CHAPTER 5
How Framing Works

Time for another quiz! When were these political slogans in vogue, and what were they all about?

 

1. Tippecanoe and Tyler Too

2. Don’t swap horses in midstream

3. Crown of thorns… Cross of gold

4. Speak softly and carry a big stick

5. Do Nothing Congress

 

Time’s up. American message framing is as old as American politics. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison practically invented the modern campaign at the turn of the nineteenth century. In 1800, they used negative campaigning to frame their old friend John Adams as a monarchist. Of course, they didn’t call it framing. There was no discussion of any science behind political persuasion. American politicians framed their arguments because they knew what worked. For example:

Answer 1. “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” was the slogan of William Henry Harrison’s 1840 presidential campaign. In 1811, Harrison led the forces that defeated the Shawnee chief Tecumseh at the battle of Tippecanoe. So this slogan framed Harrison as a war hero—just like his venerated predecessor, Andrew Jackson. (John Tyler was Harrison’s vice president.)

Answer 2. “Don’t swap horses in midstream” was a saying popularized by Abraham Lincoln during his campaign for reelection in 1864. What a great metaphor! The Civil War is presented as an obstacle that the country has to cross. Everyone in that era knew what it was like to cross a stream on horseback. If message framing was good enough for Honest Abe, it should be good enough for us.

Answer 3. At the Democratic National Convention of 1896, William Jennings Bryan delivered an electrifying speech, which concluded, “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” Bryan turned an otherwise mundane issue of monetary policy (“free silver”) into a religious crusade.

Answer 4. “Speak softly and carry a big stick” was Theodore Roosevelt’s 1901 slogan justifying military intervention in the Western Hemisphere. It was a very effective way to argue that military might could be quiet and benevolent.

Answer 5. In 1948, Harry Truman was considered a long shot against New York governor Tom Dewey. The tide turned when Truman ignored Dewey’s moderate policies and thundered against the much more conservative, Republican-controlled Congress. Attacking the “Do Nothing Congress” allowed Truman to change the topic of debate and “give ‘em hell.”

Here’s one more: “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.”

You knew that, of course. It’s French for “Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood,” a slogan that was shouted by Robespierre in 1790, repeated throughout the French Revolution, revived during the Revolution of 1848, and written into the modern Constitution of France. It’s one of the mightiest rallying cries in all of political history—and it’s a frame, comprised of just three fundamental values. (I hope that sounds familiar.)

What Is Framing?

I’ve said we need to show voters that they agree with us already. That’s what message framing does. Here’s a definition of framing from the true masters of the art at the FrameWorks Institute:

 

Put simply, framing refers to the construct of a communication—its language, visuals and messengers—and the way it signals to the listener or observer how to interpret and classify new information. By framing, we mean how messages are encoded with meaning so that they can be efficiently interpreted in relationship to existing beliefs or ideas. Frames trigger meaning.

 

I don’t want to be a scold, but some of you misuse the word “framing.” Some confuse the idea of framing with simply making a political argument—for example, “Let’s reframe the minimum wage as a matter of fairness.” Others overstress its complexity, making framing into something that seems beyond the capability of grassroots activists. George Lakoff does that by suggesting that “every word, like elephant, evokes a frame.” Makes you afraid to open your mouth, doesn’t it?

So let me try to simplify the concept—reframe framing, if you will.

Humans think by integrating new information with old information already in their heads. People faced with new information are always unconsciously asking themselves, “What is this information similar to? How does it fit into my assumptions about the world—the stereotypes, stories, truisms, and pictures I carry around in my mind?” Take a look at Figure 5.1.

Your interpretation of any picture, and your reaction to it, depends on where your attention is directed—what’s in the frame, and what’s outside. Focus on one part and you’re reminded of one picture, story, or stereotype in your head; focus on another part and you think a different thought and draw a different conclusion.

