Framing Effects in Political Communication

Abstract

How the media and journalists “frame” politics has been the subject of a great many theoretical and empirical investigations by political communication scholars over the past three decades. In political communication, a frame can be understood as a journalistic or elite viewpoint or angle, which highlights one aspect of a political issue over another. The existence of frames in political communication has been shown conclusively, so a logical next question for many scholars is whether and how frames actually influence citizens’ understanding of political issues and processes. These framing effects can help us explain in what ways subtle differences in the presentation of a political issue can lead to changes in interpretation, attitudes, emotions and behavior. When looking at the political arena, framing effect studies have investigated all sorts of issues and events, ranging from social protest, to elections, government spending, and European Union (EU) integration. However, perhaps because the idea of framing effects proved to be so valuable for studying different political issues and contexts, studies have often neglected to incorporate their findings into a comprehensive theory of framing effects. So, we have many case studies of framing effects, but many questions regarding the theoretical underpinnings of the concept are still unanswered. Among other things, this has led to a fierce debate on the value and future of framing effects within political communication research. This article therefore focuses only on scholarship of framing effects that have significantly advanced its theoretical development, rather than specific political issues or events.