The Concept of Framing in the Media

             Framing is when a news story selects some aspects of a perceived reality and makes them more salient in the media text. Believe it or not, every story you see in the news is framed in a certain way. There are numerous ways in which the media frames a story and it depends on what the story is about. The most common frames used in the news are conflict, consequences, perspective, responsibility, and values. The conflict frame is usually applied to zero-sum issues where two groups are in conflict with each other and when the conflict is settled one side will lose something and the other will gain something. The consequences frame is when the story focuses on the consequences of a popular habit or action. The perspective frame is showing a single perspective amidst a certain event or crisis. The responsibility frame seeks to place the responsibility or blame for something on someone or something. Lastly, the values frame focuses on and somewhat exploits the mainstream values of a population.

             Framing is closely related to agenda setting but it is not the same. While agenda setting tells the audience what to think about, framing guides the audience on how to think of the issue being proposed. Framing, in the most common form, has four components: 1. It promotes a particular problem or issue 2. It interprets the cause of that problem or issue. 3. It evaluates the moral implications the problem or issue may hold. And, 4. It recommends a solution or treatment to the problem or issue.

Food Waste Is Becoming Serious Economic and Environmental Issue, Report Says- The New York Times

Food Waste Grows With the Middle Class- The New York Times

           In these articles published in The New York Times, the issue being presented is the growing concern of food waste and how it is impacting the world we live in. This story is framed using the consequences frame and it illustrates the consequences of wasting food. This story has all four components of framing in explaining why food waste is a problem.

1.      1. Promotes particular problem: In this article the problem being presented is about the amount of food being wasted by growing number of people in the middle class. It addresses the fact that the cost of disposing of all this food is in the hundreds of billions of dollars and also its impact on global warming.

2.     2.  Causal interpretation: The cause of this problem in this story is because the middle class is growing in the United States, and the middle class wastes the most food of all social classes. They also note that retailers are also throwing away mass amounts of food that is expired.

3.     3.  Moral Evaluation: This story pulls on moral concerns by emphasizing the cost of disposing this food (which is about $400 billion) and also the effect it is having on the environment with the emission of methane gas.

4.      4. Treatment Recommendation: The recommendation this story proposes is the presence of anti-waste groups which have been effective in other areas. The story also notes that in 15 years, if anti-waste awareness is employed, it could save the world $120 billion to $300 billion a year.

These articles are a good example of framing and also cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is when discomfort is felt at a discrepancy between what someone already knows or believes, and new information or interpretation. These articles attempt to present new information to the audiences in hope that they will change the way they live.