Frame

A frame is a rhetorical label that encapsulates unconnected pieces of information about a subject of interest into a graphic image or a coherent story. The term naturally draws metaphorical value from the function of a cropping frame used with visual images, which limits and focuses the viewer's gaze, while at once bestowing relevance [Page 339]upon subjects within the position or scope of its borders and irrelevance upon those without. Frames illuminate matters of personal or public importance, whether they are a strategic product or an emergent outcome 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. But frames can just as easily occur within or between individuals, groups, or societies without their materialization in media.

In each of these areas, frames submit to three levels of analysis. At the level of their production, 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 the members of the group. Those members use that 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 than 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 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 frames helps public relations professionals better understand general trends in society. A thorough understanding of how frames work may also aid public relations staff members in knowing their role and abilities as professionals. First, a general awareness of the power frames can assist public relations professionals in managing information so that they can clarify thinking, articulate alternative points of view, or more readily perceive less evident alternative viewpoints. Second, 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. Third, 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.” Fourth, 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 a conscience for an organization by directing attention to the neglect of certain trends, issues, or publics. Fifth, 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. Finally, public relations professionals can use framing concepts to adapt organizational interests to the established media frame of “newsworthiness” that news workers [Page 340]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.

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