Reese, Stephen D., Oscar H. Gandy, Jr. , and August E. Grant (eds.).

Raphael, Chad

Reese, Stephen D., Oscar H. Gandy, Jr. , and August E. Grant (eds.). Framing Public Life: Perspectives on Media and Our Understanding of the Social World.

Mahwah, NJ/London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001. Pp. xvi, 399. ISBN 0-8058-3653-5 (hb.) $39.95

Since anthropologist-psychologist Gregory Bateson and sociologist Erving Goffman introduced the concept of framing in the early 1970s it has been widely adopted and adapted by scholars in many disciplines, including communication, and entered the lexicon of public relations and journalism practitioners. In its most basic definition, offered here by William Gamson, a frame is "a central organizing principle that holds together and gives coherence to a diverse array of symbols or idea elements" (p. x) in a text. The study of framing also extends to how message producers select and construct frames, and how audiences interpret and act on them. In journalism, for example, the framing process allows reporters to generate news on deadline by fitting new and complex developments into established ways of understanding a "natural disaster story" or a "government corruption story" or other common frames. Once journalists select a frame, often unconsciously, they know what questions to ask sources, what pictures to show, what evidence to gather, and how to tell the tale.

However, one of the shortcomings of framing's popularity is that it has been defined and redefined so often by its many admirers that its meaning is often murky or disputed. Indeed, in different hands framing may be held forth as a concept, paradigm, or full-blown theory. The book's introduction (by Reese) and conclusion (by Gandy) review and critique the many uses of framing in the literature. In between, the volume's editors set out to "lay solid theoretical and methodological foundations for the study of framing," and to examine how it might be applied to and altered by new media. Throughout, the focus is mainly on news texts and their audiences.

The book parses into three sections. Part one examines theory and methods of framing research, including a debate over whether framing can be subsumed within agenda-setting theory or not, quantitative methods for identifying and measuring frames in texts through content analysis, and qualitative methods of postmodern frame analysis. Part two includes case studies drawing on diverse methods and subjects of framing research, including news coverage of social movements, race, war, media ethics, outlaws and lesbians. This section concludes with several studies of framing effects on audiences' political attitudes and behavior. Part three considers questions posed for framing research by the new media landscape of the internet and related technologies. Authors note that the greater user control and speed offered by web hyperlinks, omnidirectional cameras that allow audiences to choose their own angle, and other technologies challenge media organizations' editorial control and power over framing news, and grapple with whether that control will be ceded to the public, news makers, or public relations professionals. Another chapter demonstrates how print media adopt the visual rhetoric of the web, altering their framing of advertisements.

Each essay is followed by references. The book includes both an author and subject index.