Drake Memes and Puppies

The American public as a whole is over-stimulated and easily bored and distracted, and therefore requires a level of excitement for its attention to be captured. I realize this is a broad and somewhat judgmental statement, but if you question it, take a look at your Facebook timeline or your Twitter feed and see if you can count all the Drake memes or cat pictures posted just today by your friends who were supposed to be working. Exhibit A was posted today by one of my Facebook friends, likely from her work computer:

This collective attention deficit and the thirst for excitement are why we love sports and reality shows. They capture our attention with competition, drama, a level of violence even, and we just eat it up. Fortunately for us, the media recognizes our short attention spans, and they know how to trick us into thinking we're watching a recap of the world's most over-the-top reality show when we're actually watching a news story about the election. The way they do this is through "framing," which essentially means focusing on a specific issue or telling stories in a certain way in order to influence the way stories will be heard.

"Horse race," "conflict," "candidate attributes" and "issue" are the frames on which media outlets typically rely. Horse race framing refers to the practice of covering a presidential campaign as if it was actually, as the name suggests, a horse race. This type of coverage focuses heavily on the competition, and often includes poll numbers. The draw here is clear, as this type of coverage is eerily similar to coverage of a sporting event- scores (polls) and all.


Conflict framing is where the media gets to relive high school and gossip relentlessly about which of the drama queens are arguing this week; the drama queens in this case being the candidates for leader of the free world. This is where America gets its reality show fix in the presidential race. As an avid 'Bachelor' junkie, I recognize what they're trying to do here. "Tensions rise this week, as the candidates fight to win America's heart. Don't miss the jaw-dropping brawl between Donald and Ted. And next week, Hillary will dance for America's love! This could be the most dramatic season of 'The Presidency' yet! Sponsored by Twitter."

Photoshopped for dramatic effect.

Candidate attribute framing involves discussion about the candidates' positive qualities, personal failings or deficiencies, experience, demeanor, abilities, etc. This type of framing is all about the candidate. Often, this includes analysis of these attributes with relation to the candidate's ability to get elected or to be president. Arguably, this is not news; rather, it is a chance for the journalists and political analysts to share their opinions. People seem to eat this up, though. Perhaps they like hearing others' perspectives? Or, perhaps they enjoy having someone to reassure them that the candidates from the opposing party are, in fact, plotting the downfall of America.

The last frame, "issue", is unfortunately vastly underused in the 2016 race. This type of framing focuses on actual policy and issues which will face whoever is elected. One would think that this would be the most heavily discussed, as a president's policies and stances on issues are kinda important. This is not the case. I was able to find a total of one article focused on issues out of four media outlet websites, and that took some digging. The people want entertainment, and it's difficult to make policy exciting. Maybe if they blew up cars or had 100 puppies playing in the background? To be honest, though, that sounds extremely distracting. Oh, well. I tried. Here are some puppies!

Animal rights activists, calm down. They're rescues.

Framing: rounding up the information

As the race to the White House comes closer and closer to the finish line, the media has made it a point to push as much information as possible to the public. Such a task could prove to be chaotic, so it's up to media outlets to 'frame' the information by organizing it and producing digestible chunks. The following shows just how each of the outlets frame out information.

Horse Race: The horse race applies to ballots already tallied. What this does is it allows counters to know who's ahead and who's behind, thus giving rise to the metaphor of the horse race. By placing the information on a bar graph, we get a graphical feel for who's in the lead and with how many delegates, who's in second, or third, etc.



