Framing Science

"For the most part, we do not first see, and then define, we define first and then see....There is economy in this. For the attempt to see all things freshly and in detail, rather than as types and generalities, is exhausting, and among busy affairs practically out of the question."
--Journalist/philosopher Walter Lippmann, 1922


When it comes to effective public communication in policy debates, nothing fundamentally separates science from other political issues. For example, in the controversies over stem cell research, global warming, and intelligent design, advocates “frame” messages in ways that resonate with public values and popular culture. These tactics play on the perceptual biases of the public, making it easy for citizens to reach decisions and articulate opinions with little or no technical understanding of the underlying issue.

Despite the widespread use of framing tactics, an idealized view of the public still predominates. The assumption is that the best way to communicate with citizens is through science-laden messages: if the public knew more about the technical complexities involved, citizens would be more likely to view issues as scientists do, and controversies would go away.

However, this idealized “popular science” model runs up against the reality of how citizens actually use the news media to reach judgments about public affairs. More than sixty years of research in political science, sociology, and communication shows that citizens are rarely well enough informed, or even motivated, to weigh competing ideas and arguments. Instead, most citizens are “cognitive misers.”

Faced with a daily torrent of news, it is quite reasonable for citizens to employ a form of “low information rationality,” actively using short-cuts such as partisanship and religious identity to make up their minds about otherwise complex debates.

In this respect, science-related issues are no different than any other public affairs topic. Across survey analyses, knowledge only explains a small amount of the variance in public attitudes about controversial science, while value predispositions such as partisanship, religious beliefs, and ideology are stronger influences on opinion.

Whether it is the war in Iraq or the battle over stem cell research, citizens are likely to use their value predispositions as “perceptual screens,” cutting down on their choices about which news stories to pay attention to and which arguments to accept as valid.

Strong “preference gaps” also exist, as citizens not only select among media choices based on ideology or religious views, but also based on their preference, or lack thereof, for science-related content. As a result, in a modern media system suffused with information sources of varying degrees of credibility and value, traditional science coverage only reaches a relatively small audience of science enthusiasts.

Generalizable Frames Across Science Debates

Investments in formal science education and traditional science media remain important as long term strategies, since these initiatives will hopefully sponsor generational gains in citizen knowledge. Yet, in the contentious policy debates that take place over an election cycle or a few years, scientists must learn to focus on “framing” their messages in ways that engage specific publics, while discovering new media platforms for reaching targeted audiences. (Go here for a general explanation of framing)

Previous studies describe a set of frames that appear to reoccur across science-related policy debates (see references marked *.) Originally identified in a classic examination of nuclear energy, the typology has also been further developed in studies of biotechnology in Europe and the United States. At Framing Science, I have been applying this typology to other issues such as global warming, nanotechnology, and the teaching of evolution.

The anatomy of frames. Before elaborating on the typology, a few key details need to be covered. Frames as general organizing devices should not be confused with specific policy positions. As the sociologist William Gamson and his colleagues describe, individuals can disagree on an issue but share the same interpretative frame. In other words, each frame as an organizing device for arguments and interpretations is "valence neutral," meaning that it can take pro, anti, and neutral positions, though one position might be in more common use than others. Frames and their underlying meanings are often communicated in short hand by catch phrases, sound bites, graphics, and allusions to history.

Consider the example of embryonic stem cell research. A dominant frame is that the debate is really a question of "morality/ethics". Both sides use this interpretation to argue their case in the debate. Research opponents say it is morally wrong to destroy embryos, since they constitute human life. Research supporters say it is morally wrong to hold back on research that could lead to important cures.

The "morality/ethics" frame is communicated by the use of several kinds of “frame devices” that include a) metaphors such as "scientists are playing God," or "scientists racing to find a cure," b) comparisons to historical exemplars such as the Holocaust or discovering the cure for Polio, c) catch phrases such as "respect for life," “crossing an important moral boundary,” or "it is pro-life to be pro-research" and d) photo-ops such as Bush posing with "snowflake" babies.

A Frame Typology

In this section I label and describe the latent meanings behind a set frames that previous research depicts as re-occurring across science-related policy debates. Identifying a generalizable typology has many benefits, particularly in anticipating sources of controversy, and in fashioning messages that resonate with specific stakeholders and publics.

Several of the frames listed below are linked to specific examples I have archived at this blog over the past year.

The scientific issue is essentially about, or is really a matter of:

Social Progress : Emphasis on improving quality of life, or solving problems. Alternative interpretation focuses on harmony with nature instead of mastery, an emphasis on “sustainability.”

Economic development/competitiveness : Emphasis on economic investment, market benefits or risks; local, national, or global competitiveness.

Morality/ethics : Emphasis on right or wrong; respecting or crossing limits, thresholds, or boundaries.

Scientific/technical uncertainty : Emphasis on expert understanding; what is known and unknown; invoking or undermining consensus, “sound science,” or peer-review.

A Pandora’s box/runaway science : Emphasis on precaution in face of possible impacts or catastrophe, or on science as out-of-control, a Frankenstein’s monster, includes potentially fatalism, i.e. action is futile, path is chosen, there is no turning back.