When Ronald Reagan talked about welfare queens, he was placing a frame around the very few people who defraud the social services system. Widen the frame and you’ll see millions of Americans who need and deserve help, as well as the social conditions that contribute to poverty. The picture’s also different when the Reagan frame encloses a black person—it frames welfare as being “about” race and cues up people’s biases. (As you probably know, most beneficiaries are white.)

When George W. Bush fought to abolish the estate tax, he verbally painted the picture of a family with a modest income who owned a small farm passed down from generation to generation. But that is just a tiny corner of the picture. Widen the frame and you’ll see all the richest people in America, the real beneficiaries of the Bush legislation.

Figure 5.1

One Subject, Two Frames

Frames are very efficient. A single word can evoke a highly specific picture in our heads. Change that word and the picture changes too, at times dramatically. The youngster who dashes into a burning house to save the family cat can be framed as brave or foolhardy. The old man who won’t contribute to a charity can be framed as thrifty or miserly. Or, more important for our purposes, a public policy—wiretapping without court authority—can be framed as protecting security or trampling freedom.

What defines partisans is their insistence on clinging tightly to their frames. Progressives look on poverty, crime, homelessness, or lack of health insurance and see societal problems requiring government solutions. Conservatives look at them and see individuals’ problems that they should solve themselves. Progressives look at payday lending, high-interest mortgages, or deregulated monopolies and see a scam. Conservatives look at them and see free enterprise.

What defines persuadables is their willingness to see both the progressive and conservative sides and accept either one. This is true whether they’re deciding on a candidate or an issue—although more Americans can be persuaded about individual issues. That’s why it’s so important for us to master the skill of framing.

Framing Well

Unfortunately, conservatives have consistently trounced progressives at the game of message framing. As linguistics professor Geoffrey Nunberg notes: “When you listen to the language of modern politics, the right seems to have all the best lines—’compassionate conservatism,’ ‘the culture of life,’ ‘Clear Skies,’ ‘Healthy Forests,’ ‘No Child Left Behind,’ ‘the ownership society,’ ‘partial birth abortion,’ ‘the death tax.’ Meanwhile, the best the Democrats can come up with is wonky mouthfuls like ‘Social Security lockbox’ and ‘single-payer.’”

Nunberg’s excellent book, Talking Right, explains the problem better and in greater detail than I will attempt. But he doesn’t explain the reason. It’s not because conservatives are smarter than progressives. It’s because they’re better funded. Conservatives spend zillions testing political messages.

I know these things because I participate in focus groups from time to time. (They pay $150 for two hours of sitting around a table—nice work if you can get it.) A focus group is a discussion among eight to ten carefully selected people led by a pollster. It’s conducted in a little room with a oneway mirror. Behind the mirror are other pollsters, the paying clients, and huge mounds of hors d’oeuvres.

This example is typical: a division of an obscure corporate trade association wanted to test new names for itself. As the token progressive (and troublemaker), I tried to point out that the name doesn’t matter. Staffers on Capitol Hill and across the federal bureaucracy—the people they lobby—simply don’t care what the division calls itself, and the general public will never know it exists. Nevertheless, the client paid at least $12,000 for some silly advice and a pile of cocktail wieners.

So conservatives do message testing at the drop of a hat—because they can afford it. Progressive organizations can’t, so generally they don’t. Sure, some groups research some messages. But what’s left out for progressives is the systematic testing of long-term social issues—how Americans think about taxation, social services, consumer protections, and so forth. And of course, well-funded Democratic candidates do plenty of polls and focus groups, but they’re not telling the rest of us the results. Candidates’ message testing is designed to sell them, not progressivism.

Still, let’s give our side a little credit. Without expensive focus groups, liberals of the ‘60s and ‘70s brilliantly framed their federal programs as the Peace Corps, Head Start, Model Cities, Fair Housing, Equal Employment Opportunity, and the Clean Air Act. In recent years, progressives have found success with positive frames like clean cars, clean elections, clean power, environmental justice, fair pay, fair share health care, health care for all, high road economics, living wage, smart growth, and smart start and negative frames like assault weapons, hate crimes, offshoring jobs, predatory lending, and racial profiling.

