FRAMESHOP:FRAMESHOP: THE 5 STEPS

Framing the political debate is not just about making up new words. But how is it done?

Framing in Five Steps:

1. Stop Repeating Their Words
2. Go to Another Frame
3. Build a New Frame
4. Break it Down
5. Repeat Our Words

Frameshop is open...

Step One: Stop Repeating their Words
When the opposition controls the debate by setting the frame, the only way out is to stop using the language provided by the opposition. Stop using all their words, immediately. Repetition is how a frame is reinforced, so the only way to break it--the only way--is to stop repeating the words that evoke it. There is no other way. This may seem artificial at first, but without this first step, it will not be possible to take control of the debate. Remember that a well-set frame allows plenty of latitude for an opposing point of view.

Step Two: Go to Another Frame
For most people, this will be the hardest concept to understand. "Wait a minute! There are other frames ‘out there’ for me to go to? You make frames sound like rooms in a hotel!" Close. They are not quite rooms, but it is helpful to think of a frame as a place rather than a set of ideas. One way to go to another frame, for example, would be go to a place where issues and ideas are being discussed in a completely different language. Leave the country! Not very convenient, but possible. Going to the mountains and getting away from everything would not do it. You need to be in a new place where political issues are being discussed in a different way.

Since literal travel is expensive and time-consuming, the easiest way to go to another frame is to immerse oneself in the political speech of another time period in American politics. To go to another frame for Social Security, for example, I read FDR's 1935 Fireside speech on Welfare and social security (FDR used small letters). Any number of speeches might have gotten me to another place on Social Security, but FDR really worked for me. To go to another frame for the War in Iraq and the War on Terror, I read MLK’s April 4 1967 speech on the Vietnam War. It’s a powerful speech and it discussed issues in completely different frame than the current debate. After reading FDR and MLK a few times, I was deep in another frame and ready to move onto step three.

Step Three: Build a New Frame
Now that you have a new place to stand that is outside the current frame, start the work of building up a new frame. From this other place, this other frame, ask what this particular issue is all about. Some people like to start with this formula:

[abstract issue] is a [concrete thing]

That’s a basic formula for constructing metaphors. For example, the Republicans did this: [Social Security] is a [bank account]. And all their assumptions follow from this. The Progressive frame for Social Security by contrast begins with this metaphor: [The Nation] is a [group of people standing together]. From there I introduced a second level metaphor: [Social Security] is a [person]. This in turn provided the broad logic inside of which I could generate all the individual statements about how Social Security worked, how it helped the country, seniors, young people, and so forth.

Building a new frame is much, much easier to do while listening to FDR—in other words: while standing in a different frame than the current one that’s defining debate. In fact, it was a joy. Social Security, I could clearly see from FDR’s frame, is not about money. It's about unity. Unity is the achievement of a society dedicated to general good over the selfishness of the individual or the individual group. Social Security is not about writing checks to seniors. It is the hand of the nation reaching out to older workers, guiding them safely out of the work force, making sure they have what they need to keep standing with the rest of the nation, and in doing so to make room for younger workers. With that hand extending to the older generation of workers, younger Americans feel more secure about the future, generations do not crowd each other out of the chance to support themselves, and we can all stand unified and strong. Notice how my narrative also talks about seniors and retiring, and money and work. But it's all set in a completely different logic. If we want to bring back the talk about insurance and accounts at a certain point, fine. But we need to wait until this frame has been strongly set to do that.

Step Four: Break it Down
The frame is a big narrative painted in broad strokes. It’s about values and issues and people and things. It’s not very portable. So to use it in organizational web sites, speeches, commercials, letters to the editor, party platforms, fundraising letters, and public debates, we first need to break it down into bite-size pieces. This is what happens in the Frameshop Alerts. Breaking things down gives organizers the basic tools for brainstorming specific terms that can be useful on the ground.

Step Five: Repeat Our Words
Repetition—the very thing we stopped when we began this process—is now what we return to set up the new frame that’s been created. Repeat, repeat, and repeat those words and phrases that evoke the values and logic of the frame.

"But I Don't Have Time for All That!"
Remember, not everyone is going to have the time or the motivation for all five steps. We all need to stop using the language of the opposition, because that’s the basic act that reinforces their frame. But we many not all have time to hunt down historic speeches that help us get inside a new logic or have time to brainstorm new phrases.

Step one and step five, when combined, can sound like this: Stop repeating your opponent’s words, start repeating your own words.

And if that’s all you have time to do, that will hold the day if you trust the people working on the more abstract and time consuming project of building the new frames.

That’s how it’s done! Just five easy steps.