Understanding the Models of Framing Analyses Approaches in Media

Framing Studies

Dafrizal Samsudin

Department of Communication Science, Universitas Islam Riau, Pekanbaru, Indonesia

Keywords:

Frame, Framing Analysis Model, Media Framing.

Abstract:

The aim of this paper is to critically review various models of framing analysis approach based on the critical

analysis of various relevant kinds of literature proposed by famous scholars who concern with the framing

studies. The review of framing analysis models revealed that every different model of framing analysis ap-

proaches scientiﬁcally used to dig the typology of news framing in news text. Those differences derived from

different ways of scholars critically viewed and interpreted the context of the philosophical and epistemologi-

cal meaning of framing. The paper shows that the different framing analysis approaches used in media framing

studies such as the internal structure of the media package, episodic vs thematic, multi-dimensional, structures

of news discourse, the ’categorization’ concept, four functions of framing, framing deductive approach, and

list of the frame.

1 INTRODUCTION

According to (Goffman, 1974) and Dezin and Keller

(Denzin and Keller, 1981), the idea of framing for the

ﬁrst time appeared in the 1950s through Bateson in his

book titled ”The steps for mind ecology”, the ﬁrst edi-

tion in 1972 and the second edition in 1987. Bateson

argues that ’frame is a meta-communicative’ and ev-

ery meta-communicative message is known as a psy-

chological frame.

Then, Tuchman (Tuchman, 1978), a cultural soci-

ology background, contributes to the concept of fram-

ing in his book ’Making news: A study in the con-

struction of reality’, focusing on framing the issue of

social perspective news, especially social reality con-

struction. Through his book, Tuchman was known

as one of the ﬁrst scholars to discuss theoretically

news frames. Tuchman laid the conceptual basis of

the frame in the assumption of ’news is a window on

the world’.

Furthermore, in the media and communica-

tions perspective, the early 1990s, many scholars

studied media framing such as Iyengar (Iyen-

gar, 1990)(Pan and Kosicki, 1993)(Cappella and

Jamieson, 1997)(Scheufele, 1999)(Tankard Jr,

2001)(De Vreese, 2005) . Basically, the studies

on media framing are not only theoretical but also

include an analytical approach to media content.

However, this article will highlight various models

of framing analysis approaches proposed by famous

scholars who focus on the media framing study since

early the 1990s.

2 FRAMING APPROACHES

Essentially, in the context of media and communi-

cations studies, discussions on framing are not lim-

ited to philosophical, theoretical, and conceptual def-

initions outlooks. However, many scholars comple-

ment their discussion emphasis on introducing var-

ious perspectives on the model of framing analy-

sis methods. Dealing with that, this paper criti-

cally discusses some approaches of framing analy-

sis proposed by a number of famous scholars such

as Gamson and Modigliani (Gamson and Modigliani,

1989)(Iyengar, 1990)(Pan and Kosicki, 1993)(Edel-

man, 1993)(Entman, 1993)(Semetko and Valkenburg,

2000)(Tankard Jr, 2001).

2.1 Internal Structure of Media

Package

Gamson and Modigliani (Gamson and Modigliani,

1989), in their study of media discourse and public

opinion on issues of nuclear power based on construc-

tionist perspective, proposed a scenario of news fram-

Samsudin, D.

Understanding the Models of Framing Analyses Approaches in Media Framing Studies.

DOI: 10.5220/0009159503850389

In Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Social, Economy, Education and Humanity (ICoSEEH 2019) - Sustainable Development in Developing Country for Facing Industrial

Revolution 4.0, pages 385-389

ISBN: 978-989-758-464-0

385

ing that is gathered into the concept of media pack-

ages. In details, those scholars explained that a pack-

age has an internal structure, known as “core frame”.

In other words, it is a central organizing idea or frame.

Then, the package offers more than a few condens-

ing symbols which comprise (1) the ﬁve framing de-

vices are metaphors, exemplars, catchphrases, depic-

tion and visual images. (2) three reasoning devices

namely roots, consequences, and appeal to principles

(Gamson and Modigliani, 1989).

