Communication Theory

1. FRAMING THEORY
M.SOHAIB AFZAAL

2. FRAMING THEORY
 “The action, method, or process, of constructing making or shaping
anything whether material or immaterial”.
 In the 1930s, the media was viewed as having the ability to
directly persuade and influence audiences.
 The audience was viewed as passive, simply allowing the media to
inject it with ideas. As time passed and research grew, scholars
took a more view of media. Agenda-setting research began to be
studied.
 Framing comes from the word frame, two main ways- frame-building
and frame-setting.

3. FRAME-BUILDING
 The term frame-building refers to “the factors that influence the
structural qualities of news frames”. Framing is applied to how
journalists select stories, facts, etc.
 News frames are formed through internal factors like occupational
constraints of journalists, particularly editorial policies and news
values and also through external factors like interactions between
journalists and elites.
 Frames inevitably highlight some issues but downplay others.
 Journalists frame stories in particular ways in order to get people to
either read or view.
 These important factors influence how a frame is built.

4. FRAME-SETTING
 “The interaction between Media frames and individuals’ prior
knowledge and dispositions.
 What scholars are concerned with studying, focusing most on the
consequences of framing.
 Research has shown that frames do affect how viewers view stories.
 In particular, the way a story is framed can affect what appears as
most important, who the victim appears to, who is to blame, etc.
 Research has shown that political and election stories are framed in an
episodic way, focusing on winning and losing, using a game or
competition schema, emphasizing candidates’ style, and highlighting
polls.

5. HOW INTERNET CHANGE FRAMING
 With the advent of the internet, people can be exposed to many
different frames because of the infinite amount of information
available online.
 These frames may compete with each other giving a more holistic
view of a story or issue.
 The audience also plays a greater role in selecting media and which
frames they are exposed to when using the internet which could
result in exposure to similar frames and attitude reinforcement.
 More research is needed on this issue.

6. George Lakoff About Framing Theory
 George Lakoff, a professor at UCBerkeley makes the following
points about frames and framing:
 “Communication itself comes with a frame.
 The elements of the Communication Frame include: A
message, an audience, a messenger, a medium, images,
a context, and especially, higher-level moral and
conceptual frames.
 The choice of language is, of course, vital, but it is vital
because language evokes frames — moral and
conceptual frames.

7. For Example
 When a journalist selects a topic that he or she is going to write
about, they are inevitability drawing the audience’s attention to a
particular topic, which is the original concept behind the agenda
setting theory.
 However, the way or the frame in which the information is
presented to the audience is also decided by the media
practitioners or the gatekeepers.
 The framing theory refers to not only how the audience is
influenced and interprets what is presented to them by the media,
but also refers to the media’s ability to persuade its audiences to
accept one meaning of a concept over another.