Across the Atlantic, it's a parallel universe when it comes to a focus on framing and its political uses. While here in the States, liberals have decried the use of framing tactics by conservatives to shift the political landscape, it was Tony Blair's New Labour government that is credited with pioneering the use of framing in order to better engage the public. Over the weekend, NPR's On the Media looked back at Blair's communication strategy with his longtime strategist Alastair Campbell. (Note: On the Media now includes a blog like discussion area for each of its segments.)
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You may be aware that there is a huge discussion about framing science going on in the blogosphere. It has gotten out of hand.
I'm going to jump into the framing wars again. As I mentioned last time,
I think that most folks who are "opposed" to framing really don't understand what they're talking about - and I'll once again explain why. But on the other hand,
As you may have noticed, there is a vigorous debate going on in the blogosphere about framing science (all the links to all the relevant posts can be found if you click on that link).
The point is that, in the long run, it proved totally counterproductive to New Labour efforts to get its message across. Blair leaves office with a 'can you trust him' rating at 22%, and the bitter cynicism of the media towards the government stems from the fact that they no longer believe a word of official media releases - and with good reason. Framing might start out as an attempt to 'better engage the public', but in practice it soon slides downhill into borderline dishonesty. And if people swallow a line that they later discover to be untrue, they will hate you for it. It happens every time.
I agree with Jonathan. In the UK people now regard what you call political 'framing' as vacuous soundbite politics. Indeed Alastair Campbell, the interviewee is about the least trusted of all the public figures in this field, not because he is recognised to be bad at framing but precisely the opposite, he is know as the arch-machiavellian spinner of political 'frames'.
In defense of framing, I would say that it's a communication technology. In the right hands and applied cautiously, it can be used to effectively engage a public and to promote more effective communication. In the wrong hands, it can be used as "false spin."
On an issue such as social welfare, there are lessons to be learned from the language employed by the Blair government. In other matters such as Iraq, obviously the strategic use of language resonates negatively with the extreme distrust and displeasure of the British public with the war.
What got NuLab wasn't the framing, it was the lying. It doesn't matter how good your frame is if you repeatedly get caught telling massive porkies.
There's a big difference between carefully framing a valid argument and carefully weaving a tapestry of lies.
So why did they resort to lies? Because they want to pursue policies which are vehemently oppossed by significant proportions of the electorate. They're anti-democratic.
It seems to me that once a person considers how to change their original thought from their own frame into the frame of the reciever, it is now a much shorter "distance" or apparent cost to take the next step of reducing truthfulness as well because the statement is now outside the originator's frame and their emotional context. But the cost of the falsehood to the sender is actually higher precisely because the statement is now interpreted within the emotional context of the recipient's frame so what seems like a little falsehood to the sender is a big falsehood to the reciever.