In other words, the vital elements of framing of the

news such as ﬁve framing devices and three reasoning

devices, introduced by Gamson are a distinctive and

unique characteristic of the Gamson and Modigliani

framing approaches in the context of the study on me-

dia discourse especially based on the data acquired

from news text.

2.2 Episodic and Thematic

Meanwhile, according to Iyengar (Iyengar, 1990), the

model of framing analysis method is divided into two

forms namely thematic frame and episodic frame.

The framing analysis method is used to reveal Iyen-

gar’s hypothesis in his study asserts that how people

understand the issue of poverty depends on how the

issue is framed. In terms of its operational concept,

Iyengar details as follows.

First, the thematic frame refers to news that con-

tains information in a general trend. Iyengar exempli-

ﬁes like; poverty rates, government deﬁnition changes

to the term poverty, the number of countries experi-

encing signiﬁcant increases in hunger and so forth.

Second, the episodic frame refers to news trends that

focus on aspects of individual experiences or more

speciﬁc perspectives. In this case, poverty is high-

lighted in the context of individual experiences, such

as the living conditions of a certain individual under

economic standards (Iyengar, 1990).

2.3 Multi-dimensional

In addition, Swenson referred by Tankard (Tankard Jr,

2001) as a multi-dimensional concept, in the study of

news reporting on abortion issues suggested the eight-

dimensional method of coding to identify or measure

the framing of the news; 1) The author’s gender el-

ement; 2) Placing news (front page, editorial page,

the ﬁrst section, but not ﬁrst page); 3) Use of terms

that refer to pro-choice groups (pro-choice, abortion

rights, pro-abortion, anti-life, combination, not appli-

cable), 4) The use of terms referring to pro-life groups

(pro-life, right to life, the anti-abortion, anti-choice,

combination, not applicable);5) The woman’s right or

the fetus right are considered paramount. 6) Moral-

ity orientation of the article. 7) Discussion when life

begins and 8) Term used to refer the fetus.

2.4 Structures of News Discourse

Pan and Kosicki (Pan and Kosicki, 1993), in their

study of news framing analysis, presented a media

framing method for identifying news discourses from

a constructionist approach. In their points of view,

news discourse is a socio-cognitive process. Con-

sequently, they feature a concept of news framing

method by focusing on the development of news texts

that cover the four structures of news discourse di-

mensions; i) The syntactical structure refers to the

pattern of arrangement of words or phrases into sen-

tences. ii) The script structure is focused on the sta-

bility and consistency of the sequence of activities and

components of an event that is treated as a structured

mental representation of an event. More speciﬁcally,

this section relates to how an event is packaged as

news that contains a generic aspect of the news that

consists of who, what, when, where, why and how.

iii) The thematic structure is to focus on how journal-

ists assemble various issues into a moderate topic, but

at the same time include events, actions or statements

related to the issue. In addition, the thematic struc-

ture consists of a summary represented by the head-

line, lead, or conclusion, and the main body which in-

cludes episodes, background information, and quotes.

So the thematic structure of the news is referred to as

the hierarchical layer in the connectivity of a theme

with various sub-themes connected to the supporting

elements. iv) The rhetorical structure is focused on

how journalists create effective news, such as the use

of images, prominence of important points, and the

clarity of news reporting, making the frame of news

discourse meaningful, more factual and acceptable.

2.5 Categorization

Another scholar, Edelman (Edelman, 1993), a Uni-

versity of Wisconsin political scholar, also presented

a framing method known as the ’categorization’ con-

cept. Basically, Edelman suggested that the concept

is based on his understanding of the emergence of the

ever-changing social reality of the world as a result of

changes in the way the observations are framed and

categorized. This is because the purity of the social

world reality in Edelman’s view is determined by the

way framing and interpretation of the problem.

Furthermore, Edelman said that the existence

of distinctive characterizations, causes and conse-

quences of a phenomenon is a result of changes in

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386

what is highlighted and neglected, and particularly in

the classiﬁcation of observations. In this case, Edel-

man further cast his gaze; i) Categorization as a nec-

essary condition of abstract thinking and the use of

symbols in reasoning and expression. ii) Categoriza-

tion is a special power of political conviction, passion,

fear, and antagonism (Edelman, 1993).

