Framing Theory

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 [Page 408]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).

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