• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
  • WORLD DEMOCRACY
  • POLITICAL ART
  • more
    • election technology
    • money politics
    • political dissidents
    • THIRD PARTY
      • third party central
      • green party
      • justice party
      • libertarian party
    • voting methods
  • DC INFO
    • author central
    • about
    • advertise with DC
    • contact
    • privacy policy

Democracy Chronicles

Filters of Truth: A Critical Perspective on News Framing

by Aydasara Ortega - November 16, 2015

FacebookTweetLinkedInPin
News Framing
Graphite drawings by artist Ruben Rivera (www.rubenart.com)

“I suppose the most revolutionary act one can engage in is … to tell the truth.1”

– Howard Zinn

News framing refers to how layout design, placement, and headlines are used by the media to express what’s deemed as important; sensationalizing, downplaying or exaggerating it. Frames originate with the beliefs of journalists regarding what constitutes topics for the news – what becomes a political “reality” – which includes people and groups’ activities that sponsor particular interpretations of issues within specific cultural contexts2. “Why should we cherish “objectivity”, as if ideas were innocent, as if they don’t serve one interest or another?3”

News FramingThus, a news frame – the layout, placement, and prominence given in a publication to a story – represents the publishers’, owners’, and advertisers’ values and policies. The editors decide the stories that are to make it to the front page. Decision that includes which stories will have pictures, which ones will be short or long, sensationalized or minimized.

Journalists might be the stories’ writers yet the editors are the ones who decide a certain wording for the headlines. “It is a world of clashing interests – war against peace, nationalism against internationalism, equality against greed, and democracy against elitism – and it seems to me both impossible and undesirable to be neutral in those conflicts.4”

If you and I were to carry on a frame analysis, we would take away our attention from the content of the story and transfer our focus to how the newspaper’s layout, story prominence, and the language of the headline shape viewpoints, are able to influence. This kind of analysis recognizes what kind of information will be stressed, curtailed, or muted by adhering to one perspective.

You and I would then become more conscious of how these elusive elements have a premeditated effect on the audience, be it readers or listeners. Frame analysis helps us detach from the frame’s persuasive power in order to gain a less subjective and more objective angle of any concealed standpoint in it. “Surely, we want to be objective if that means telling the truth as we see it, not concealing information that may be embarrassing to our point of view. But we don’t want to be objective if it means pretending that ideas don’t play a part in the social struggles of our time, that we don’t take sides in those struggles.5”

With growing awareness that the information we get is filtered through human viewpoints, we begin to question what we read, hear, and watch. “[H]ow do we explain our identification with French suffering and our apparent indifference to Lebanese suffering? Or more to the point, how do we explain our indifference to the suffering of people we perceive as different, Lebanese, African, Hazara, Muslim…. Brown people.6”

We inquire about who decides what becomes news and why. “Meanwhile, in a brown part of the world, as the attacks began in Paris, Lebanon was just emerging from a National Day of Mourning, after 43 people were killed and 200 more were injured during a series of coordinated suicide bombings in Beirut.7” Are the reporters we read, “see”, and “listen” to filters of truth? Are they committed to public service? “We were not born critical of existing society. There was a moment in our lives (or a month, or a year) when certain facts appeared before us, startled us, and then caused us to question beliefs that were strongly fixed in our consciousness-embedded there by years of family prejudices, orthodox schooling, imbibing of newspapers, radio, and television.8”

LINKS:

1. Howard Zinn. Marx in Soho: A Play on History.
2. Oxford Bibliographies. News Framing.
3. Howard Zinn. Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Chris Graham. Paris Attacks Highlight Western Vulnerability, And Our Selective Grief And Outrage. November 14, 2015. www.newmatilda.com.
7. Ibid.
8. Howard Zinn. Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology.

FacebookTweetLinkedInPin

Filed Under: DC Authors Tagged With: France, Journalism and Free Speech, Lebanon

About Aydasara Ortega

Aydasara Ortega Torres writes for Democracy Chronicles from New York. She is a Faculty Member of Psychology at the College of Mount Saint Vincent. Also take a look at her website for more of her work.

