Visuals in news media help define, or frame issues, but less is known about how they influence opinions and behavior. The authors use an experiment to present image and text exemplars of frames from ...war and conflict news in isolation and in image–text congruent and incongruent pairs. Results show that, when presented alone, images generate stronger framing effects on opinions and behavioral intentions than text. When images and text are presented together, as in a typical news report, the frame carried by the text influences opinions regardless of the accompanying image, whereas the frame carried by the image drives behavioral intentions irrespective of the linked text. These effects are explained by the salience enhancing and emotional consequences of visuals.
In line with the urgency of problems related to climate change, studies on the framing of this issue have flourished in recent years. However, as in framing research overall, a lack of definitions ...complicates the synthesis of theoretical/empirical insights. This systematic review contrasts trends of framing in climate change communication to those observed in reviews of communication research overall and harnesses framing’s power to bridge perspectives by comparing frames across different frame locations (i.e., frame production, frame content, audience frames, and framing effects), as part of the wider cultural framing repository. Combining quantitative and qualitative approaches of content analysis, this review draws on 25 years of peer-reviewed literature on the framing of climate change (n = 275). Among the findings, we observe that research has not made use of framing’s bridging potential. Hence, the conceptual (mis)fit between frame locations will be discussed, and directions for future research will be given.
Communications regarding climate change are increasingly being utilised in order to encourage sustainable behaviour and the way that these are framed can significantly alter the impact that they have ...on the recipient. This experimental study seeks to investigate how transferable existing research findings on framing from health and behavioural research are to the climate change case. The study (
N
=
161) examined how framing the same information about climate change in terms of gain or loss outcomes and in terms of local or distant impacts can affect perceptions. Text on potential climate change impacts was adapted from the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, alongside maps and images of potential flooding impacts. Participants then completed measures of various relevant socio-cognitive factors and questions assessing their responses to the information that they had received. Results indicated that, ceteris paribus, gain frames were superior to loss frames in increasing positive attitudes towards climate change mitigation, and also increased the perceived severity of climate change impacts. However, third variable analyses demonstrated that the superiority of the gain frame was partially suppressed by lower fear responses and poorer information recall within gain framed information. In addition, framing climate change impacts as distant (whilst keeping information presented the same) resulted in climate change impacts being perceived as more severe, whilst attitudes towards climate change mitigation were more positive when participants were asked to consider social rather than personal aspects of climate change. Implications for designing communications about climate change are outlined.
This study explores the main and interaction effects of framing messages and cause-related marketing on backing intentions by manipulating frame types, frame valences, and cause-related marketing in ...the message narratives of crowdfunding projects. We conduct an online experiment for a crowdfunding campaign and analyze data using independent-samples t-test and ANOVA. This study's findings show that negative messages lead to higher backing intentions than positive ones regarding attribute and goal framing messages. Narratives with cause-related marketing in crowdfunding projects had a more significant effect on increasing backing intentions than those without cause-related marketing. Positive attribute framing messages combined with cause-related marketing had significantly higher backing intentions than messages without cause-related marketing; for negative attribute framing, there was no significant difference between with and without cause-related marketing. This study theoretically advances the literature on reward-based crowdfunding, which provides scholars with insight into the effects of the written narrative design of crowdfunding projects on backing intentions and extends to the applications of framing effect theory and cause-related marketing. Practically, this study provides project initiators and crowdfunding platform operators with new perspectives on proposal copywriting content design and project operation.
•Crowdfunding with cause-related marketing affects the backing intentions.•Negative framing messages lead to higher backing intentions.•Attribute framing with cause-related marketing affects the backing intentions.•Goal framing with cause-related marketing does not affect the backing intentions.
Resumen En la elección presidencial de México 2018, López Obrador se presentó como el candidato de una coalición de varios partidos políticos, y el líder de un movimiento social. Este rasgo ...particular sitúa esta investigación en la frontera entre dos campos -los estudios electorales y los movimientos sociales- que han permanecido con escasa comunicación entre sí. En consecuencia, la campaña presidencial de López Obrador debe ser abordada no solo con las categorías tradicionales de la ciencia política, la comunicación política o el marketing político; su análisis requiere un enfoque transdisciplinario que incorpore categorías de la sociología de los movimientos sociales. Para cumplir con este propósito, se aplica el análisis de los marcos como perspectiva que permite la investigación del discurso público, de distintos actores (candidatos, movimientos sociales, periodistas) y sus mensajes (spots políticos, protesta, noticia). Se concluye que la comunicación de la campaña de López Obrador giró en torno al marco de la cuarta transformación, y que este marco, se construyó y comunicó, mediante un conjunto de mecanismos del framing: metáforas, eslóganes, frases célebres, anécdotas y ejemplos de memoria colectiva.
This study examined the framing of genetically modified organisms in two American newspapers, The New York Times and the Washington Post (2000-2016) and tested the impact of risk and opportunity ...framing on attitudes and behaviors regarding genetically modified organisms. The content analysis (N = 165) showed that the two newspapers did not have a dominant frame type in their coverage. A randomized three-condition experiment (N = 182) showed that the type of framing significantly affected individuals’ attitudes and was able to change them. The type of framing affected individuals’ behavioral intentions through postexposure attitudes but was not able to significantly affect actual behavior.
This study extends framing theory by identifying two causal mechanisms and one contingent condition for a new type of frame to be used with issues where people dispute scientific claims. This new ...“adaptive frame” focuses on adapting to climate change impacts without cueing deeply held beliefs by discussing causes. An experiment shows this frame works by reducing persuasion knowledge and increasing perceived behavioral control, resulting in science skeptics being significantly more likely to intend to take action, engage with the news, and agree with the story’s perspective. This effect is moderated by science skepticism, with adaptive frames working significantly better on the very people the news media are not reaching. We contribute to theory with an understanding of how a frame that eliminates references to deep-seated beliefs is more effective than the existing frames of conflict, attribution of responsibility, and possibly others.
In this study, we examined how metaphors used in the Russian media to describe the COVID-19 virus affect the audience’s judgment about the virus and their willingness to take a vaccine. We found that ...the two conventional metaphors used to describe the dynamics of the spread of the coronavirus (‘wave’ and ‘flash’) have a limited impact on the audience. In particular, by conducting an online experiment (N=737), we revealed that texts in which the virus and vaccination were described metaphorically (‘a new flash of coronavirus’ / ‘vaccination could extinguish the flames of a new flash of coronavirus’; ‘a new wave of coronavirus’ / ‘vaccination could curb the onslaught of a new wave of coronavirus’) reduced fear and anxiety at the thought of the coronavirus, but this effect appears only in vaccinated participants. Metaphorical framing, while impactful at the affective level, did not affect ‘rational’ reasoning, such as estimates of the likelihood of becoming vaccinated or estimates of the number of cases in the country. Also, subjects’ responses to most of the questions correlated positively with their confidence in official information about the coronavirus. The article interprets the results in the context of current work in the field of metaphorical framing and health communication.
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