Framing: Toward Clarification of a
Fractured Paradigm
by Robert M. Entman, Northwestern University
In response to the proposition that communication lacks disciplinary status because of deficient core knowledge, I propose that we turn an ostensible weakness into a strength. We should identify our mission as bringing together insights and theories that would otherwise remain scattered
in other disciplines. Because of the lack of interchange among the disciplines, hypotheses thoroughly discredited in one field may receive wide
acceptance in another. Potential research paradigms remain fractured,
with pieces here and there but no comprehensive statement to guide research. By bringing ideas together in one location, communication can
aspire to become a master discipline that synthesizes related theories and
concepts and exposes them to the most rigorous, comprehensive statement and exploration. Reaching this goal would require a more self-conscious determination by communication scholars to plumb other fields
and feed back their studies to outside researchers. At the same time, such
an enterprise would enhance the theoretical rigor of communication
scholarship proper.
The idea of “framing” offers a case study of just the kind of scattered
conceptualization I have identified. Despite its omnipresence across the
social sciences and humanities, nowhere is there a general statement of
framing theory that shows exactly how frames become embedded within
and make themselves manifest in a text, or how framing influences thinking. Analysis o f this concept suggests how the discipline of communication might contribute something unique: synthesizing a key concept’s disparate uses, showing how they invariably involve communication, and
constructing a coherent theory from them.
Whatever its specific use, the concept of framing consistently offers a
way to describe the power of a communicating text. Analysis of frames illuminates the precise way in which influence over a human consciousness is exerted by the transfer (or communication) of information from
Robert M. Entman is a n associate professor of communication studies, journalism, and political science and chair of the program in Communications, Media, a n d Public Policy at the
Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. He
gratefully acknowledges the comments of students in his “Mass Communication and Democratic Theory” seminar, especially Andrew Rojecki.
Copyright 0 1993Journal of Communication 43(4), Autumn. 0021-9916/93/$5.00
Journal of Communzcatzon,Antumn 199.3
one location-such as a speech, utterance, news report, or novel-to that
consciousness. (A representative list of classic and recent citations would
include: Edelman, 1993; Entman & Rojecki, 1993; Fiske & Taylor, 1991;
Gamson, 1992; Goffman, 1974; Graber, 1988; Iyengar, 1991; Kahneman &
Tversky, 1984; Pan & Kosicki, 1993; Riker, 1986; Snow & Benford, 1988;
Tuchman, 1978; White, 1987; Zaller, 1992.) A literature review suggests
that framing is often defined casually, with much left to an assumed tacit
understanding of reader and researcher. After all, the words frame, f r a m ing, and .framework are common outside of formal scholarly discourse,
and their connotation there is roughly the same. The goal here is to identify and make explicit common tendencies among the various uses of the
terms and to suggest a more precise and universal understanding of them.
Of Frames and Framing
Framing essentially involves selection and salience. To frame is to select
some aspects of aperceived reality and make them more salient i n a communicating text, i n such a way as to promote aparticularproblem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described. Typically frames diagnose, evaluate,
and prescribe, a point explored most thoroughly by Gamson (1992). An
example is the “cold war” frame that dominated U.S. news of foreign affairs until recently. The cold war frame highlighted certain foreign
events-say, civil wars-as problems, identified their source (communist
rebels), offered moral judgments (atheistic aggression), and commended
particular solutions (U.S. support for the other side).
Frames, then, dejineproblems-determine what a causal agent is doing
with what costs and benefits, usually measured in terms of common cultural values; diagnose causes-identify the forces creating the problem;
make moraljudgments-evaluate causal agents and their effects; and
suggest remedies-offer and justify treatments for the problems and predict their likely effects. A single sentence may perform more than one of
these four framing functions, although many sentences in a text may perform none of them. And a frame in any particular text may not necessarily
include all four functions.
The cold war example also suggests that frames have at least four locations in the communication process: the communicator, the text, the receiver, and the culture. Communicators make conscious or unconscious
framing judgments in deciding what to say, guided by frames (often
called schemata) that organize their belief systems. The text contains
frames, which are manifested by the presence o r absence of certain keywords, stock phrases, stereotyped images, sources of information, and
sentences that provide thematically reinforcing clusters of facts o r judgments. The frames that guide the receiver’s thinking and conclusion may
or may not reflect the frames in the text and the framing intention of the
52
Toward ClarzJicatzono f a Fractured Paradigm
communicator. The culture is the stock of commonly invoked frames; in
fact, culture might be defined as the empirically demonstrable set of common frames exhibited in the discourse and thinking of most people in a
social grouping. Framing in a11 four locations includes similar functions:
selection and highlighting, and use of the highlighted elements to construct an argument about problems and their causation, evaluation,
and/or solution.
How Frames Work
Frames highlight some bits of information about an item that is the subject of a communication, thereby elevating them in salience. The word
salience itself needs to be defined: It means making :i
piece of information more noticeable, meaningful, or memorable to audiences. An increase in salience enhances the probability that receivers will perceive
the information, discern meaning and thus process it, and store it in meniory (see Fiske & Taylor, 1991).
Texts can make bits of information more salient by placement o r repetition, or by associating them with culturally familiar symbols. However,
even a single nnillustrated appearance of a notion in an obscure part of
the text can be highly salient, if it comports with the existing schemata in
a receiver’s belief systems. By the same token, an idea emphasized in a
text can be difficult for receivers to notice, interpret, o r remember because of their existing schemata. For our purposes, schemata and closely
related concepts such as categories, scripts, or stereotypes connote mentally stored clusters of ideas that guide individuals’ processing of information (see, e.g., Graber, 19881. Because salience is a product of the interaction of texts and receivers, the presence of frames in the text, as detected
by researchers, does not guarantee their influence in audience thinking
(Entman, 1989; Graber, 1988).
Kahneman and Tversky (1984) offer perhaps the most widely cited recent example o f the power of framing and the way it operates by selecting and highlighting some features of reality while omitting others. The
authors asked experimental subjects the following:
Imagine thal the 1J.S. is preparing f o r the outbreak of a n unusual Asian
disease, which is expected to kill 600people. Two alternative programs
to combat the disease have beenproposed. Assume that the exact scientz$c estimates of the consequences qftheprograms are as,follows: I f Program A is adopted, 200people will be saved. Ifprogram B is adopted,
there is a one-thirdprobability that GOOpeople will be saved and a twothirdsprohahility that no people will he saved. Which of the twoprograms wouldyou favor?(1984, p. 243)
In this experiment, 72 percent of subjects chose Program A; 28 percent
53
,/ournal of Communication, Autumn 199.3
chose Program B. In the next experiment, identical options to treating the
same described situation were offered, but framed in terms of likely
deaths rather than likely lives saved: “If Program C is adopted, 400 people
will die. If Program D is adopted, there is a one-third probability that nobody will die and a two-thirds probability that 600 people will die”
(Kahneman & Tversky, 1984, p. 343). The percentages choosing the options were reversed by the framing. Program C was chosen by 22 percent,
though its twin Program A was selected by 72 percent; and Program D
garnered 7 8 percent, while the identical Program B received only 28 percent.
As this example vividly illustrates, the frame determines whether most
people notice and how they understand and remember a problem, as
well as how they evaluate and choose to act upon it. The notion of framing thus implies that the frame has a common effect on large portions of
the receiving audience, though it is not likely to have a universal effect on
all.
Kahneman and Tversky’s experiments demonstrate that frames select
and call attention to particular aspects of the reality described, which logically means that frames simultaneously direct attention away from other
aspects. Most frames are defined by what they omit as well as include,
and the omissions of potential problem definitions, explanations, evaluations, and recommendations may be as critical as the inclusions in guiding the audience.
Edelman highlights the way frames exert their power through the selective description and omission of the features of a situation:
The character, causes, and consequences of a n y phenomenon become
radically different as changes are made i n what is prominently displayed, what is repressed and especially i n how observations are classijied. . . . (Uhe social world is . . . a kaleidoscope ofpotential realities,
any of which can be readily evoked by altering the ways i n which observations are framed and categorized. (1993, p. 232)
Receivers’ responses are clearly affected if they perceive and process information about one interpretation and possess little or incommensurable
data about alternatives. This is why exclusion of interpretations by frames
is as significant to outcomes as inclusion.
Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock (1991) provide a clear instance of the
power of presence and absence in framing:
The effect of framing is toprime values differentially, establishing the
salience of the one or the other. (Thus]. . . a majority of thepublic supports the rights ofpersons with AIDS when the issue isframed (in a survey question] to accentuate civil liberties considerations-and supports
. . . mandatory testing when the issue isframed to accentuatepublic
health considerations. (p. 5 2 )
54
Toumrd Clanlfication of u Fractured Puradigm
The text of the survey question supplies most people with the considerations they use when they respond to the issue of AIDS testing (Zaller,
1992). Often a potential counterframing of the subject is mostly or wholly
absent from a text, although, to use this instance, an audience member
with a strong civil liberties philosophy might reject mandatory testing
even if the poll framed AIDS strictly in public health terms.
Frames i n Political News
This portrait o f framing has important implications for political communication. Frames call attention to some aspects of reality while obscuring
other elements, which might lead audiences to have different reactions.
Politicians seeking support are thus compelled to compete with each
other and with journalists over news frames (Entman, 1989; Riker, 1986).
Framing in this light plays a major role in the exertion of political power,
and the frame in a news text is really the imprint of power-it registers
the identity of actors or interests that competed to dominate the text.
Reflecting the play of power and boundaries of discourse over an issue,
many news texts exhibit homogeneous framing at one level of analysis,
yet competing frames at another. Thus, in the pre-war debate over U.S.
policy toward Iraq, there was a tacit consensus among U.S. elites not to
argue for such options as negotiation between Iraq and Kuwait. The news
frame included only two remedies, war now or sanctions now with war
(likely) later, while problem definitions, causal analyses, and moral evaluations were homogeneous. Between the selected remedies, however,
framing was contested by elites, and news coverage offered different sets
of facts and evaluations. The Iraq example reveals that the power of news
frames can be self-reinforcing. During the pre-war debate, any critique
transcending the remedies inside the frame (war soon versus more time
for sanctions) breached the bounds of acceptable discourse, hence was
unlikely to influence policy. By conventional journalistic standards, such
views were not newsworthy (Entman & Page, in press). Unpublicized, the
views could gain few adherents and generate little perceived or actual effect o n public opinion, which meant elites felt no pressure to expand the
frame so it included other treatments for Iraqi aggression, such as negotiation. Relatedly, Gamson (1992) observes that a frame can exert great social power when encoded in a term like ajfirmatiue action. Once a term
is widely accepted, to use another is to risk that target audiences will perceive the communicator as lacking credibility-or will even fail to understand what the communicator is talking about. Thus the power of a frame
can be as great as that of language itself.
Benefits of a Consistent Concept of Framing
An understanding of frames helps illuminate many empirical and normative controversies, most importantly because the concept of framing di-
55
Journal of Communication, Autumn 1993
rects our attention to the details of just how a communicated text exerts
its power. The example o f mass communication explored here suggests
how a common understanding might help constitute framing as a research paradigm. A research paradigm is defined here as a general theory
that informs most scholarship on the operation and outcomes of any particular system of thought and action. The framing paradigm could be applied with similar benefits to the study of public opinion and voting behavior in political science; to cognitive studies in social psychology; or to
class, gender, and race research in cultural studies and sociology, to name
a few. Here are some illustrations of theoretical debates in the study of
mass communication that would benefit from an explicit and common
understanding of the concept of frames.
1. Audience autonomy. The concept of framing provides an operational
definition for the notion of dominant meaning that is so central to debates about polysemy and audience independence in decoding media
texts (Fiske, 1987). From a framing perspective, dominant meaning consists of the problem, causal, evaluative, and treatment interpretations with
the highest probability of being noticed, processed, and accepted by the
most people. To identify a meaning as dominant or preferred is to suggest
a particular framing of the situation that is most heavily supported by the
text and is congruent with the most common audience schemata.
A framing paradigm cautions researchers not to take fugitive components of the message and show how they might be interpreted in ways
that oppose the dominant meaning. If the text frame emphasizes in a variety of mutually reinforcing ways that the glass is half full, the evidence of
social science suggests that relatively few in the audience will conclude it
is half empty. To argue that the polysemic properties of the message conduce to such counterframing, researchers must show that real-world audiences reframe the message, and that this reframing is not a by-product of
the research conditions-for example, a focus group discussion in which
one participant can lead the rest, or a highly suggestive interview protocol (Budd, Entman, & Steinman, 1990).
Certainly people can recall their own facts, forge linkages not made explicitly in the text, or retrieve from memory a causal explanation or cure
that is completely absent from the text. In essence, this is just what professors encourage their students to do habitually. But Zaller (19921, Kahneman and Tversky (19841, and Iyengar (19911, among others, suggest
that on most matters of social or political interest, people are not generally so well-informed and cognitively active, and that framing therefore
heavily influences their responses to communications, although Gamson
(1992) describes conditions that can mitigate this influence.
2 . Journalistic objectivity. Journalists may follow the rules for “objective” reporting and yet convey a dominant framing of the news text that
prevents most audience members from making a balanced assessment of
a situation. Now, because they lack a common understanding of framing,
journalists frequently allow the most skillful media manipulators to im-
56
Toward ClariJicationof a Fractured Paradigm
pose their dominant frames o n the news (Entman, 1989; Entman & Page,
in press; Entman & Rojecki, 1993). If educated to understand the difference between including scattered oppositional facts and challenging a
dominant frame, journalists might be better equipped to construct news
that makes equally salient-equally accessible to the average, inattentive,
and marginally informed audience-two or more interpretations of problems. This task would require a far more active and sophisticated role for
reporters than they now take, resulting in more balanced reporting than
what the formulaic norm of objectivity produces (Tuchman, 1978).
3. Content analysis. The major task o f determining textual meaning
should be to identify and describe frames; content analysis informed by a
theory of framing would avoid treating all negative or positive terms or
utterances as equally salient and influential. Often, coders simply tote u p
all messages they judge as positive and negative and draw conclusions
about the dominant meanings. They neglect to measure the salience of elements in the text, and fail to gauge the relationships of the most salient
clusters of messages-the frames-to the audience’s schemata. Unguided
by a framing paradigm, content analysis may often yield data that misrepresent the media messages that most audience members are actually picking up.
4. Public opinion and normative democratic theory. In Zaller’s (1992)
account, framing appears to be a central power in the democratic
process, for political elites control the framing of issues. These frames can
determine just what “public opinion” is-a different frame, according to
Zaller, and survey evidence and even voting can indicate a different public opinion. His theory, along with that of Kahneman and Tversky, seems
to raise radical doubts about democracy itself. If by shaping frames elites
can determine the major manifestations of “true”public opinion that are
available to government (via polls or voting), what can true public opinion be? How can even sincere democratic representatives respond correctly to public opinion when empirical evidence of it appears to be so
malleable, so vulnerable to framing effects?
Say there are three ways to frame an issue and one generates 40 percent approval, the others 50 percent and 60 percent, respectively. Approving the option with 60 percent support is not axiomatically the most
democratic response because of the cyclical majority problem (Riker,
19861, which makes majority rule among several complex options mathematically impossible. Just as important, attempting to determine which of
the differently framed opinions is the closest to the public’s “real”sentiments appears futile, because it would require agreement among contending elites and citizens on which frame was most accurate, fair, complete, and so forth. A framing paradigm can illuminate, if not solve, such
central puzzles in normative democratic theory.
Indeed, the concept of framing is important enough in the many fields
of inquiry that use it to merit a book-length essay. The present effort, constrained by space limitations, offers not the definitive word on frames but
57
Journal of Communication, Autumn 1993
a preliminary contribution. Equally important, this article exemplifies
how the field of communication might develop from its wide ambit and
eclectic approaches a core of knowledge that could translate into research paradigms contributing to social theory in the largest sense.
References
Budd, M . , Entman, R. M., & Steinman, C. (1990). The affirmative character of U.S. cultural
studies. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 7, 169-184.
Edelman, M. J. (1993). Contestable categories and public opinion. Political Communication, 10(3), 231-242.
Entman, R. M. (1989). Democracy without citizens: Media and the decay ofAmericanpolitics. New York: Oxford University Press.
Entman, R. M., & Page, B. I. (in press). The news before the storm: The Iraq war debate
and the limits to media independence. In W. L. Bennett & D. L. Paletz (Eds.), Just deserts;
7'be news media, U.S.foreignpolicy, and the Gulf War. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Entman, R. M., & Rojecki, A. (1993). Freezing out the public: Elite and media framing of the
U.S. anti-nuclear movement. Political Communication, 1 0 ( 2 ) , 151-167.
Fiske, J. (1987). Television culture. New York: Routledge.
Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. E. (1991). Social cognition. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Gamson, W. (1992). Talkingpolitics. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis. New York: Free Press
Graber, D.A. (1988). Processing the news: Howpeople tame the information tide (2nd ed.).
New York: Longman.
Iyengar, S. (1991). Is anyone responsible? Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1984). Choice, values, and frames. American Psychologist.
39, 341-350.
Pan, Z . , & Kosicki, G. M. (1993). Framing analysis: An approach to news discourse. Poliiical Communication, I 0 (11, 55-76,
Riker, W. H. (1986). The art ofpolitical manzpulation. New Haven: Yale University Press
Sniderrnan, P. M., Brody, R. A,, & Tetlock, P. E. (1991). Reasoning and choice: Explorations
inpoliticalpsychology. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Snow, D. A,, & Benford, R. D. (1988). Ideology, frame resonance, and participation mobilization. International Social Movement Research, 1, 197-217.
Tuchman, G. (1978). Making news. New York: Free Press.
White, H. (1987). The content of the form. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Zaller, J . R. (1992). 7'be nature and origins of mass opinion. New York: Cambridge University Press.
58
A Man of His Words
By George Lakoff, AlterNet
Posted on September 8, 2004, Printed on January 27, 2012
http://www.alternet.org/story/19811/a_man_of_his_words
The following is an excerpt from the first chapter of “Don’t Think Of An Elephant! Know
Your Values and Frame the Debate,” published by Chelsea Green Publishing.
Framing 101: How to Take Back Public Discourse
January 21, 2004 — On this date I spoke extemporaneously to a group of about two hundred
progressive citizen-activists in Sausalito, California. When I teach the study of framing at
Berkeley, in Cognitive Science 101, the first thing I do is I give my students an exercise.
The exercise is: Don't think of an elephant! Whatever you do, do not think of an elephant.
I've never found a student who is able to do this. Every word, like elephant, evokes a frame,
which can be an image or other kinds of knowledge: Elephants are large, have floppy ears
and a trunk, are associated with circuses, and so on. The word is defined relative to that
frame. When we negate a frame, we evoke the frame.
Richard Nixon found that out the hard way. While under pressure to resign during the
Watergate scandal, Nixon addressed the nation on TV. He stood before the nation and said,
"I am not a crook." And everybody thought about him as a crook. This gives us a basic
principle of framing, for when you are arguing against the other side: Do not use their
language. Their language picks out a frame — and it won't be the frame you want. Let me
give you an example. On the day that George W. Bush arrived in the White House, the
phrase “tax relief” started coming out of the White House. It still is: It was used a number of
times in this year's State of the Union address, and is showing up more and more in
preelection speeches four years later. Think of the framing for relief. For there to be relief
there must be an affliction, an afflicted party, and a reliever who removes the affliction and
is therefore a hero. And if people try to stop the hero, those people are villains for trying to
prevent relief.