These phrases work because they evoke images that draw persuadables toward the progressive side of the argument. But most of the time progressives use language that doesn’t work. Consider our three most common message framing mistakes:

We Inform When We Should Frame

Politics is the art of persuasion—communication designed to trigger an action. And smart framing is how we persuade. As a policy director in D.C., I’m constantly bombarded with reports, analyses, issue briefs, and alerts filled with alarming facts and figures. “Forty-seven million Americans are uninsured.” “One in six children live in poverty.” “Thirty-two million Americans have been victims of racial profiling.” The report writers assume that the public would be persuaded—and policy would change—if only everybody knew what they know.

Sorry, but that’s just not how politics works. Facts, by themselves, don’t persuade. If you want to inform, be a teacher or a journalist. If you want to engage in politics, you’ve got to craft a persuasive argument. That means a focus on solutions, not problems. Facts can be important, of course. But they must be used to illustrate arguments for specific solutions—otherwise, they fall on deaf ears.

We Talk to Persuadables Using Our Language Instead of Theirs

Progressive advocates often use words, phrases, and whole sentences that don’t make sense to persuadables. When that happens, voters see an entirely different picture in their minds than we intend to draw. It’s like a Northerner calling iced tea a healthy alternative without realizing that in the South they drink it sweeter than Coke.

The most common problem is that incumbents and political insiders tend to speak the technical language of lobbying and passing legislation. Insiders carry on a never-ending conversation about bills from the past, measures under consideration, and current law. In one presidential debate, Al Gore talked about the “Dingle-Norwood” bill five times in the course of five minutes. Four years later, John Kerry referred to “the Duelfer report,” “stop-loss policies,” and “sneak-and-peek searches.”

In fact, one of Senator Kerry’s most infamous lines of the 2004 campaign was, at least in part, a problem of insider language. When he said, “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it,” people on Capitol Hill knew what he meant. Kerry supported an amendment to continue funding military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan—to the tune of $87 billion—on the condition that the spending would be offset by eliminating the worst of the Bush tax cuts. He opposed authorizing the $87 billion only after that amendment was defeated. The senator didn’t vote wrong; he spoke wrong.

Policy advocates use insider language even more egregiously than elected officials do. We say TABOR and HAVA when talking about the Taxpayer Bill of Rights and the Help America Vote Act (both unhelpful titles in the first place). We refer to SB 234 and the Akaka amendment. We talk about “stakeholders,” “paygo” requirements, and the “ag community.” It’s a tough habit to break.

Insider jargon serves a useful purpose. It is shorthand—it allows those who understand the shorthand to communicate more efficiently. But it is also a way to be exclusive, to separate insiders from nonmembers of the club. That’s exactly why such language is pernicious—we can’t expect persuadable voters to understand a language that was designed, in part, to exclude them.

We Use Ideological Language Even Though Persuadables Are the Opposite of Ideologues

Political activists like ideological language. We enjoy using politically charged phrases like corporate greed, Bible-thumping rednecks, rigged elections, crypto-fascists, and Liar-in-Chief. We take pleasure in joking about how dumb our president is.

Like technical policy language, ideological jargon is a form of shorthand. But to persuadable voters, this way of speaking also has an insider sound. To persuadables, it sounds as though the speaker isn’t one of them. And they’re right. We should reserve our ideological language for talking to people who agree with us already. What kind of mental images and emotions do persuadable voters see and feel when they hear arguments couched in left-wing catchphrases? Negative ones! It’s OK to blast away with ideological language when you’re at a progressive meeting or on a partisan website. But don’t let all that practice using insider code words slip into progressive advocacy. (See Figure 5.2)

In short, let’s be bilingual. We can use whatever list of facts and policies or insider shorthand we like when talking to each other. But we should use the language of persuadable voters when talking to them.

