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Information Design Journal + Document DesignNews framing: Theory and typology 13 ( 1 ), 51 – (^6251) © 2005 John Benjamins Publishing Company
Keywords: media analysis, news framing, framing typol- ogy, cross-national news analysis
The increasing popularity of the framing concept in media analysis goes hand in hand with significant inconsistency in its application. This paper outlines an integrated process model of framing that includes produc- tion, content, and media use perspectives. A typology of generic and issue-specific frames is proposed based on previous studies of media frames. An example is given of how generic news frames may be identified and used to understand cross-national differences in news coverage. The paper concludes with an identification of contentious issues in current framing research.
Introduction
Millions of citizens turn to the news media daily and ‘the media’ is a cornerstone institution in our democracies. One influential way that the media may shape public opinion is by framing events and issues in particular ways. Framing involves a communication source pre- senting and defining an issue. The notion of framing has gained momentum in the communication disciplines, giving guidance to both investigations of media content and to studies of the relationship between media and public opinion. The term framing is referred to with
significant inconsistency in the literature. Moreover, most previous studies of framing have focused on either content (e.g., frames in news) or framing effects. This article argues that becoming aware of different types of frames is necessary to understand when and why dif- ferent frames are at work. The paper defines framing as a process and it outlines an integrated process model of framing that includes production, content, and media use perspectives. Based on a review of previous studies of media frames a typology of issue-specific and generic frames is proposed. A case study shows how generic news frames may be identified and used to understand cross-national differences in news coverage. The study is an illustration of how framing can be used as a tool to study media content.
Framing as a process
The potential of the framing concept lies in the fo- cus on communicative processes. Communication is not static, but rather a dynamic process that involves frame-building (how frames emerge) and frame-set- ting (the interplay between media frames and audience predispositions). Entman (1993) noted that frames have several locations, including the communicator, the text, the receiver, and the culture. These components are integral to a process of framing that consists of distinct
Claes H. de Vreese
News framing: Theory and typology
52 Claes H. de Vreese
stages: frame-building, frame-setting and individual and societal level consequences of framing (d’Angelo, 2002; Scheufele, 2000; de Vreese, 2002). Frame-building refers to the factors that influence the structural qualities of news frames. Factors internal to journalism determine how journalists and news organiza- tions frame issues (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996). Equally important, however, are factors external to journalism. The frame-building process takes place in a continuous interaction between journalists and elites (Gans, 1979; Tuchman, 1978) and social movements (e.g., Cooper, 2002; Snow & Benford, 1992). The outcomes of the frame- building process are the frames manifest in the text. Frame-setting refers to the interaction between media frames and individuals’ prior knowledge and predisposi- tions. Frames in the news may affect learning, interpre- tation, and evaluation of issues and events. This part of the framing process has been investigated most elabo- rately, often with the goal to explore the extent to which and under what circumstances audiences reflect and mirror frames made available to them in, for example, the news. The consequences of framing can be conceived on the individual and the societal level. An individual level consequence may be altered attitudes about an is- sue based on exposure to certain frames. On the societal level, frames may contribute to shaping social level pro- cesses such as political socialization, decision-making, and collective actions.
In framing processes, frames can be both inde- pendent variables (IV) and dependent variables (DV). For example, media frames may be studied as the DV, i.e. the outcome of the production process including organizational pressures, journalistic routines, and elite discourse. Media frames may also be studied as IV, i.e. the antecedents of audience interpretations. Drawing on the integrated process model of framing (see Figure 1), future research would benefit from linking features of the production of news with the content (frame-build- ing) and/or content with studies of uses and effects (frame-setting). A link between either production and/ or effects is needed to prevent a proliferation of studies that investigate frames that may have considerable ap- peal given the ‘layman’ nature of the frame, but that do not provide any evidence or discussion of the use of the frame in actual news reports. The pitfall of such studies is that we cannot infer whether the frames are in fact, in the words of Cappella and Jamieson (1997, p. 47), ‘com- monly observed in journalistic practice’.