When the word tax is added to relief, the result is a metaphor: Taxation is an affliction. And
the person who takes it away is a hero, and anyone who tries to stop him is a bad guy. This
is a frame. It is made up of ideas, like affliction and hero. The language that evokes the
frame comes out of the White House, and it goes into press releases, goes to every radio
station, every TV station, every newspaper. And soon the New York Times is using tax
relief. And it is not only on Fox; it is on CNN, it is on NBC, it is on every station because it
is "the president's tax-relief plan." And soon the Democrats are using tax relief — and
shooting themselves in the foot.
It is remarkable. I was asked by the Democratic senators to visit their caucus just before the
president's tax plan was to come up in the Senate. They had their version of the tax plan, and
it was their version of tax relief. They were accepting the conservative frame. The
conservatives had set a trap: The words draw you into their worldview.
That is what framing is about. Framing is about getting language that fits your worldview. It
is not just language. The ideas are primary — and the language carries those ideas, evokes
those ideas. There was another good example in the State of the Union address in January.
This one was a remarkable metaphor to find in a State of the Union address. Bush said, "We
do not need a permission slip to defend America." What is going on with a permission slip?
He could have just said, "We won't ask permission." But talking about a permission slip is
different. Think about when you last needed a permission slip. Think about who has to ask
for a permission slip. Think about who is being asked. Think about the relationship between
them.
Those are the kinds of questions you need to ask if you are to understand contemporary
political discourse. While you are contemplating them, I want to raise other questions for
you. My work on politics began when I asked myself just such a question. It was back in the
fall of 1994. I was watching election speeches and reading the Republicans' "Contract with
America." The question I asked myself was this: What do the conservatives' positions on
issues have to do with each other? If you are a conservative, what does your position on
abortion have to do with your position on taxation? What does that have to do with your
position on the environment? Or foreign policy? How do these positions fit together? What
does being against gun control have to do with being for tort reform? What makes sense of
the linkage? I could not figure it out. I said to myself, These are strange people. Their
collection of positions makes no sense. But then an embarrassing thought occurred to me. I
have exactly the opposite position on every issue. What do my positions have to do with one
another? And I could not figure that out either.
That was extremely embarrassing for someone who does cognitive science and linguistics.
Eventually the answer came. And it came from a very unexpected place. It came from the
study of family values. I had asked myself why conservatives were talking so much about
family values. And why did certain values count as "family values" while others did not?
Why would anyone in a presidential campaign, in congressional campaigns, and so on,
when the future of the world was being threatened by nuclear proliferation and global
warming, constantly talk about family values?
At this point I remembered a paper that one of my students had written some years back that
showed that we all have a metaphor for the nation as a family. We have Founding Fathers.
The Daughters of the American Revolution. We "send our sons" to war. This is a natural
metaphor because we usually understand large social groups, like nations, in terms of small
ones, like families or communities.
Given the existence of the metaphor linking the nation to the family, I asked the next
question: If there are two different understandings of the nation, do they come from two
different understandings of family?
I worked backward. I took the various positions on the conservative side and on the
progressive side and I said, "Let's put them through the metaphor from the opposite
direction and see what comes out." I put in the two different views of the nation, and out
popped two different models of the family: a strict father family and a nurturant parent
family. You know which is which. Now, when I first did this — and I'll tell you about the
details in a minute — I was asked to give a talk at a linguistics convention. I decided I
would talk about this discovery. In the audience were two members of the Christian
Coalition who were linguists and good friends of mine. Excellent linguists. And very, very
good people. Very nice people. People I liked a lot. They took me aside at the party
afterward and said, "Well, this strict father model of the family, it's close, but not quite right.
We'll help you get the details right. However, you should know all this. Have you read
Dobson?"
I said, "Who?"
They said, "James Dobson."
I said, "Who?"
They said, "You're kidding. He's on three thousand radio stations."
I said, "Well, I don't think he's on NPR. I haven't heard of him."
They said, "Well, you live in Berkeley."
"Where would I . . . does he write stuff?"
"Oh," they said, "oh yes. He has sold millions of books. His classic is Dare to Discipline."
My friends were right. I followed their directions to my local Christian bookstore, and there
I found it all laid out: the strict father model in all its details. Dobson not only has a 100-to200- million-dollar-a-year operation, but he also has his own ZIP code, so many people are
writing to order his books and pamphlets. He is teaching people how to use the strict father
model to raise their kids, and he understands its connection to rightwing politics.
The strict father model begins with a set of assumptions:
The world is a dangerous place, and it always will be, because there is evil out there in the
world. The world is also difficult because it is competitive. There will always be winners
and losers. There is an absolute right and an absolute wrong. Children are born bad, in the
sense that they just want to do what feels good, not what is right. Therefore, they have to be
made good. What is needed in this kind of a world is a strong, strict father who can:
Protect the family in the dangerous world,
Support the family in the difficult world, and
Teach his children right from wrong.
What is required of the child is obedience, because the strict father is a moral authority who
knows right from wrong. It is further assumed that the only way to teach kids obedience —
that is, right from wrong — is through punishment, painful punishment, when they do
wrong. This includes hitting them, and some authors on conservative child rearing
recommend sticks, belts, and wooden paddles on the bare bottom. Some authors suggest this
start at birth, but Dobson is more liberal. "There is no excuse for spanking babies younger
than fifteen or eighteen months of age." The rationale behind physical punishment is this:
When children do something wrong, if they are physically disciplined they learn not to do it
again. That means that they will develop internal discipline to keep themselves from doing
wrong, so that in the future they will be obedient and act morally. Without such punishment,
the world will go to hell. There will be no morality.
Such internal discipline has a secondary effect. It is what is required for success in the
difficult, competitive world. That is, if people are disciplined and pursue their self-interest in
this land of opportunity, they will become prosperous and self-reliant. Thus, the strict father
model links morality with prosperity. The same discipline you need to be moral is what
allows you to prosper. The link is the pursuit of self-interest....
Now let me talk a bit about how progressives understand their morality and what their moral
system is. It too comes out of a family model, what I call the nurturant parent model. The
strict father worldview is so named because according to its own beliefs, the father is the
head of the family. The nurturant parent worldview is gender neutral.
Both parents are equally responsible for raising the children. The assumption is that children
are born good and can be made better. The world can be made a better place, and our job is
to work on that. The parents' job is to nurture their children and to raise their children to be
nurturers of others.
What does nurturance mean? It means two things: empathy and responsibility. If you have a
child, you have to know what every cry means. You have to know when the child is hungry,
when he needs a diaper change, when he is having nightmares. And you have a
responsibility — you have to take care of this child. Since you cannot take care of someone
else if you are not taking care of yourself, you have to take care of yourself enough to be
able to take care of the child. All this is not easy. Anyone who has ever raised a child knows
that this is hard. You have to be strong. You have to work hard at it. You have to be very
competent. You have to know a lot. In addition, all sorts of other values immediately follow
from empathy and responsibility. Think about it.
First, if you empathize with your child, you will provide protection. This comes into politics
in many ways. What do you protect your child from? Crime and drugs, certainly. You also
protect your child from cars without seat belts, from smoking, from poisonous additives in
food. So progressive politics focuses on environmental protection, worker protection,
consumer protection, and protection from disease. These are the things that progressives
want the government to protect their citizens from. But there are also terrorist attacks, which
liberals and progressives have not been very good at talking about in terms of protection.
Protection is part of the progressive moral system, but it has not been elaborated on enough.
And on September 11, progressives did not have a whole lot to say. That was unfortunate,
because nurturant parents and progressives do care about protection. Protection is important.
It is part of our moral system.
Second, if you empathize with your child, you want your child to be fulfilled in life, to be a
happy person. And if you are an unhappy, unfulfilled person yourself, you are not going to
want other people to be happier than you are. The Dalai Lama teaches us that. Therefore it is
your moral responsibility to be a happy, fulfilled person. Your moral responsibility. Further,
it is your moral responsibility to teach your child to be a happy, fulfilled person who wants
others to be happy and fulfilled. That is part of what nurturing family life is about. It is a
common precondition for caring about others.
There are still other nurturant values.
If you want your child to be fulfilled in life, the child has to be free enough to do that.
Therefore freedom is a value.
You do not have very much freedom if there is no opportunity or prosperity.
Therefore opportunity and prosperity are progressive values.
If you really care about your child, you want your child to be treated fairly by you and
by others. Therefore fairness is a value.
If you are connecting with your child and you empathize with that child, you have to
have open, two-way communication. Honest communication. That becomes a value.
You live in a community, and that the community will affect how your child grows
up. Therefore community-building, service to the community, and cooperation in a
community become values.
To have cooperation, you must have trust, and to have trust you must have honesty
and open two-way communication. Trust, honesty, and open communication are
fundamental progressive values – in a community as in a family. These are the
nurturant values – and they are the progressive values. As progressives, you all have
them. You know you have them. You recognize them.
Every progressive political program is based on one or more of these values. That is what it
means to be a progressive. There are several types of progressives. How many types? I am
asking as a cognitive scientist, not as a sociologist or a political scientist. From the point of
view of a cognitive scientist, who looks at modes of thought, there are six basic types of
progressives, each with a distinct mode of thought. They share all the progressive values,
but are distinguished by some differences:
1. Socioeconomic progressives think that everything is a matter of money and class and that
all solutions are ultimately economic and social class solutions.
2. Identity politics progressives say it is time for their oppressed group to get its share now.
3. Environmentalists think in terms of sustainability of the earth, the sacredness of the earth
and the protection of native peoples.
4. Civil liberties progressives want to maintain freedoms against threats to freedom.
5. Spiritual progressives have a nurturant form of religion or spirituality, their spiritual
experience has to do with their connection to other people and the world, and their spiritual
practice has to do with service to other people and to their community. Spiritual
progressives span the full range from Catholics and Protestants to Jews, Muslims,
Buddhists, Goddess worshippers, and pagan members of Wicca.
6. Anti-authoritarians say there are all sorts of illegitimate forms of authority out there and
we have to fight them, whether they are big corporations or anyone else.
All six types are examples of nurturant parent morality. The problem is that many of the
people who have one of these modes of thought do not recognize that theirs is just one
special case of something more general, and do not see the unity in all the types of
progressives. They often think that theirs is the only way to be a true progressive. That is
sad. It keeps people who share progressive values from coming together. We have to get
past that harmful idea. The other side did.
George Lakoff is the author of the forthcoming 'Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your
Values and Frame the Debate' (Chelsea Green). He is Professor of Linguistics at the
University of California at Berkeley and a Senior Fellow of the Rockridge Institute.
© 2012 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/19811/
feature article charlotte ryan and william a. gamson
the art of reframing political debates
Activists cannot build political power simply by framing their message in ways that resonate with broader cultural values. To
succeed, framing strategies must be integrated with broader movement-building efforts..
mouth was taped shut. As the crowd grew silent, she pulled
off the tape and began to speak. “Domestic violence is never
this obvious. This could be any neighborhood, any community. But as victims, we don’t wear signs to let you know
we’re being abused.” After a pause, she continued, “Look
ocial movements in the United States have long recogaround you to your left and right. We are everywhere, in all
nized “framing” as a critical component of political
walks of life.” At that, the cameras swiveled around to capsuccess. A frame is a thought organizer, highlighting
ture a sea of faces in the audience. Scattered throughout the
certain events and facts as important and rendering others
crowd were other survivors of domestic violence, each with
invisible. Politicians and movement organizations have scurher mouth taped shut. That evening and the following day,
ried to framing workshops and hired consultants who promthe press carried the words and images.
ise to help identify a winning message. In the current political
The press conference was the beginning of a campaign by
climate, demoralized social movements and activists find this
the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence
promise appealing.
(RICADV) in collaboration with its survivor task force, Sisters
After two decades of conducting framing workshops at
Overcoming Abusive Relations (SOAR). The campaign was
the Media/Movement Research and Action Project (MRAP),
part of a continuing effort to reframe how domestic violence
which we codirect, we have concluded that framing is necis understood—as a widespread problem requiring social, not
essary but not sufficient. Framing is valuable for focusing a
individual, solutions. Follow-ups to
dialogue with targeted constituenthe press conference included events
cies. It is not external packaging
Framing
is
valuable
for
at schools and churches, soccer tourintended to attract news media and
focusing a dialogue with
naments, and softball games involvbystanders; rather, it involves a
targeted constituencies. It
ing police, firefighters, and college
strategic dialogue intended to
teams, dances, fashion shows,
shape a particular group into a
is not external packaging
health fairs, self-defense classes,
coherent movement. A movementintended to attract news
marches, and candlelight vigils, culbuilding strategy needs to ground
media and bystanders.
minating in a Halloween party and
itself in an analysis of existing power
open house sponsored by SOAR.
relations and to position supporters
The campaign was a new chapter in a multiyear effort
and allies to best advantage. Used strategically, framing pernot only to reframe public understanding of domestic viomeates the work of building a movement: acquiring
lence but to translate into practice this call for social, not priresources, developing infrastructure and leadership, analyzvate, responses. RICADV promoted a seven-point plan to
ing power, and planning strategy. The following success
close gaps in the safety net of domestic violence services
story illustrates this approach.
and, along with SOAR and other allies, shepherded the plan
October 2003: The setting was unusual for a press conthrough the Rhode Island legislature.
ference—a pristine, cape-style house surrounded by a white
As recently as the mid-1990s, when RICADV began
picket fence. The mailbox in front read A. Victim. The car in
working with MRAP on using the media for social change,
the driveway had a Rhode Island license plate, VICTIM. The
the media coverage and public understanding of domestic
crowd in front of the makeshift podium included film crews,
violence issues was very different. The Rhode Island media,
photographers, and reporters from every major news outlet
like the media in general, framed domestic violence issues as
in Rhode Island.
The young woman at the podium wore a T-Shirt and carprivate tragedies. A typical story told of a decent man who
ried a coffee mug, both reading, “I’m being abused.” Her
had lost control, cracking under life’s burdens: “A model
“What is power? Power is the ability to say what the issues are
and who the good guys and bad guys are. That is power.”
—Conservative pundit Kevin Phillips
S
Contexts, Vol. 5, Issue 1, pp. 13-18, ISSN 1536-5042, electronic ISSN 1537-6052. © 2006 by the American Sociological Association. All rights reserved.
Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Rights and Permissions
website, at www.ucpress.edu/journals/rights.htm.
winter 2006 contexts
13
employee whose life fell apart,” read one Providence Journal
headline (March 22, 1999). Or neighbors say that they could
never imagine their friendly neighbor shooting his wife and
child before turning the gun on himself: “They seemed nice,
you know. They always seemed to get along as far as I could
see” (Providence Journal, April 29, 1996). The media coverage of domestic violence a decade later reflects a successful
effort to reframe the political debate.
why framing matters
Like a picture frame, an issue frame marks off some part
of the world. Like a building frame, it holds things together. It provides coherence to an array of symbols, images,
and arguments, linking them through an underlying organizing idea that suggests what is essential—what consequences and values are at stake. We do not see the frame
directly, but infer its presence by its characteristic expressions and language. Each frame gives the advantage to certain ways of talking and thinking, while it places others
“out of the picture.”
Sociologists, cognitive psychologists, political scientists,
and communications scholars have been writing about and
doing frame analysis for the past 30 years. With the help of
popular books such as psychologist George Lakoff’s Don’t
Think of an Elephant!, the idea that defining the terms of a
debate can determine the outcome of that debate has
spread from social science and is rapidly becoming part of
popular wisdom.
a few things we know about frames
• Facts take on their meaning by being embedded in
frames, which render them relevant and significant or irrelevant and trivial. The contest is lost at the outset if we allow
our adversaries to define what facts are relevant. To be conscious of framing strategy is not manipulative. It is a necessary part of giving coherent meaning to what is happening
in the world, and one can either do it unconsciously or with
deliberation and conscious thought.
The idea dies hard that the truth would set us free if only
the media did a better job of presenting the facts or people
did a better job of paying attention. Some progressives
threw up their hands in dismay and frustration when polls
showed that most Bush voters in 2004 believed there was a
connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The
“fact” was clear that no connection had been found. If
these voters did not know this, it was because either the
Charlotte Ryan and William A. Gamson have directed the Media/
Movement Research and Action Project for 20 years. They are jointly
working on a pamphlet, “Strategic Framing for Activists.”
14
contexts winter 2006
news media had failed in their responsibility to inform them,
or they were too lazy and inattentive to take it in.
But suppose one frames the world as a dangerous place
in which the forces of evil—a hydra-headed monster labeled
“terrorism”—confront the forces of good. This frame
depicts Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda as two heads of the
same monster. In this frame, whether or not agents actually
met or engaged in other forms of communication is nit-picking and irrelevant.
• People carry around multiple frames in their heads. We
have more than one way of framing an issue or an event. A
specific frame may be much more easily triggered and habitually used, but others are also part of our cultural heritage
and can be triggered and used as well, given the appropriate
cues. For example, regarding the issue of same-sex marriage,
witness the vulnerability of the Defense of Marriage frame.
What it defends is an idea—in the minds of its advocates, a
sacred idea. The idea is that a man and a woman vow commitment to each other until death parts them and devote
themselves to the raising of a new generation.
Same-sex couples can and do enter into relationships
that, except for their gender, fit the sacred idea very well—
they are committed to each other for life and to raising a
new generation. Part of the ambivalence that many traditionalists feel about the issue comes from their uneasy
knowledge that same-sex couples may honor this idea as
much or more than do opposite-sex couples. In the alternative frame, the focus of the issue is not on gender, but on the
question Why should two people who are committed for life
be denied legal recognition of their commitment, with all of
the attendant rights and responsibilities, just because they are
of the same sex?
One important reframing strategy involves making the
issue less abstract and more personal. Sociologist Jeffrey
Langstraat describes the use of this strategy in the debate in
the Massachusetts State House. A generally conservative legislator, who somewhat unexpectedly found himself supporting same-sex marriage, called it “putting a face on the
issue.” He pointed to a well-liked and respected fellow legislator involved in a long term, same-sex relationship. “How
can we say to her,” he asked his colleagues, “that her love
and commitment [are] less worthy than ours?”
• Successful reframing involves the ability to enter into
the worldview of our adversaries. A good rule of thumb is
that we should be able to describe a frame that we disagree
with so that an advocate would say, “Yes, this is what I
believe.” Not long ago, a reporter at a rare George Bush
press conference asked the president why he keeps talking
about a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda
when no facts support it. When the president responded,
why framing is not all that matters
Too much emphasis on the message can draw our attention away from the carriers of frames and the complicated
and uneven playing fields on which they compete. Successful
challenges to official or dominant frames frequently come
from social movements and the advocacy groups they
spawn. Although they compete on a field in which inequalities in power and resources play a major role in determining
outcomes, some movements have succeeded dramatically
against long odds in reframing the terms of political debate.
To succeed, framing strategies must be integrated with
broader movement-building efforts. This means building and
sustaining the carriers of these frames in various ways—for
example, by helping them figure out how to gain access
where it is blocked or how to enable groups with similar
goals to collaborate more effectively.
