Thinking inside the frame: A framing analysis of the humanities in Danish print news media

Abstract

The humanities, the natural and social sciences all represent advanced and systematic knowledge production-and they all receive public funding for doing so. However, although the field of public understanding of science has been well established for decades, similar research attention has not been directed at the humanities. The purpose of this study is to argue the case for further research of public understanding of the humanities and to take a first step in that direction by presenting a study of the framing of the humanities in Danish print news media. Different framings of the humanities are analyzed. Despite the differences in the issue-specific frames, the generic framing of the humanities shared by most articles is as follows: 75% explicitly frame the humanities as deficit, while the remaining 25% are more neutral. Consequently, if newspapers constitute the only source of information concerning the humanities, newsreaders may not be much wiser in understanding what the humanities might be-but they will know that whatever the humanities is, it is broken and useless.

Understanding the Societal Impact of the Social Sciences and Humanities: Remarks on Roles, Challenges, and Expectations

“…For example, in the consultation, SSH research is often contrasted with natural science and technical disciplines, whose results are not only perceived as more stable but often as more exciting, too. This resonates with Knudsen (2017) , who found a deficit framing for the humanities in Danish print media. Cassidy (2014) explains this lack of appreciation with the close relationship of SSH disciplines to everyday life: “Unlike most natural sciences, where the specialist training, knowledge and equipment of scientists grants them largely uncontested expertise, social scientists’ expertise is often about matters of everyday experience and common-sense knowledge” (p. 190).…”

Science-related populism: Conceptualizing populist demands toward science

“…Therefore, it considers academic elites to hold such sovereignty illegitimately . Their decisions are allegedly not guided by objective scientific norms but specific ideological agendas—a “multiculturalist-relativist hegemony” (Ylä-Anttila, 2018: 369), for example—which lead to resources being committed to faulty or even “broken and useless” (Knudsen, 2017: 908) research fields like climate science, gender studies, or the humanities in general. Science-related populism may also portray scientists’ decisions as driven by the aim to further their own careers or realize personal gains (Sarathchandra and Haltinner, 2020).…”

Societal problem solver or deficient discipline? The debate about social science in the online public sphere

“…The perception of a whole discipline as being irrelevant or deficient was also found for the humanities in the Danish media coverage. Knudsen [2017] summarises that while it is certainly problematic that media highlight the deficient character of the discipline rather than focusing on research results and knowledge from the field, readers may not always recognise the latter, even when they encounter it while reading the news. In literature, this problem has also been discussed for the social sciences [Saxer, 1997] and has to be seen in view of "the overlap between the expert knowledge of social science researchers and people's everyday experience of human existence" [Cassidy, 2008, p. 231].…”

“…Instead, the way it is reported might make the difference. Indeed, Knudsen's [2017] frame analysis of the humanities in Danish print news media shows that three quarters of the articles frame the humanities as deficient in the sense of an irrelevant, neglected, stagnant, or deformed discipline. Accordingly, we are interested to see whether the social sciences -which are often lumped into one category with the humanities -are discussed as a deficient discipline and delegitimised within the online discourse.…”