Frames in the news: Broad and narrow definitions
The variety of definitions of news frames in both theoretical and empirical contributions is consider- able. Gitlin (1980, p. 7) defines frames as ‘persistent patterns of cognition, interpretation, and presentation,
Frame-building Frame-setting
Framing in the Frames in the news Framing effects newsroom
- internal factors – issue-specific frames – information processing (editorial policies, news – generic frames effects values) – attitudinal effects
- external factors – behavioral effects
Figure 1. An integrated process model of framing
54 Claes H. de Vreese
considering any production feature of verbal or visual texts as a candidate for news frames is a too broad view. They suggest four criteria that a frame must meet. First, a news frame must have identifiable conceptual and linguistic characteristics. Second, it should be commonly observed in journalistic practice. Third, it must be pos- sible to distinguish the frame reliably from other frames. Fourth, a frame must have representational validity (i.e. be recognized by others) and not be merely a figment of a researcher’s imagination (Cappella & Jamieson, 1997, pp. 47; 89). When working with a deductive approach, the rel- evant question is: what (which components) in a news story constitutes a frame? Entman (1993, p. 52) suggested that frames in the news can be examined and identified by ‘the presence or absence of certain keywords, stock phrases, stereotyped images, sources of information and sentences that provide thematically reinforcing clusters of facts or judgments.’ Along these lines Shah et al. (2002, p.
- refer to ‘choices about language, quotations, and rel- evant information.’ Gamson and Modigliani (1989) iden- tify ‘framing devices’ that condense information and offer a ‘media package’ of an issue. They identify (1) metaphors, (2) exemplars, (3) catch-phrases, (4) depictions, and (5) visual images as framing devices. The most comprehen- sive empirical approach is offered by Tankard (2001, p.
- who suggests a list of 11 framing mechanism or focal points for identifying and measuring news frames:
- headlines
- subheads
- photos
- photo captions
- leads
- source selection
- quotes selection
- pull quotes
- logos
- statistics and charts, and
- concluding statements and paragraphs.
In sum, scholars within the empirical approach to measuring frames agree that frames are specific textual and visual elements or ‘framing devices’. These ele- ments are essentially different from the remaining news story which may be considered core news facts. Price et al. (1997, p. 488) operationalized a frame by varying ‘introductory and concluding paragraphs to establish a unique journalistic frame’ with information exclusive to the frame while the other paragraphs in the news articles were kept identical. In the same vein, Neuman et al. (1992, p. 126) in their content analysis divided news articles in to sections containing ‘frames’ and sections containing ‘facts’. The distinction between core elements and frame-carrying elements has effectively been applied in the operationalization of news frames in most stud- ies of framing effects (e.g., Cappella & Jamieson, 1997; Iyengar, 1991, Price et al., 1997; Valentino et al., 2001; de Vreese, 2004).
A typology of news frames
While newsmakers may employ many different frames in their coverage of an issue, scholars agree that this abundance in choice in how to tell and construct stories can be captured in analyses as certain distinctive charac- teristics. In order to synthesize previous research and the different types of news frames that have been suggested, a more general typology or distinction with reference to the nature and content of the frame is suggested here. Certain frames are pertinent only to specific topics or events. Such frames may be labelled issue-specific frames. Other frames transcend thematic limitations and can be identified in relation to different topics, some even over time and in different cultural contexts. These frames can be labelled generic frames (de Vreese, 2002). This typol- ogy serves to organise past framing research focusing on differences that help explain the use of the catch-all ‘framing’ phrase.