Too narrow a focus on the message, with a corresponding
lack of attention to movement-building, reduces framing
strategy to a matter of pitching metaphors for electoral campaigns and policy debates, looking for the right hot-button
language to trigger a one-shot response. Adapted from social
marketing, this model ignores the carriers and the playing
field, focusing only on the content of the message. In isolation from constituency-building, criticism of the media, and
democratic media reform, framing can become simply a more
sophisticated but still ungrounded variation on the idea that
“the truth will set you free.” The problem with the socialmarketing model is not that it doesn’t work—in the short run,
it may—but that it doesn’t help those engaged in reframing
political debates to sustain collective efforts over time and in
the face of formidable obstacles.
Political conservatives did not build political power mere-
Photo by Ellen Shub
“The reason why I keep talking about there being a connection is because there is a connection,” he was not lying or
being obtuse and stupid, he was relying on an unstated
frame. Frames are typically implicit, and although Bush did
not explicitly invoke the metaphor of the hydra-headed monster or the axis of evil, we can reasonably infer that he had
something like this in mind—the forces of evil are gathering,
and only America can stop them.
• All frames contain implicit or explicit appeals to moral
principles. While many analysts of conflicts among frames
emphasize how frames diagnose causes and offer prognoses
about consequences, Lakoff usefully focuses on the moral
values they invoke. Rather than classifying frames into those
that emphasize causes and consequences and those that
emphasize moral values, however, it is even more useful to
think of all frames as having diagnostic, prognostic, and
moral components.
Susan Shepherd and Marcia Hams received the first samesex marriage license in Cambridge, MA
ly by polishing their message in ways that resonate effectively
with broader cultural values. They also built infrastructure
and relationships with journalists and used their abundant
resources to amplify the message and repeat it many times.
Duane Oldfield shows how the Christian Right built media
capacity and cultivated relationships with key political actors
in the Republican Party, greatly expanding the carriers of
their message beyond the original movement network.
Wealthy conservatives donated large amounts of money to
conservative think tanks that not only fine-tuned this message but also created an extended network of relationships
with journalists and public officials.
participatory communication
The Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence
did not succeed because it found a better way to frame its
message but because it found a better model than social
marketing to guide its work. Call it the participatory communication model. The social marketing model treats its
audience as individuals whose citizenship involves voting and
perhaps conveying their personal opinions to key decision
makers. The alternative model treats citizens as collective
actors—groups of people who interact, who are capable of
building long-term relationships with journalists and of carrying out collaborative, sustained reframing efforts that may
involve intense conflict.
Widely used in the Global South, this alternative
approach—inspired by Paulo Freire—argues that without
communications capacity, those directly affected by inequal-
winter 2006 contexts
15
Designed by Link Agency for RICADV
ities of power cannot exercise “the right and power to intervene in the social order and change it through political praxis.” The first step is to map the power relations that shape
structural inequalities in a given social and historical context.
This strategic analysis informs the next phase, in which communities directly affected by structural inequalities cooperate
to bring about change. This is empowerment through collective action. Finally, participatory communication models
include a third, recurring step—reflection.
By encouraging reflection about framing practices, participatory communicators foster ongoing dialogues that build
new generations of leaders and extend relational networks.
“Everyone is a communicator,” says RICADV, and all collective
action embodies frames. SOAR’s staging of the bit of street
theater described at the beginning of this article did not come
out of the blue. SOAR was part of the Rhode Island Coalition,
which had been building communication infrastructure during a decade of collaboration with MRAP.
MRAP and RICADV began working together in 1996, but
to begin our story there would be historically inaccurate.
RICADV explains to all new members that they “stand on the
shoulders” of the women who founded the domestic violence movement in the 1970s. The Rhode Island Coalition
against Domestic Violence began in 1979 and, until 1991,
operated roughly on a feminist consensus model. At this
point an organizational expansion began that resulted in the
hiring of new staff in 1995. The framing successes we
16
contexts winter 2006
describe, therefore, grew out of one of the more successful
initiatives of the U.S. women’s movement. Groups working
to end domestic violence during the last three decades can
claim significant progress, including the establishment of
research, preventive education, support systems, and the
training of public safety, social service, and health care
providers.
History matters. In this case, the efforts on which RICADV
built had already established many critical movement-building components:
• Activists had established a social movement organization committed to a mission of social change—to end
domestic violence in the state of Rhode Island.
• They had established a statewide service network with
local chapters in each region of the state.
• They had created a statewide policy organization to
integrate the horizontal network into focused political action
at the state and national legislative levels.
• They had obtained government funding for part of
RICADV’s education and service work, protecting the organization against fluctuation in other revenue sources such as fundraisers, corporate sponsors, donations, and grants.
• On the grassroots level, RICADV had supported the
growth of an organization that encouraged victims of
domestic violence to redefine themselves as survivors capable of using their experience to help others.
• Finally, they had created a physical infrastructure—an
office, staff, computerized mailing lists, internal communication tools such as newsletters, and institutionalized mechanisms for community outreach. The most prominent of
these was Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October,
during which stories about domestic violence are commonly shared.
In short, RICADV’s framing successes were made possible by the generous donations of people who had formed
a social movement that encouraged internal discussion,
decision making, strategic planning, focused collective
action, resource accumulation, coalition-building, reflection, and realignment. The conscious use of framing as a
strategic tool for integrating its worldview into action
ensured that the organization could consistently “talk politics” in all its endeavors.
By the mid-1990s, the organization had made great
strides on the national framing front regarding the public
portrayal of domestic violence. In the wake of several highprofile domestic violence cases, made-for-TV movies, and
star-studded benefits, domestic violence was positioned as
an effective wedge issue that cut across hardening Right-Left
divisions. The Family Violence Prevention Fund headed a
national public education effort, working hard through the
To address these and other framing issues systematically,
RICADV Executive Director Deborah DeBare urged her board
to hire a full-time communication coordinator in the spring
of 1996. They chose Karen Jeffreys, a seasoned community
organizer, who took a movement-building approach to comchanging media frames and routines
munications. Jeffreys had previously drawn our MRAP group
into framing projects on housing and welfare rights.