2.6 Four Functions of Framing

According to Entman (Entman, 1993) in his study on

the clariﬁcation of framing paradigms that are consid-

ered to be dispersed, looking at the core of the concept

of framing is at the stage of selection and salience.

Consequently, Entman stated that to frame is to select

some aspects of a perceived reality and make them

more prominent in a communicating text”. Then, the

frame is positioned in four locations in the commu-

nication process; the communicator, the text, the re-

ceiver, and the culture.

Practically, Entman carries four framing func-

tions: the ﬁrst, deﬁne problems-recognize what causal

agents are doing, what are their losses and their prof-

its and are usually measured by cultural values. Sec-

ond, diagnose causes is to identify the causes of the

problem. Third, make moral judgments that evaluate

causal agents and their effects. Fourth, suggest reme-

dies is to suggest and justify treatments for the prob-

lems and predict the possible consequences (Entman,

1993).

2.7 Deductive Approach

Another framing approach was a deductive approach

and suggested by Smetko and Valkernburg(Semetko

and Valkenburg, 2000) in his study of European fram-

ing on newspapers and television news. While shar-

ing the focus of the study with an agenda-setting ap-

proach at the level of public policy issues on news

and public perceptions on the issue, the focus of fram-

ing analysis goes beyond the focus of agenda-setting,

which is to shift from ‘what people talk or think about

’ being ‘how they talk and think about issues in the

news’ (Semetko and Valkenburg, 2000). And with re-

gard to this, Smetko and Valkenburg (Semetko and

Valkenburg, 2000) present two approaches to ana-

lyzing the content of news frame; i) Inductive ap-

proach refers to an analysis of one news openly ex-

ploring the possibility of framing starts by deﬁning

pre-conceptual frames gradually. ii) The deductive

approach refers to pre-setting a speciﬁc frame as a

content analysis variable to verify the expansion of

the frame part that appears in the news. But in for-

mulating a comprehensive framing analysis approach,

Smetko and Valkenburg (Semetko and Valkenburg,

2000) chose to use a deductive approach to assess the

prevalence of frames in the news, especially investi-

gating the ﬁve news frames as follows: First, the Con-

ﬂict frame which emphasizes conﬂicts between indi-

viduals, groups, or institutions as a tool to capture the

interests of the audience. Second, the Human inter-

est frame is to show the human view or emotional

point of view of the depiction of an event, issue or

questions. Third, Economic consequences frame is

to report events, problems or issues that bring eco-

nomic consequences to an individual, group, institu-

tion, region or country. Fourth, Morality frame is to

put events, questions or issues in the context of re-

ligious and moral values, because of the norms of

professional objectivity, journalism often references

to moral frames. Fifth, Responsibility frame which

describes issues or problems that act as a responsibil-

ity attribute to the cause and solution of either gov-

ernment or individual or group (Semetko and Valken-

burg, 2000).

2.8 List of Frame

Through an empirical perspective in quantitative

terms, Tankard (Tankard Jr, 2001) views the framing

of recognizing the ability of a text or a media exposure

in deﬁning a situation, issues and deﬁning the subject

matter in a debate. The importance of the framing

analysis approach is based on some of the following

critical considerations; First, framing offers an alter-

native to an objective paradigm, and an outdated bias

to help foster the impact of communication and facili-

tate media practitioners. Secondly, framing has a very

strong impression on the audience and can help un-

derstand and test important aspects of the process of

changing public opinion. Third, framing offers new

insights and beneﬁts for communication practitioners,

including journalists, communication campaign plan-

ners, and social activists (Tankard Jr, 2001).