News framing: Theory and typology 55
An issue-specific approach to the study of news frames allows for a profound level of specificity and details relevant to the event or issue under investiga- tion. This advantage, however, is potentially an inherent disadvantage as well. The high degree issue-sensitivity make analyses drawing on issue-specific frames difficult to generalize, compare, and use as empirical evidence for theory building. The absence of comparability has led researchers to ‘too easily finding evidence for what they are looking for’ and to contribute to ‘one of the most frustrating tendencies in the study of frames and framing [being] the tendency for scholars to generate a unique set of frames for every study’ (Hertog & McLeod, 2001, pp. 150–151). In the following, studies of frames in the news are reviewed and classified (Table 1).
Issue-specific news frames
Studies of issue-specific news frames have looked at the framing of the Intifada (Cohen & Wolfsfeld, 1993), the Internet (Roessler, 2001), women’s movement (Terkild- sen & Schnell, 1997), and labour disputes (Simon & Xenos, 2001). One study of issue-specific news frames focused on public perceptions of US national budget deficits (Jasperson et al., 1998). Drawing on a content analysis of several major US newspapers four frames were identified, and these were labelled ‘talk’, ‘fight’,
‘impasse’, and ‘crisis’. The four frames reflected the chro- nology of the development of the issue in the news and were issue-sensitive. In the realm of elections, Shah et al. (2002) identi- fied three frames recurrent in the news during the final stages of the Clinton presidency. They identified ‘Clinton behavior scandal’, ‘Conservative attack scandal’, and ‘Liberal response scandal’. In the same vein, other studies of frames in the news have investigated the presence of frames that pertain to the particular issue in question.
Generic news frames
One group of studies of generic frames concentrates on the coverage of politics, in particular election campaigns. A second group focuses on generic news frames that are structural and inherent to the conventions of journalism. In the first group, Cappella and Jamieson (1996, 1997) investigated the consequences of strategically framed news on political cynicism. Strategic news is defined as news that (1) focuses on winning and losing, (2) includes the language of war, games, and competition, (3) contains ‘performers, critics and audiences’, (4) focuses on candi- date style and perceptions, and (5) gives weight to polls and candidate standings (Jamieson, 1992). According to Cappella and Jamieson (1997), strategic news dominates American news coverage of not only election campaigns,
Table 1. Overview content analyses of frames in the news
Medium Issue-specific news frames Generic news frames
Press Durham, 1998 d’Haenes & de Lange, 2001 Entman, 1991 Lawrence, 2000 Jasperson et al., 1998 Pan & Kosicki, 1993 Simon & Xenos, 2000 Patterson, 1993 Television Norris, 1995 Iyengar, 1991 Mendelson, 1993 de Vreese et al., 2001 Both/not specified Gamson & Modigliani, 1989 Cappella & Jamieson, 1997 Martin & Oshagan, 1997 Neuman et al., 1992 Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000
News framing: Theory and typology 57
An example of generic news frames: Framing the euro
To expand the research on generic news frames to a cross-nationally comparative setting, the use of the conflict and economic consequences frames in television news in Britain, Denmark, and the Netherlands was in- vestigated. The extent to which news was framed in terms of conflict and economic consequences was investigated during the first-step introduction of the euro in January 1999 and during a routine period. The study analyzed the evening news of the most widely watched networks in the three countries (BBC and ITV in Britain, NOS and RTL in the Netherlands, and DR1 and TV2 in Denmark) dur- ing 10 days with the sample consisting of an event period around the introduction and a routine period.^1 Theses cases were chosen given the different journalistic culture and public opinion about European integration. The study drew on multiple-item scales for each of the two news frames. The conflict frame was operational- ized with four items such as ‘does the news story reflect disagreement between parties/ individuals/ groups/
countries?’^2 The economic consequences frames con- sisted of three items, for example, ‘is there a mention of costs/ degree of expense involved?’^3 All items were answered with yes (1) or no (0) for all news stories about the euro introduction and all other political and eco- nomic news. Scales were formed by adding the scores of the items and dividing this by the number of relevant items. The scales consequently ranged from 0 to 1. The internal consistency of the scales (Cronbach’s α) measur- ing the presence of the frames ranged from .57 to .77.^4
Generic frames and local spins
The investigation of the relative emphasis on the conflict and economic consequences frames in the news showed that conflict was more prominent than economic consequences in political/ economic news stories in all three countries (see Table 2). When looking at stories about the introduction of the euro, the opposite pattern emerges: conflict was less important than economic consequences in these stories.
