Pin the Tale on the Donkey (or Elephant): The Impact of Political Group Affiliation on Framing Effects

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Pin the Tale on the Donkey (or Elephant) The
Impact of Political Group Affiliation on Framing
Effects
Presented at University of California,
Irvine by Jessica Summers May 13, 2006
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What is framing exactly?

• Example
• Abortion

Pro-Life!
Pro-Choice!
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What is framing exactly?
More Examples
Dont say Government, say Washington
Abuse of Power
Dont say Drilling for Oil, say Exploring for
Energy
Dont say Tax Reform, say Tax Simplification
Dont say Undocumented Workers, say Illegal
Aliens
Dont say Healthcare Choice, say The Right to
Choose

Courtesy of Mr. Lakoff the Democrats
Courtesy of Mr. Luntz the Republicans
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A Very Brief History

• Goffman frames help classify, allowing users
  to locate, perceive, identify, and label a
  seemingly infinite number of concrete
  occurrences (1974)
• Zaller Passive Receiver theory (1992)

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A More Modern Definition
-Three Characteristics of Frames (Reese, 2001)

• active, organizing structures

Emphasis
Suppression

• durable over time

Cold war

• symbolic forms of expression

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Filling Gaps in the Research
Framing the General Public
Changing Frames Effects on Audience
Perception Lang Lang, 1983 (Watergate)
Effects of Political Party Affiliation on
Attitude Cohen (2003)
Limitations on Framing Effects Brewer, 2001
Chaiken Maheswaran, 1994 Druckman, 2001
Druckman Nelson, 2003 Entman, 1993 Iyengar,
1991 Kosicki et al, 1994
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The Impact of Political Group Affiliation on
Framing Effects

• Cohens Study (2003) reference to different
  political groups (Democrat or Republican) impacts
  participants support of identical policies
• Druckmans Study (2001) manipulation of the
  perceived credibility of source (Colin Powell vs.
  Jerry Springer)

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The Impact of Political Group Affiliation on
Framing Effects
My Question How will political party
affiliation affect perceptions of changing
(inconsistent) frames?
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Methods

• Finding real-life issues

Kuwait Conflict (1991)
Kosovo Conflict (1999)
George H. W. Bush (Republican)
Bill Clinton (Democrat)
Darfur Conflict (2003)
Politician (No Affiliation Given)
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Methods

• Developing two inconsistent frames
• - Speech 1 U.S. Interests
• - Speech 2 Humanitarian
• Interests

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Methods

• Sample of the Transcripts

The following is a transcript of President Bill
Clintons speech during a White House press
conference (August 15, 1998) President
Clinton Thank you. Thank you very much. I
would like to begin today by addressing the
recent conflict in Kosovo. Two weeks ago, Kosovo
was invaded by the military forces of Slobodan
Milosevic, and many are now wondering where the
U.S. stands on its policy. Kosovo is not an easy
problem, but if we don't stop the conflict now,
it clearly will spread and then we will not be
able to stop it except at far greater cost and
risk. If we continue along the present course,
the safety of the American troops in the region,
of our friends and allies like Albania and the
moderate Balkan states, and a significant portion
of the worlds supply of oil will all be put at
hazardIntervening in Kosovo will be a matter of
vital interest to the U.S.
The following is a transcript of President
George H.W. Bushs speech during a White House
press conference (August 15, 1990) President
Bush Thank you. Thank you very much. I would
like to begin today by addressing the recent
conflict in Kuwait. Two weeks ago, Kuwait was
invaded by the military forces of Saddam Hussein,
and many are now wondering where the U.S. stands
on its policy. Kuwait is not an easy problem, but
if we don't stop the conflict now, it clearly
will spread and then we will not be able to stop
it except at far greater cost and risk. If we
continue along the present course, the safety of
the American troops in the region, of our friends
and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab
states, and a significant portion of the worlds
supply of oil will all be put at
hazardIntervening in Kuwait will be a matter of
vital interest to the U.S.
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The hypotheses

• Democrats exposed to the Republican issue
  (Kuwait) will be more sensitive to the
  inconsistency between the frames than those
  exposed to the Democrat issue
• Republicans exposed to the Democrat issue
  (Kosovo) will be more sensitive to the
  inconsistency between the frames than those
  exposed to the Republican issue
• There will be no partisan bias in their responses
  to the Neutral (Darfur) issue

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Procedure

• Subjects randomly assigned to one of three
  political issues Democrat (Clinton-Kosovo),
  Republican (Bush-Kuwait), or
• No Affiliation (Neutral-Darfur)
• Pretest questionnaire determined political
  affiliation and knowledge of/attitude on the
  issue (taken from Cohen, 2003)
• Identical stimulus materials read (1 Factsheet on
  the conflict and 2 speeches)
• Posttest questionnaire
• 1) Attitude/ Attitude Strength on the issue
• 2) 12 questions to measure sensitivity to
• frame inconsistencies (Pan Kosicki, 2001)
• 3) 9 questions to measure dominance of one
  frame
• over the other

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Results
256 Total Respondents (Students at UC Irvine)
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Results
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Results Sensitivity to frame inconsistencies
5 Perceived as more consistent
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Results Sensitivity to frame inconsistencies
Although not statistically significant, we see a
trend that supports our hypothesis -
Democrats find the Kuwait frames to be
more inconsistent - Republicans find
the Kosovo frames to be more inconsistent
5 Perceived as more consistent
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Results Perceptions of the politicians character
5 More favorable perception of the politician
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Results Perceptions of the politicians character
Once again, we see a trend that supports our
hypothesis - Democrats find Bush to be
more inconsistent dishonest -
Republicans find Clinton to be more
inconsistent dishonest
5 More favorable perception of the
politician Statistically significant (plt0.05)
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Results Dominant Frame
5 U.S. Interests as the dominant frame 1
Humanitarian Interests as the dominant frame
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Results Dominant Frame
- Democrats believe the military was sent to
Kosovo more for Humanitarian Interests -
Republicans believe the military was sent to
Kosovo more for U.S. Interests
5 U.S. Interests as the dominant frame 1
Humanitarian Interests as the dominant frame
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Conclusions - Inconsistencies in frames go
largely unnoticed - However, when presented
with information from an unfavorable
political party, inconsistencies seem to become
more apparent to the individual - When
presented with information from a favorable
political party, people seem to ignore the
inconsistencies and adopt the more positive
frame Connection to Motivated Reasoning
(Ditto et al, 1998) and Biased Assimilation
(Lord et al, 1979)Future Endeavors - Increase
sample size, find a stronger Republican/conservati
ve sample - Further exploration of the Darfur
phenomenon
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Acknowledgements

• Dr. Peter H. Ditto, UCI
• Mentor

• Dr. Valerie Jenness, UCI
• Honors Seminar Instructor

• Eden Epstein, UCI
• Andrew Mastronarde, UCI
• Wonderfully Helpful Graduate Students

• Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program
  (UROP)
• Funding

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Political chaos is connected with the decay of
language... one can probably bring about some
improvement by starting at the verbal end. -
George Orwell
For more information, please contactJessica
SummersDepartment of Social EcologyUniversity
of California, Irvinejsummers_at_uci.edu