Political Public Relations and Strategic Framing

Abstract

Frames advance coherent interpretations of issues that suggest specific problem definitions, causes, moral evaluations and courses of action. As such, frames select and highlight certain aspects of an issue, and downplay or ignore others. While the use of frames is inevitable-i.e., the act of framing-actors do use frames strategically in their attempts to define issues in a way favorable to them and in their efforts to influence the course of action on issues. This is especially the case in the political realm. Thus, strategic framing is crucial to political public relations. This chapter offers a brief introduction to framing theory before shedding light on the specific ways in which political actors use frames strategically and to what effect. Strategic Framing 2Contentious issues-such as irregular migration, physician-assisted suicide, or gun controltend to be very complex. Thus, attempts to reference all nuances of such an issue when communicating are bound to fail, or to result in lengthy treatises incompatible to most people's willingness and capacity to process. For this reason, when communicating, political actors people select some aspects of the issue they are addressing, and build their reasoning surrounding their selection. Their communication then emphasizes the aspects of the issue that were selected and advances an interpretation of what the problem is, what caused it, how it should be dealt with it and by whom, and what to make of it (see Entman, 1993, p. 52).Such interpretations of issues are known as frames; they act as "organizing principles that […] structure the social world" (Reese, 2001, p. 11).Described in this way, the act of framing-i.e., of conveying and advancing framesseems like an inevitable dimension of communication. Certainly, this is an accurate description. Yet, framing can take on a strategic character, especially in the political realm.Political actors use frames strategically to articulate their views on contentious issues, sway others, and advance their agenda. In the words of Hallahan (1999), at least seven areas of public life and debates are subject to strategic framing: situations (relationships between individuals, for instance in organizational negotiations); attributes (the way objects, events, or people are characterized); choices (e.g., tying particular positive or negative aspects to certain choices); actions (pointing to positive or negative aspects concerning actions in order to achieve compliance with organizational goals); issues (e.g., using particular descriptions of social problems); responsibility (e.g., trying to attribute a cause to individual or systemic problems), and news (ways of presenting stories).On account of its focus on these acts of selection and emphasis, and given the possibility to do so deliberately, scholarly interest in framing has been high in public relations

Life, death or drugs: Actor framing power on the news media coverage of health care policy

“…Third, the study nuances existing knowledge of what constitutes successful strategic framing. Whereas framing expertise, combined with status or resources, is believed to be central for strategic frame influence (Dan et al, 2019), this study indicates that frame alliances with other stakeholders is also essential for frame influence. Accordingly, frame influence appears to be dependent on media competence, cultural credibility and collective issue definition (Junk and Rasmussen, 2019).…”

Division of Chinese opinion on Russia-Ukraine War: Analyzing Key Actors’ Strategic Framing on Weibo

“…The idea underlying the theory is that how a social problem is diagnosed will affect the proposed solution and rationale for collective action. Some studies also point out that strategic framing in the political realm consists of framing coalition (Mayer et al, 2010) and framing contest from the perspective of dynamic progression (Dan et al, 2019). Framing is an indispensable tool through which leaders and their opponents influence or prime the agendas that people think.…”

Environmental diplomacy: from transnational policies to the role of ambassadors – the contribution of David Attenborough (2018–2020)

“…In a study developed by Lock et al (2020), framing emerges as the second most used communication theory in studies published in the field of strategic communication. Framing implies emphasising or excluding aspects of political and social life, which facilitate communication (by simplifying messages), conditioning perceptions and providing context for information processing (Hallahan, 2011).…”