Table 2. Presence of conflict and economic consequences frame in British, Danish, and Dutch news.
Conflict Economic consequences Political/ Euro Political/ Euro economic introduction economic introduction stories stories stories stories (n = 344) (n = 66) (n = 344) (n = 66) .42. 19 .09. Britain (.30) (.29) (.22) (.22) (n=85) (n=13) (n=85) (n=13) .43 .19 .24. Denmark (.33) (.30) (.38) (.24) (n=63) (n=18) (n=63) (n=18) .35 .10 .17. The Netherlands (.33) (.29) (.24) (.30) (n=100) (n=17) (n=100) (n=17)
Note. Data entries are mean scores on the frame scales, figures in parentheses indicate standard deviations and number of cases. Table based on de Vreese et al. (2001).
58 Claes H. de Vreese
Journalists in Denmark put a stronger economic con- sequences spin on the coverage of all news than their British and Dutch counterparts. In Denmark economic consequences were most visible in the stories about the introduction of the euro (M = .37, SD = .24). In Britain economic consequences was less visible, both for stories about the euro (M = .09, SD = .22) and for other political and economic stories (M = .15, SD =.22). In framing the introduction of the euro in terms of economic consequences, Danish news emphasized the implications of the launch for the domestic macro- economy and for individual businesses. The lead story in the Danish TV-Avisen, for example, on January 4, 1999 was a story about a company whose competitive position was allegedly threatened by the introduction of the euro which would give international competitors an advantage in terms of currency stability and savings on money transfers. The euro was seen as a major market player and the introduction was watched with some anxiety and trepidation. One Danish journalist put it this way: “The debut of the euro on the world stage marks one of the most important steps towards a United States of Europe.” There was less focus on economic consequences by journalists in Britain and the Netherlands compared to their counterparts in Denmark. This was evident in both political/ economic stories as well as stories about the introduction of the euro. Dutch news highlighted the conversion work in the financial sector, but was less concerned with the economic consequences of the euro for the Dutch economy. The only mention of economic consequences was the implications for businesses forced to do extra hours to complete conversion and software. NOS opened with the headline “Spectacular introduc- tion of the euro” but the lead story began “The most spectacular (with a visual of champagne corks popping) was that there was nothing spectacular at all.” The only emphasis on conflict in the Dutch news concerned the ‘political disagreement’ around the Wim Duisenberg ‘is-
sue’. NOS described the problem this way: “The Duisen- berg issue is a typical example of the European Union. The economy is fine, but the political disagreement constantly threatens to disrupt.” RTL4 News reported in a similar vein: “The turbulence around Duisenberg does not say a lot about the stability of the new currency, but it does say a great deal about the political weaknesses in this cooperation. The big test will come when a country does not follow the agreements on finance policy, creates disputes, and threatens the euro.” British news discussed the launch of the euro in terms of the potential economic repercussions for the British pound. Though economic consequences were not at the forefront of the coverage, reporters at both the BBC and ITN mentioned the future prospect of a diminished role for the British pound on the world market and noted that it may stand on the sidelines while future battles would be waged between the US dollar and the euro. Television journalists in all of the countries were more likely to emphasize conflict in the reporting of political/economic news. The cross-national perspective rendered the generic and universal nature of the conflict frame visible. Possible explanations for the consistent pattern of framing news in terms of conflict may come from factors internal to journalism. The results are in line with research on news values stressing the impor- tance of conflict in the news selection process (e.g., Ben- nett, 1996; McManus, 1994; Price & Tewksbury, 1997). This explanation is supported by comments by news practitioners. The Editor-in-Chief of ITN said that a key aspect of the EU coverage was “to continue to look at the arguments both between the parties and within the par- ties” (de Vreese, 2002, p. 71). Similarly, a senior political reporter at BBC said about the conflict impediment: “In political stories, domestic and European, we like to focus on tension between two sides. We have a bipolar, very confrontational Parliament, and that is the struc- ture we use for our political stories […] Of course that
60 Claes H. de Vreese
Vreese, 2004). Moreover, news frames carrying an inher- ent valence – emphasizing positive or negative aspects of an issue – have the ability to influence public support for policies (de Vreese & Boomgaarden, 2003). This empha- sizes the necessity for understanding the nature of news frames as they are antecedents of individuals’ under- standing and interpretation of current affairs.
