Is Anyone Responsible?: How Television Frames Political Issues

In his book Is Anyone Responsible? (1991), Shanto Iyengar evaluates the framing effects of television news on political issues. The book explores the agenda-setting role of television news. When he refers to the term framing the concept given refers to "subtle alterations in the statement or presentation of judgement and choice problems, and the term "framing effect" refer to changes in decision outcomes resulting from these alternations." Shanto Iyengar, professor of political science and communication studies at UCLA, has pioneered the research in the framing effects of news coverage on public opinion and political choice. He explains that viewers are "sensitive to contextual cues when they reason about national affairs. Their explanations of issues like terrorism or poverty are critically dependent upon the particular reference points furnished in media presentations." The frames for a given story are seldom conscientiously chosen but represent instead the effort of the journalist or sponsor to convey a story in a direct and meaningful way. As such, news frames are frequently drawn from, and reflective of, shared cultural narratives and myths and resonate with the larger social themes to which journalists tend to be acutely sensitive.Through a series of laboratory experiments (reports of which constitute the core of the book), he finds that the framing of issues by television news shapes the way the public understands the causes of and the solutions to central political problems. The research reported in Is Anyone Responsible? examines two ways in which television news frames issues, these issues being episodic and thematic. Episodic framing depicts concrete events that illustrate issues, while thematic framing present's collective advice or general advice. Television news is routinely reported in the form of specific events or particular cases - Iyengar calls this "episodic" news framing - which is counterpoised to "thematic" coverage which places political issues and events in some general context. "Episodic framing depicts concrete events that illustrate issues, while thematic framing presents collective or general evidence."Iyengar found that subjects shown episodic reports were less likely to consider society responsible for the event, and subjects shown thematic reports were less likely to consider individuals responsible. In one of the clearest demonstrations of this phenomenon, subjects who viewed stories about poverty that featured homeless or unemployed people (episodic framing) were much more likely to blame poverty on individual failings, such as laziness or low education, than were those who instead watched stories about high national rates of unemployment or poverty (thematic framing). Viewers of the thematic frames were more likely to attribute the causes and solutions to governmental policies and other factors beyond the victim's control. The episodic frame is the more prevalent one. It ordinarily takes the form of a report ba