Comic Frame

Frames in Communication Theory

In communication theory, the concept of framing refers to the role of context in the construction of meaning. The contextual cues leading the interpretation of a message is centrally important to how we make symbolic sense. The symbolic structures humans use to impose order upon their lives are called frames. The metaphor of a frame is a major critical tool in understanding 21st-century communication. Communication scholars advance the basic principles of communication theorist Kenneth Burke's communication-based axiology, or philosophical theory of value. The larger notion of frames is utilized in comedic and noncomedic areas of study. Chris Smith and Ben Voth note in 2002 that

Tragic and Comic Frames

Contemporary usage and study of the comic frame depends upon a moral axiology inherent in Burke's writing. Burke sought to improve communication study in a way that would allow human beings through an interpretive process to transcend the tragic frame and embrace the comic frame. Fully understanding the ethical underpinnings of this view requires an understanding of the tragic frame and its close relationship to human nature.

The comic constitutes an intuitive alternative to the tragic frames of rejection that express themselves most intensely in the forms of violence. Burke specifically suggests that the comic frame is rhetorically achieved through a technique termed perspective by incongruity. In this technique, a communicator juxtaposes seemingly contrary elements that the audience would tend to view as unnaturally associated—hence the incongruity. The unexpected combination produces an ironic effect that provides an opportunity for a new perspective.

The comic and tragic frames can be used to interpret the existence of human differences. Using the comic frame allows these differences to be portrayed as amusing, rather than as a reason for violence against “the other.” The human receptivity to amusement offers a compelling alternative to the serious win-lose scenarios of war and genocide. The construct of humor and comedy as a communicative message offers to an audience a juxtaposition of difference that invites acceptance rather than obliteration or denial. This makes Burke's insights regarding the comic frame more than a description—they are a prescription for the tragic frame that ails the communicative body of humanity. Tragic messages can be recast as comedic messages and in so doing, the audience may resist the symbolic path of tragedy— the rhetoric of “the Kill.” Burke (1959) described it this way: