Frame

A frame is a heuristic device that encapsulates and connects information objects about a subject of interest into a graphic image or a coherent story. The term draws metaphorical value from the cropping frame, limiting and focusing a viewer's gaze, while at once bestowing relevance upon subjects within the position or scope of its borders and irrelevance upon those without. Frames illuminate matters of personal or public importance, whether strategically produced or emerging out of ongoing communication. One important evolution in the understanding of frames is the media frame, which concerns itself with the materialization of frames in public discourse. Frames can also occur within or between individuals, groups, or societies without their materialization in media.

In each of these areas, frames can be examined at three levels of analysis. At their production level, frames sustain graphic images and a common vision of worldviews or ideologies, which tend toward their own transmission or perpetuation. Nations such as the United States frame their symbols in a worldview that is ostensibly widely shared by citizens. At this level, the most powerful frames hold sway by virtue of their institutionalization and fixed position above societal structures. That is, the adoption and adherence to a set of values or guiding philosophy to which a group of people adhere produce a frame of understanding that is shared by its group members. These members use the frame to organize and predictably qualify routine information. In one sense, the frame of student as customer can be thought of as a dominant frame that has expanded into the spheres of education, where it has become influential in valuation at a broader cultural level. By this cultural valuation, students are no longer thought of merely as persons who come to learn and earn a degree. They have become customers who expect treatment beyond that traditionally associated with a college education experience. If they don't like the product or service, they are allowed—even expected—to complain and seek customer satisfaction. At the content level, frames import a fixed meaning to key words, ideas, or entailments and bring coherence to words and phrases within or between communications. In education, discussions [Page 359]of customer service direct dialogue, thereby implicating the frame of student as customer. Finally, at the effects level, frames become interpretive schemes used to process information, make judgments, and draw inferences, and can reveal the link between mass ideologies and policies. For example, in education, the customer service frame can govern procedures that assimilate business practices such as student evaluations.

An awareness of the value of frames helps public relations professionals better understand general trends in society. A thorough understanding of how frames work also aids public relations staff members in knowing their role and abilities as professionals:

• 1.
  A general awareness of the power of frames can assist public relations professionals in managing information so that they can clarify thinking, articulate alternative points of view, or more readily perceive alternative viewpoints less evident.
• 2.
  Public relations professionals can use frames in their research and evaluation efforts to track changes, monitor events, and identify new threats and opportunities in a given environment.
• 3.
  Public relations professionals may more readily express their needs and objectives with frames preferred by top management in order to accomplish organizational or public objectives. For example, public relations professionals commonly encase their agendas or activities in frames already accessible to management, such as those concerning the importance of relationships, or considerations of return on investment, efficiency, or corporate reputation.
• 4.
  Public relations professionals can work with management groups to identify and avoid fixed perspectives preserved by lasting frames. Indeed, prior research has shown that top levels of management often become trapped in their own preferred frames and do not easily entertain alternative points of view. Working with management through the concept of frames provides a way for public relations to serve as the organization's conscience by directing attention to the neglect of certain trends, issues, or publics.
• 5.
  Policy advocates can enhance their success by shaping information into coherent packages with standardized prevailing values, stories, and myths. Prevailing values and the like may include efficiency, capitalism, or rationalism, all of which have gained considerable currency in this era as institutionalized frames. Public relations professionals can use framing concepts to adapt organizational interests to the established media frame of newsworthiness that news workers use in deciding what counts as news. That is, when public relations professionals are able to pitch stories or write press releases that emphasize themes favored by journalists (e.g., those characterized by proximity, human interest, or timeliness), such stories or press releases are more readily printed.

We are all privy and susceptible to frames, yet their effects are by no means equal. A frame's force at the production level determines the power of its effects. That is, individuals, organizations, or institutions whose frames are more widely circulated, such as through public deliberation or the mass media, prevail over others. Hence, those deliberating at the policy level, such as for business or government, acquire resources by successfully funneling their interests through existing, generally accepted frames. This is especially so for those working with frames that have become tacit over time or taken for granted. Conversely, challenging successfully promoted positions involves adopting their frames of understanding, or otherwise introducing similarly compelling values and beliefs in support of the challenge.

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