When MRAP and RICADV began to collaborate in 1996,
With MRAP support, she began an effort to make
we had a running start. Already, RICADV routinely attracted
RICADV an indispensable source for news and background
proactive coverage, particularly during Domestic Violence
information about domestic violence in the Rhode Island
Awareness Month. But all was not rosy. RICADV and other
media market. Gaining media standing was not an end in
state coalitions across the nation had discovered that, despite
itself but a means to promote the reframing of domestic viomedia willingness to cover domestic violence awareness
lence as a social problem requiring social solutions. By 2000,
events, reporters covering actual incidents of domestic vioRICADV had published a handbook for journalists summalence ignored the movement’s framing of domestic violence
rizing recommendations from survivors, reporters, advoas a social problem. Their stories reverted to sensationalized
cates, and MRAP participants. Local journalists actively
individual framings such as “tragic love goes awry.”
sought and used it, and it has been widely circulated to simIn part, such stories represented the institutionalized crime
ilar groups in other states.
beat tradition that tended to ignore
To help implement the particideeper underlying issues. Crime stoCrime stories about
patory communications model,
ries about domestic violence routinedomestic violence rouJeffreys worked out an internal
ly suggested that victims were at
process called a “media caucus” to
least partially responsible for their
tinely suggested that vicensure widespread participation in
fate. At other times, coverage would
tims were at least
media work. Participants discussed
focus on the perpetrator’s motive,
partially responsible for
how to respond to inquiries from
while the victim would disappear.
their
fate.
At
other
times,
reporters and how to plan events to
News beats created split coverage: a
coverage would focus on
carry the message. The media caureporter might sympathetically cover
cus conducted role-playing sesan event sponsored by a domestic
the perpetrator’s motive,
sions, in which some participants
violence coalition and yet write a
while the victim would
would take the part of reporters,
crime story that ignored the movedisappear.
sometimes hardball ones, to give
ment’s framing of domestic violence
each other practice and training in
as social. All these effects were intenbeing a spokesperson on the issue. RICADV encouraged the
sified if the victims were poor or working-class women and/or
development and autonomy of SOAR, a sister organization
women of color.
of women who had personally experienced domestic vioAt the beginning of our joint effort, RICADV routinely
lence. They worked to ensure that the voices of abused
experienced this split-screen coverage: in covering coalition
women were heard.
events, the media routinely reported that domestic violence
The press conference in 2003 was the culmination of
was everyone’s business and that help was available. On the
years of work with reporters that succeeded in making the
front page and in the evening news, however, these coverconference a “must attend” event for journalists. They had
age patterns isolated the victim, implying complicity on her
not only learned to trust RICADV and the information it propart (more than 90 percent of victims in this study were
vided
but perceived it as an important player. RICADV and
female):
SOAR jointly planned the press conference, choosing the set• She was a masochistic partner in a pathological relating, talking about what clothes to wear, and planning the
tionship.
order in which people would speak. Without Karen Jeffreys’
• She provoked her batterer.
knowledge, but to her subsequent delight, the two
• She failed to take responsibility for leaving.
spokespersons from SOAR, Rosa DeCastillo and Jacqueline
Such stories undermined efforts to change policy and
Kelley, had caucused again and added visual effects, includconsciousness. They portrayed isolated victims struggling for
protection while obscuring the social roots of domestic vioing the tape over the mouths. The planning and support
lence.
gave the SOAR women the courage and the skills to inno1990s to frame domestic violence as a public as opposed to
a private matter. High visibility had gained recognition of the
issue, but much work remained to be done on the grassroots
level and in legislative circles.
winter 2006 contexts
17
vate and helped make the press conference an effective
launching pad for the campaign that followed.
conclusion
Framing matters, but it is not the only thing that matters.
There is a danger in “quick fix” politics—the sexy frame as the
magic bullet. Framing work is critical to this process, but framing work itself must be framed in the context of movementbuilding. If those who aim to reframe political debates are to
compete successfully against the carriers of official frames,
who have lots of resources and organization behind them,
they must recognize power inequalities and find ways to challenge them. This requires them to recognize citizens as potential collective actors, not just individual ones.
The participatory communication model appeals to people’s sense of agency, encouraging them to develop the
capacity for collective action in framing contests. You cannot transform people who feel individually powerless into a
group with a sense of collective power by pushing hot buttons. Indeed, you cannot transform people at all. People
transform themselves through the work of building a movement—through reflection, critique, dialogue, and the development of relationships and infrastructure that constitute a
major reframing effort.
In the spirit of the communication model that we are
advocating, it is only fitting to give our RICADV partners the
last words. The collaborative process inside the organization
allows them to finish each other’s sentences:
Alice: Each concerned group is a small stream. RICADV’s
job is to make the small streams come together, to involve
the whole community and make social change for the whole
state. And that’s our mission—to end domestic violence in
Rhode Island. But to do this, all RICADV’s work—lobbying,
policy, services, public relations—had to come together. We
were moving . . . (pause)
Karen: . . . moving a mountain. As organizers, we think
strategically. Organizers think of social justice, and social justice is always about changing systems. So we were trained
to read situations differently, to see gaps in institutional layers and links. We saw the potential of… (pause)
18
contexts winter 2006
Alice: . . . of social justice, of making that change.
Whereas a traditional publicist thinks, “Let’s get publicity for
our organization’s work,” as organizers, we saw systems and
movements. We were definitely going to move the domestic violence issue to another place!
Karen: It’s our instinct to . . . (pause)
Alice: . . . to get the community involved and fix this. We
saw a whole movement.
recommended resources
David Croteau, William Hoynes, and Charlotte Ryan, eds.
Rhyming Hope and History: Activist, Academics, and Social
Movements (University of Minnesota Press, 2005). Essays on
the joys and frustrations involved in collaborations between
academics and activists.
George Lakoff. Don’t Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values
and Frame the Debate (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2004).
Popularizes many of the most important insights of frame
analysis, but implicitly adopts a social-marketing model that
ignores movement-building and power inequalities.
Duane M. Oldfield. The Right and the Righteous: The
Christian Right Confronts the Republican Party (Rowman and
Littlefield, 1996). Describes the methodical movement-building process that helped the Christian Right succeed in its
reframing effort.
Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence (RICADV).
Domestic Violence: A Handbook for Journalists (www.ricadv.org,
2000). Offers succinct and practical lessons for journalists on the
reporting of domestic violence.
Charlotte Ryan, Michael Anastario, and Karen Jeffreys.
“Start Small, Build Big: Negotiating Opportunities in Media
Markets.” Mobilization 10 (2005):111–128. Detailed discussion of how the RICADV built its media capacity and systematic data on how this changed the framing of domestic
violence in the Rhode Island media market.
Amount President Bush’s
Millennium Challenge
Corporation was to have
distributed to the world’s
poorest nations, 20032005: $10 billion
Amount distributed as of
late 2005: $400,000
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