Incidentally, the right-wing bloviators—like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly—trample all over this rule. But they are not actually persuading anyone—they are merely entertainers performing almost entirely for committed right-wingers. Only right-wingers? Well, during the 2007 State of the Union address, Fox News asked viewers to text message what they thought of Bush’s speech—was it “excellent,” “average,” or “poor”? At a time when the president’s approval ratings were below 30 percent, 85 percent of Fox viewers volunteered that the speech was excellent. No persuadables there.

Framing by the Media

No discussion of framing would be complete without some mention of the media’s role. The media frames. Often a partisan spin will be adopted by the media—the pretext behind the Iraq war, for example. But often, media frames are the result of long-standing custom.

Figure 5.2

What We Say, What They Hear

Conventional media frames put politics, politicians, and government in a bad light. That’s because negative is news. The very definition of news is what happened today that’s different from the events of yesterday. Positive information doesn’t usually become known on any specific date—so it lacks a hard news hook. The fact that a city agency is running efficiently or a state program is succeeding will almost never appear in the news media. But it takes just one mistake, one bad apple, or one bit of bad luck to see government officials and policies excoriated. NBC Nightly News goes so far as to run a regular antigovernment feature called “The Fleecing of America.”

Furthermore, news that highlights social problems tends to make government look ineffective. Crime seems like the fault of incompetent police or lenient courts. Bad test scores seem like the fault of “failing schools.” Pick up any major newspaper, and see if you can find a single hard-news story that casts government in a positive light.

For decades, polls have shown that politicians are among the least trusted of professionals. Every two years since 1988, at least 40 percent of persuadable voters have said they “think that quite a few of the people running the government are crooked.” And every two years since 1988, with the exception of 2002, at least 60 percent of persuadable voters have said they think that government wastes “a lot of money.”

We have the mainstream media to thank for a great deal of this negativity. Unfortunately, public cynicism suits the interests of right-wingers. If government can’t be trusted, shouldn’t we give up trying to change the status quo? If government can’t make a difference, why bother to participate in the political process? So our framing challenge is that much greater. Persuadable voters will always evaluate political information through a filter that’s rather negative about the way things are. That’s why the most successful progressive messages frame the way things ought to be.

Framing Is Truth-Telling

Using well-crafted language to explain an issue to the persuadables isn’t cynical and it isn’t a gimmick. Yes, when the right-wing says compassionate conservative, that is manipulation, because it’s the opposite of the truth. But our goal is to use words that persuadable voters understand and appreciate in order to accurately describe our philosophy and our proposed policy solutions. Like a tree falling in the forest, if we speak truth but listeners understand our words differently than we intend, does our truth make a sound?

Progressive candidates in contested districts already adjust their language for persuadable voters. They use spicy language at a partisan fundraiser and then talk in bland terms on the campaign trail. But the only way they know how to speak to the center is to take centrist policy positions. Most conservatives don’t do that. George Bush’s campaigns, for example, used smart message frames to appeal to moderates, yet he governs from far right of center. True, some right-wingers in Congress got there by flatly lying about their agendas. But most were truthful in their campaigns—they just used poll-tested language. Similarly, we don’t have to be moderate, but we do have to sound mainstream.

Progressive activists and advocates strive to “speak truth to power.” Yes, let’s do that. But not in a way that’s emotionally satisfying yet politically ineffective. Truth needs to be told in language that the listener understands and can identify with—no academic, insider, or leftist jargon fits the bill. And if you want to make a difference, understand that the power is held by the persuadables—they’re the ones we need to speak to. Spitting in the eye of our opponents won’t bother them if they win the next election. If you want to hit ‘em where it hurts, you’ve got to beat their legislation and chase them out of office.

So, in the words of the civil rights anthem, keep your eyes on the prize. Democracy enables us to do more than speak to power, it allows us to take power. That’s why we’re in politics—to correct injustice, not just to complain about it.

So let’s frame. Let’s direct attention to the part of the picture that most effectively bolsters our arguments. Let’s offer Americans a new way to look at the world, a way that’s not blurred by conservative stereotypes. Let’s give them what FrameWorks describes as a “new lens” on the world.