Naming and Framing Policy Issues

The importance of framing policy issues has made repeat performances on this blog.  As Kathleen Hall Jamieson simply puts it, frames influence the ways in which we think about things, emphasizing some aspects of a phenomenon and deemphasizing others.  Recently in The New York Times, John Broder wrote about the framing of environmental issues in an article entitled “Seeking to Save the Planet, With a Thesuarus.”  Broder's piece reports on a document that was accidentally sent to media organizations by EcoAmerica, an organization that has been conducting public opinion research on framing and reframing of environmental issues to build public support for policy change.  Here are some findings, as reported by Broder:

• “Drop discussions of carbon dioxide and bring up ‘moving away from dirty fuels of the past’”
• “Don’t confuse people with cap and trade; use terms like… ‘pollution reduction fund’”
• “’Energy efficiency’ makes people think of shivering in the dark… speak of ‘saving money for a more prosperous future’”
• “Drop the term ‘the environment’ and talk about ‘the air we breathe, the water our children drink’”

This last point resonates with pragmatic advice offered by Jeremy Rosner in the article “Communicating Difficult Reforms: Eight Lessons from Slovakia” in Governance Reform Under Real World Conditions, a book CommGAP published last year (which can, by the way, be downloaded free of charge).  Rosner advises that reformers must “Act macro; talk micro”, that is, frame advocacy for large issues in ways that relate to people’s everyday lives.  While “the environment” is obviously an important policy domain, “the air we breathe” and the “water our children drink” reflects the everyday experience of citizens.

Thus, the capacity to successfully name and frame issues in ways that resonate with the public is an indirect way of convincing people that one’s policy position is correct.  And this has the potential to increase public and political support for one’s agenda.  Research in communication studies continues to accumulate evidence on conditions under which particular frames work and don’t work.  While political lobby groups and their professional communication consultants attempt to apply these findings to push their point of view, it is also important for members of the public to know that issues are constantly being framed by those who claim to work and advocate on their behalf.  It is in all our interest to figure out which among these frames best reflects our own positions.

Photo credit: Flickr user Editor B