Some highlighted Democracy Chronicles topics

Africa American Corruption American Local Elections American State Elections Asia Capitalism and Big Business Celebrity Politics China Democracy Charity Democracy Protests Democrats Dictatorships Education Election History Election Methods Election Security Election Transparency Europe Internet and Democracy Journalism and Free Speech Middle East Minority Voting Rights Money Politics New York City and State Elections Political Artwork Political Dissidents Political Lobbying Redistricting Republicans Russia Socialism and Labor Social Media and Democracy South America Spying and Privacy Supreme Court Third Party Voter Access Voter ID Voter Registration Voter Suppression Voter Turnout Voting Technology Women Voting Rights Worldwide Worldwide Corruption

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Home | DC AUTHORS | Filters of Truth: A Critical Perspective on News Framing

Primary Sidebar

Advertise button

Harnessing The Power Of “We The People” On Independence Day

By Jenna Spinelle July 3, 2022

Democracy does not have a singular definition, which is one of the things that makes it so interesting to me — and undoubtedly to many of you.

Florida Doesn’t Need a Speech Czar

By Steve Schneider June 28, 2022

Full disclosure: I’m a liberal Democrat. So, I won’t be sending in my vote-by-mail ballot for Ron DeSantis in November. Nor will I vote for him in 2024.

democracy chronicles newsletter

DC AUTHORS

Introducing: When The People Decide

By Jenna Spinelle June 25, 2022

Several activists and average citizens have changed their communities and the country by taking important issues directly to votes.

Democracy’s Summer Blockbusters

By Jenna Spinelle June 8, 2022

The summer will be legally and politically charged particularly with the January 6 committee hearings scheduled to begin June 9.

Can American Democracy Have Nice Things?

By Jenna Spinelle June 7, 2022

Universal voting would be the surest way to protect against voter suppression and the active disenfranchisement of a large share of our citizens.

PODCAST: Baby Boomers And American Gerontocracy

By Jenna Spinelle May 23, 2022

Older and younger voters are increasingly at odds: Republicans as a whole skew gray-haired, and within the Democratis, the left-leaning youth vote.

A Dangerous Reprise Of American Exceptionalism In Ukraine

By Jamie Lampidis May 15, 2022

The stakes are too high to cave into Putin’s phantasmatic imperial play, and too high to believe that this war can be won by arming Ukrainians.

On The Coming End Of Roe v. Wade

By Peter J. Dellolio May 11, 2022

Anyone who says that the evolution of law has nothing to do with politics is either very corrupt or very stupid. Laws evolved through the centuries.

Goodbye Roe v. Wade, Goodbye Rule Of Law

By Andrew Straw May 5, 2022

Congress should impeach judges who act like that because it is not good behavior, and they were asked not to act that way when they were confirmed.

MORE FROM OUR AUTHORS

VISIT OUR POLITICAL ART SECTION:

dc political art

DEMOCRACY CULTURE

Magnum Photographers Challenged To Picture Swiss Democracy

Magnum Photographers Challenged To Picture Swiss Democracy

July 6, 2022

Magnum photographers accustomed to exploring crisis regions have been challenged to capture the quiet operation of Swiss democracy.

India: Why Are Punjab Political Singers Under Attack?

India: Why Are Punjab Political Singers Under Attack?

June 8, 2022

The murder of Sidhu Moose Wala has brought attention to the link between Punjabi music and India’s cross-border criminal networks.

University Educated Less Likely To Endorse Authoritarianism

University Educated Less Likely To Endorse Authoritarianism

June 4, 2022

Higher education is now seen as a new political cleavage, with level of education increasingly important in describing political attitudes.

From Cake To Volunteers, Welcome To Australia’s Democracy Day

From Cake To Volunteers, Welcome To Australia’s Democracy Day

May 25, 2022

The atmosphere in the interstate polling booth in Sydney’s inner east resembled that of an emergency room waiting for a donor organ.

Kenyan 'Cartooning For Peace' To Draw Africa Towards Democracy

Kenyan ‘Cartooning For Peace’ To Draw Africa Towards Democracy

May 17, 2022

Cartooning is an art that has been playing a major role in illustrating stories in different ways, from health to politics, and even sports.

MORE CULTURE

VISIT OUR US DEMOCRACY SECTION:

American Democracy