In this regard, Tankard proposes the ’list of frame’

method as an alternative method in the media framing

study of eleven mechanisms;1) Headlines dan kick-

ers. 2) Subheads. 3) Photographs. 4) Photo cap-

tions. 5) Leads. 6) Selection of Sources or Afﬁli-

ations. 7) Selection of Quotes. 8) Pull Quotes. 9)

Logos. 10) Statistics, chart, and graphs. 11) Con-

cluding statements or Paragraphs of articles (Tankard

2003:101). Whereas, in the context of framing pro-

cedures, in general, the ’list of frame’ approach rec-

ommends a number of the following steps: i) make

the range of possible frame explicit, ii) Place multi-

ple possible frames within a list of manifestations, iii)

Develop keywords, catchphrases, symbols, to detect

Understanding the Models of Framing Analyses Approaches in Media Framing Studies

387

Table 1: Eight models of media framing analysis approach.(Research Method; 1) Qualitative Content Analysis. 2) Quantitative

Content Analysis. 3) Survey-Experiment )

Date Prominent Scholar

Media Framing Analysis Approach

Catchphrases Models of Framing Analysis Objectives of the

study

Method

1989 Gamson &

Modigliani

Media Package/

core frame”/

central organizing

idea

A few condensing symbols;

Five framing devices; metaphors, ex-

emplars, catchphrases, depiction and

visual images.

Three reasoning devices; roots, conse-

quences, and appeal to principles

Media discourse/

interpretive pack-

ages

1990 Iyengar Thematic and

episodic frame

Thematic frame

Episodic frame

Thematic and

Episodic News

Frame

1990 Swenson Multi-

dimensional

concept

Eight-dimensional framing of the

news:

The author’s gender.

Placing news.

Use of terms to referring pro-choice

groups.

Use of terms referring to pro-life

groups.

The woman’s right.

Morality orientation.

Discussion when life begins.

Term refer the fetus.

Multi-

dimensional

framing of the

news

1993 Pan and

Kosicki

Structures of

news discourse

Four structures of news discourse;

The syntactical structure

The script structure

The thematic structure

Retorical structure

News discourse 1

1993 Edelman Categorization Contestable categories News discourse 1

1993 Entman Selection and

salience

Four framing functions:

Deﬁne problems

Diagnose causes

Make moral judgments.

Suggest remedies

Explaining the

strength of a

communicating

text

2000 Smetko &

Valkernburg

Deductive ap-

proach

Five news frames;

Conﬂict frame

Human interest frame

Economic consequences

Morality frame

Responsibility frame

Prevalence of the

frame in the news

2003 Tankard Systematic and

empirical

List of 11 framing mechanisms:

1. Headlines and kickers.

2. Subheads.

3. Photographs.

4. Photo captions.

5. Leads.

6. Selection of Sources or Afﬁliations.

7. Selection of Quotes.

8. Pull Quotes.

9. Logos.

10. Statistics, chart, and graphs.

11. Concluding statements

Media frames 2

frames, iv) Use frames in the content analysis cate-

gory list, v) Get a coder for article code or other types

of content into the category. This approach serves

to identify explicit frames and gain objectivity rather

than identiﬁcation of frames (Tankard Jr, 2001).

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388

3 CONCLUSIONS

Basically, the differences in framing analysis ap-

proach proposed by scholars due to variances in the

viewpoints of the philosophical concept of the frame

and framing. The difference can be seen from one of

them is the difference in the catchphrases used. This

case has also enriched the models of analysis of the

media frames and they complement each other.

In addition, a number of framing analysis ap-

proaches in news frames studies can be run qualita-

tively with focus analysis on the quality of news text

discourse or the inductive approach. Some scholars

have relied on qualitative approaches such as Gam-

son and Modigliani (Gamson and Modigliani, 1989),

Pan and Kosicki (Pan and Kosicki, 1993), Edelman

(Edelman, 1993) and Entman (Entman, 1993).

Meanwhile, the quantitative approach of the me-

dia framing studies emphasizes the quantity of emer-

gence of news frame in news texts that have been set

as variables in news content analysis or also called

a deductive approach. There are some scholars who

choose to develop a media frame study based on

empirical approaches such as Swenson , Smetko &

Valkernburg (Semetko and Valkenburg, 2000), and

Tankard (Tankard Jr, 2001). Meanwhile, Iyengar

(Iyengar, 1990) introduced experimental methods in

media framing studies. Finally, there are eight mod-

els of media framing analysis approach as in the ﬁgure

below:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Research and Community Ser-

vice, Universitas Islam Riau for ﬁnancial support, and

Prof Faridah Ibrahim for providing her comments and

suggestions.

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