All Framed

Thanks to Bertrand I'm reading up on this story of failing communication.

It immediately made me think about some expert on the radio giving some explanation on the studied effects and dynamics of Press-Framing. The bullets I remembered from the 10 minutes I overheared:

1. Observation: News coverage is framed. Meaning, that regardless how careful or careless choosen the words are, most of them are simply not neutrally observing but tending towards some sort of conlusion/position. On purpose, or just based on the authors personal (framed) conviction, it's very easy (if not natural) for news coverage to be adding an opinion to the matter.
2. As a consequence topics get gradually polarized: just about everybody ends up adapting to one of the two (rarely more) un-nuanced frames.
3. And the most striking finding: Once the frame is in place, being exposed to more footage on the topic (regardless which frame that is trying to bring) will only enforce the personal conviction: Coverage with the aligning frame yields head-nodding, coverage with the opposite frame is read as more evidence, a recognized media-plot and conspiracy ;-)

Strange human built in social reflexes, no? I'm left to wonder which Darwinian advantage this might of had?

The covered topic on the radio was on how media are forming people's position regarding asylum seekers in Belgium (in the light of both local extreme-right uprising and global anti-extremist hunting) with the polarizing frames "those poor fellas" versus "they're shamelessly exploiting our goodness". Sure enough the topics 'digital rights/piracy' and 'open source' allow for at least equally heated discussions in our professional territory.

Blast, I just played the Microsoft tune, establishing the frame where the two topics are falsly associated :-)

# Posted by mpo at 11:17 AM | TrackBack