Public accountability/governance : Emphasis on science in the public versus private interest; ownership and control, responsible use or abuse of power; “politicization,” majority versus minority opinion.

Third way/alternative path: Emphasis on possible compromise position, a middle way between conflicting views or options.

Conflict/strategy: Emphasis on science as a game among elites; a focus on who’s ahead or behind in winning a debate; a battle of personalities or among groups. (Usually a journalist-driven interpretation.)

Recommended research related to the media, science, and the public:

*Bauer, M. W.; Gaskell, G. (eds.) (2002). Biotechnology: The Making of a Global Controversy. New York: Cambridge University Press.

*Bauer, M. W.; Gaskell, G. (eds.) (2001). Biotechnology 1996-2000: The Years of Controversy. Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press.

Besley, J. C., McComas, K. A., & Waks, L. (2006). Media use and the perceived justice of local science authorities. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 83 (4), 801-818.

Bloom, P. & Weisberg-Skolnick D (2007). Childhood Origins of Adult Resistance to Science. Science, 316, 5827, 996 - 997.

Bonfedelli, H. (2005). Mass media and biotechnology: Knowledge gaps within and between European countries. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 17, 1, 42-62.

Brossard, D. & Nisbet, M.C. (2007). Deference to Scientific Authority among a Low Information Public: Understanding American Views about Agricultural Biotechnology. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 19, 1, 24-52.

*Dahinden, U. (2002). Biotechnology in Switzerland: Frames in a Heated Debate. Science Communication, 24, 184-197.

*Durant, J., Bauer, M.W., & Gaskell, G. (1998). Biotechnology in the Public Sphere: A European Sourcebook. Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press.

Hilgartner, S. (1990). The Dominant View of Popularization: Conceptual Problems, Political Uses. Social Studies of Science, 20 (3), 519-539.

Hilgartner, S. & Bosk, C.L. (1988). The Rise and Fall of Social Problems: A Public Arenas Model. American Journal of Sociology, 94, 53-78.

Kirby, D.A. (2003). Science Consultants, Fictional Films and Scientific Practice. Social Studies of Science, 33, (2) 231-268.

*Gamson, WA. & Modigliani, A. (1989). Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power: A Constructionist Approach. American Journal of Sociology, 95, 1-37.

Goidel, K. & Nisbet, M.C. (2006). Exploring the Roots of Public Participation in the Controversy over Stem Cell Research and Cloning. Political Behavior, 28 (2), 175-192.

Lieserowitz, A.A. (2004). Before and after the Day After Tomorrow: A U.S. Study of Climate Change Risk Perceptions. Environment, 46, 9, 23-37.

McComas, K. & Shanahan, J (1999). Telling Stories about Global Climate Change: Measuring the Impact of Narratives on Issue Cycles. Communication Research, 26 (1), 30-57.

*McCright, A.M. & Dunlap, R.E. (2003). Defeating Kyoto: The Conservative Movement’s Impact on U.S. Climate Change Policy. Social Problems, 50, (3), 348-373.

Nisbet, M.C. (2004). The Polls: Public opinion about stem cell research and human cloning. Public Opinion Quarterly, 68 (1), 132-155.

Nisbet, M.C. (2005). The Competition for Worldviews: Values, Information, and Public Support for Stem Cell Research. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 17, 1, 90-112.

*Nisbet, M.C., Brossard, D., & Kroepsch, A. (2003). Framing science: The stem cell controversy in an age of press/politics. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 8 (2), 36-70.

*Nisbet, M.C. & Huge, M (2006). Attention cycles and frames in the plant biotechnology debate: Managing power and participation through the press/policy connection. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 11, 2, 3-40.

*Nisbet, M.C. & Huge, M. (2007). Where do Science Policy Debates Come From? Understanding Attention Cycles and Framing. In D. Brossard, J. Shanahan, and C. Nesbitt (Eds.) The Public, The Media, and Agricultural Biotechnology. Cambridge, MA: CABI Publishing Inc. (pp 193-230.)

*Nisbet, M.C. & Lewenstein, B.V. (2002). Biotechnology and the American media: The policy process and the elite press, 1970 to 1999. Science Communication, 23 (4) 359-391.

Scheufele, D. A. (2006). Messages and Heuristics: How Audiences Form Attitudes about Emerging Technologies. In J. Turney (Ed.), Engaging science: Thoughts, deeds, analysis and action (pp. 20-25). London: The Wellcome Trust.

Scheufele, D.A. & Lewenstein, B.V. (2005). The Public and Nanotechnology: How Citizens Make Sense of Emerging Technologies. Journal of Nanoparticle Research, 7 (6):659-667.

Sturgis, P. & Allum, N. (2004). Science in Society: Re-Evaluating the Deficit Model of Public Attitudes. Public Understanding of Science, 13, 1, 55-74.

Wynne, B. (1992). Misunderstood Misunderstanding: Social Identities and Public Uptake of Science. Public Understanding of Science, 1, 281-304.