Reese, stephen salzburg media framing 2015

Media framing in global context

Stephen Reese University of Texas

@sdreese

Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change

Media Action Plans (MAPs)

Part 1: Articulating the Challenge

What role do MEDIA play in this challenge?

media literacy goals

• understand the media system

• produce one's own media

• decode media messages

Media literacy in the network society

• In the age of social media, do professional news gatekeepers still have power?

• Yes, but part of a new eco-system

• Social media help complement, amplify, redistribute

media frames and framing

– (Reese, 2001)

Frames are “organizing principles”

Issues are “framed”…

– (Entman, 1993)

“in  such  a  way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation.”

– William Gamson

Frames are “media packages” (with exemplars, metaphors, catchphrases, visual images)

The power of language

Framing Human rights

How did the U.S. press frame the Iraq Abu Ghraib

prison scandal?

None dare call it torture (Bennett et al.)

“Abuse” vs.

“Torture”

Who promoted the “abuse” frame?

Answer: The U.S. administration

… and the “echoing” press

framing examples

US in Iraq

“Liberation” vs. “Invasion”

Framing global conflict

Salzburg  presentation  2012

Most important NY Times frames

7/16/12

• Frame resonated with U.S. “war on terror” (with Sudan president the villain)

• Implied solution: punishment vs. finding solution rooted in historical land ownership conflict

Personal vs. Societal causes

“credit” vs. “debt” “opportunity”/payment vs.

“risk”/repayment

“human dignity” vs. “religious conscience”

Framing 9/11

“Global War on Terror”

Elements of the “War on Terror” frame

• “war”

• “axis of evil” (WW II)

• “evil doers”

• Pearl Harbor

• “war president”

• “terrorism”, “terror”

Framing language: “Terrorism” vs. “Terror”

Elite linking: "After September 11th having been hit once how could we take a chance that Saddam might strike again? And that's the

threat that has been removed and I think we are all safer ….” (3/11/09)

A press-state construction?• (1 Nov. 2001) NBC Meet the Press host Tim Russert:

• "We are at war, and all of us must come together as never before," Russert said. "Simply put: There are those who want to destroy us, our people -- men, women and children -- our institutions, our way of life, our freedom.

Journalists’ role in framing

• They “transmitted” the frame…

• But also took the frame (and policy) for granted

• It became “naturalized”

Political opponents failed to find a “counter-frame”

John Kerry: “Now, more than ever, with our soldiers in harm’s way, we must stand together and succeed  in  Iraq  and  win  the  war  on  terror.”

The War on Terror as a natural “fact of life”

“Bin Laden showed new strengths and fallibilities in his tape. They revealed, too, the antidote: determination in the war on terror.”

Group question:

Which country represented at your table has the most

media freedom?

(give reasons)

Freedom House: Press Freedom Ranking

To what extent do nation-states still control media

frames?

changing boundaries of framing

The new “global journalists”

Peter Berglez: “global” as embedded in news “perspective"

–Peter Berglez

"News information with a global outlook establishes knowledge of how our lives in Copenhagen, Cairo, Brisbane and Mexico City are intertwined”

Forest Loss in Sumatra

Here on the island of Sumatra, ...........................

.........................................

................are some of the world’s fastest-disappearing forests . . . ...........................

............................companies have been claiming any land they can. (New York Times)

Forest Loss in Sumatra Becomes a Global Issue

Here on the island of Sumatra, about 1200 miles from the global climate talks under way on Bali, are some of the world’s fastest-disappearing forests . . . Responding to global demand for palm oil, which is used in cooking and cosmetics and, lately, in an increasingly popular biodiesel, companies have been claiming any land they can. (New York Times)

Climate Change Soon Could Kill

Thousands in UK, Says Report

Climate change could lead to a

heatwave in the south-east in England

killing 3,000 people within the next

decade, a Department of Health report

said today. (The Guardian)

encouraging a global outlook

transparency activists

“bridge blogs”

globalized new journalism platforms

media work of global civil society

media literacy goals

• the media system has changed

• because people can produce and connect

• making the media target of decoding more diffused

• framing is still happening

frames still need decoding

(and countering)

The State is still active

…but so are you