story, the public may be more likely to describe the individual as responsible for their situation. Whereas if the story focuses on general trends of homelessness, including information such as
the current shortage of social housing and poor welfare provision for veterans, responsibility is more likely to be described at a societal level.14
Inequality can be framed in multiple ways. Envy is one
way inequality is framed – for example, media accounts of the ‘politics of envy’. However, another frame which could be used is justice – for example, in 1980 CEOs were paid between 13 to 44 times the wage of their average employee whereas in 2014 several FTSE companies paid their CEOs up to nearly 800 times the wage of their average employee.15
When framing solutions, the aim is to reach a shared understanding of:
• The problematic situation which needs to change • Who or what is to blame or responsible for this
• An alternative set of arrangements
• The need to take action to make a change.
One way of increasing the likelihood of developing
a shared understanding of the solution is by increasing its resonance with the audience. This is how much it ‘ringstrue’.Whenframinginformationtoincreaseits resonance it can be helpful to consider its:
• Credibility: is the problem consistent with the proposed action? Is it based on evidence which is believable to the target audience? How credible is the person or group who is sharing the information? And;
• Salience: how central and relevant are the ideas to the lives of the target audience? How much do the ideas fit in with the wider stories which are dominant in wider culture?17
Framing an argument is when we select some aspects of information and make them more noticeable in how they are presented to the reader.16 You could think about it as selecting what part of a big and complex picture that you choose to put a frame around, directing the reader’s attention to certain aspects of the information, which influences how they go on to process that information.
Slogans can be a useful way of picking out key parts of the message and making them salient. For example, “We are the 99%” and “Think global, act local.”
Framing information about inequality by asking the reader ‘does this person deserve to be paid that much/ little for the work they do?’ was also shown to engage a wider range of people, some of whom may not
have been interested in arguments against inequality more generally. Furthermore, arguments which framed equality as about an equal reward for one’s efforts and contributions were supported by a wider variety of people, as they resonated with concerns about the top and bottom, rather than an abstract concept of equality. For example, “The country would not function without people on low-paid jobs, they deserve to be paid more for what they do.”4
14 Iyengar, S. (1990). Framing responsibility for political issues: The case of poverty. Political behavior, 12(1), 19-40.
15 Retrieved 18.02.16 from http://highpaycentre.org/blog/ftse-100- bosses-now-paid-an-average-143-times- as-much-as-their-employees
16 Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Towards clarification of a fractured paradigm.
Journal of Communication, 43, 51-58.
17 Benford, R. D. & Snow, D. A. (2000). Framing processes and social movements: An overview and assessment. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 611-639.