EOTO: Framing Theory

Framing Theory is often known as the process by which people develop a particular conceptualization of an issue or their thinking of an issue. This is often demonstrated in various news sources, when broadcasters present an issue to the public, but only share one side of the story. This creates judgements and biases of a subject before the person receiving the information fully understands the subject, so that they could make their own opinion about the situation. Israeli psychologists were the first to systematically study this topic and prove the framing theory affects our decision making. Framing theory can often be mistaken as agenda setting theory, which is the exposure to a message many repeated times that leads you to believe it to be true just based on how much you see it. Though these theories sound and are similar, framing theory is more precise in showing you a story exactly how you should see and feel about it. 

The main effect of framing theory is manipulation. It is your awareness about situations and topics, and gives you a false perspective of a situation. You may think that you know everything about a subject after listening to just one news source, but in reality that news source could be extremely biased and leave out very important pieces to the story to their advantage. Whether we realize it or not, our decisions and choices about something heavily rely on how it's presented, worded, and even looks. The most common framing seen most often is something that draws positive gain, or negative gain towards an object, person, or situation. Another reason that framing theory takes place is because our brains are wired to make shortcuts to preserve time and energy. This is also known as “heuristics”. Heuristics are shortcuts in the brain that help us make quick decisions about things in a timely manner. Though this is helpful to us in many ways, it leaves us more susceptible to framing theory due to the lack of fully processing the situation before making a definite decision about it, and not re-evaluating. 

How can this be avoided?

The best way to avoid and overcome framing theory is to understand that other people will not see the problem from the same perspective as you, and collect news from multiple sources. With this being said, it's crucial to seek information from multiple sources and different perspectives. To fully understand a story, you must be willing to look past the simple frame that framing theory is showing you. Though framing theory is mainly seen in the news, we can see it in many other aspects of our lives, even including the grocery store. While shopping for groceries you see two different beef products that cost and weigh exactly the same. One of them says 80% lean, while the other says 20% fat. After comparing the two, you come to the conclusion that the 80% lean meat seems like a healthier option than the 20% fat. In reality, these are the same steaks, but the packaging led one to be in favor of the other.