Discussion
This article synthesised previous research focusing on frames in the news. The diverse operational and meth- odological features of previous studies make the field heterogeneous. A typology of frames was developed on the basis of extant research and an example of generic frames was discussed. A contentious issue in current framing research addresses the properties and character- istics of a frame. Current research has discussed media framing of different events and issues without addressing the implications for audiences. For some issues media induced information play a more important role than for instance personal resources (Gamson, 1996). This suggests that characteristics of an issue are important for understanding framing. Moreover, precision is required in the operation- alization and measurement of frames. Neuman et al.’s (1992) study refers to the framing concept as part of the journalistic packaging of events in a broader social and historical context as well as individuals’ attempt to interpret news in terms of their own lives. The study, however, does not provide a detailed description of the measures that were used to assess and compare the framing of different issues in the news. Along the same line, Iyengar noted (1991, p. 145) that “very few stories were exclusively thematic or episodic,” and though news stories tended to ‘tilt clearly’ in the direction of one or the other frame. Additionally content analyses are often based on the Vanderbilt abstracts. Utilising the Van-
derbilt archive for content analyses aiming at assessing subtleties in media content has been criticised for lack of depth (Althaus, Edy, & Phalen, 2001). Future research needs to specify the nature of the frames under investi- gation. The typology proposed in this review between broad and narrow conceptualizations as well as issue- specific and generic frames may serve as reference points when explicating the nature of the frames. Framing research as a contribution to theory and a tool for media analysis is work in progress. The empiri- cal contributions are flourishing resulting in heteroge- neity in terms of findings and theory advancements. This paper outlined differences in the topics that are framed and the type of frames discussed (issue-specific versus generic). The paper is a first attempt to systemati- cally organise the existing research and identify conten- tious issues for future research to address. Though the research paradigm is still emerging, framing research has established itself on the media and communication research agenda. Future work should therefore not be designed to demonstrate the mere existence of the con- cept. To turn the concept in to a viable research avenue, future research should specify the conditions under which frames emerge and how they operate in public opinion formation.
Notes
. The period was December 31, 1998–January 4, 1999 to investigate the introduction of the euro and January 5–11, 1999 to investigate a routine period. A total of 660 stories were analyzed. Inter-coder reliability tests conducted on a 10% randomly selected sub-sample yielded satisfactory results rang- ing between 82% and 100% for all measures reported here, for details, see de Vreese (2002).
2. The other items for the conflict scale were: ‘Does one party/ individual/ group/ country reproach another?’; Does the story refer to two or more side or to more than two sides of the problem/ issue?’; ‘Does the story emphasize the achievement s
News framing: Theory and typology 61
and or actions of an individual/ party versus the achievements and/ or actions of another individual/ party?’
3. The other items for the economic consequences scale were: ‘Is there reference to economic consequences of pursuing or not pursuing a course of action?’; ‘Is there a mention of finan- cial losses or gains now or in the future?’. 4. The alphas for the conflict frame were: Britain = .67, Den- mark = .74; the Netherlands = .81. For the economic conse- quences frame the alphas were: Britain = .57; Denmark = .70; and the Netherlands = .61. With all item-total correla- tions consistently positive, the reliability was acceptable.
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