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Conflict: Conflict sells. This is why the news reports always lead off with what could be argued as the story that's sure to get the emotions burning in viewers. With the current campaign trail, conflict has been thrown between all candidates, so that any viewers attached to one or more candidates can feel more engaged emotionally. Even within their own party, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump have been going constantly at it like two children, according to New York Magazine: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/03/trump-threatens-cruzs-wife-sparks-twitter-beef.html

Issues: Perhaps the most important aspect of candidate media to any independent voter are issues. Here, the candidates look at problems our country faces, analyzes for a bigger picture, and then diagnoses a solution in order to attract voters to their cause. Some of these issues they're more vocal about, but by not addressing them all, they could potentially lose more voters. John Kasich's stand against Planned Parenthood has already drawn criticism from people who see Kasich as a moderate. Ontheissues.org make this part of the process simple for both the public and the media:  http://www.ontheissues.org/Senate/Ted_Cruz.htm

Candidate attributes: Bernie Sanders has committed himself to following a more righteous path, one where he insists upon operating without the backup of large corporations in order to prove that he is not beholden to their demands. This has led him to being seen in public and flying coach, which puts him on more even footing than perhaps necessary with constituents. Donald Trump is also an anti-establishment character, not taking money from big coporations, either, but the boisterous talk and the vitriol are off putting.. These two are showing their attributes, which is arguable the most attractive or detracting part of any candidate. By following their actions, people feel emotionally attached. http://learningenglish.voanews.com/content/us-presidential-candidates-react-to-brussels-attacks/3251384.html

Hillary and Trump defy framing.

They defy framing because they don't fit a category, neither of them do. Each of them unlike most politicians is their own man or woman, not something stamped and created. Neither Hillary or Trump sell parties or brands, they sell themselves. I’ve learned this partially from talking to people who support either one and they are more likely to tell me about how great their candidate is on an issue and less likely to tell me about that issue. Right now a lot of the debate is centering on foreign policy so this is where I will direct my attention to is this hybrid assignment.

The Horse race: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the winners of the Horse Race. They have the delegates and they have clear enough numbers that nomination is almost a certainty. The primaries are still ongoing but itsall over but the shouting. 

The Conflict: The debate between Hillary and Trump is different than the debate between the Republicans and the Democrats. The debate between the Republicans and Democrats has traditionally been between cold and warm, tough and nice, force and diplomacy. This is no longer true if we take into account the candidates their running.

The Issues: Before when I would hear people debating the candidates I would hear people talk about how the Republicans were "strong on defense" and others arguing that the Democrats "would keep us out of wars". Maybe that’s still true about the parties Hillary and Trump have swapped those sets of issues. Hillary seems to want a confrontation with Russia while Trump wants to get along with them. Hillary wants America to be pro-Israel while Trump wants to be neutral.  It’s confusing if you think of them as representations of their parties.

The Attributes: 

Here’s the thing. They’re not, their strong leaders, both very accomplished in their careers, you can tell in how they talk how they carry themselves, they’ll say what they have to get elected but neither of them will be anyone’s puppet, both have the personal and political strength to create a cult of personality. 

Conclusion:

This can be considered both good and bad depending on how you view it. If you’re a party loyalist well you frame of thought, your way of deciding where your vote goes just doesn’t work anymore. On a personal note I don’t like the candidates but I like the chaos, the status quo. My advice for those who are voting is to focus on the candidate and not the party, because the old rules no longer apply.

Media Framing

News networks have sensationalized this year’s election by presenting us every day with many conflicts and issue. Ads for debates are similar to an ad you would see on an MTV reality show. CNN shows the faces of all individuals running for a party in the dark. The public can’t wait to see the fights between each candidate. Every debate is as exciting Pacquiao vs. Mayweather.

      

Conflict within a party is dramatic and the media does a great job of highlighting specific issues for each party. Democratic are concerned with the flint water crisis and its racist undertones so democratic candidates are asked direct questions about black lives matter. On the republican side the issue agenda has primarily been dictated by Donald trump whose controversy has made most things that come out of his mouth, an issue.

He has also ignited debated based on his attributes. His physical appearance comes under fire in memes and social media outlets while his policies are not very popular with young progressives.

The media does a great job reporting information in a frame of a conflicts, issue, and or criticism/praising of a candidates attributes. Many networks, including CNN tend to cover election days as a big race or sporting event. No one does horse race journalism better then CNN. Live coverage of every primary include a key race alerts every few minutes.

  

FRAMES IN THE 2016 POLITICAL MEDIA

In this article, “Trump and Cruz shift to trench warfare,” Politico focuses mostly on the horserace frame and the current race for delegates between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in light of the Arizona and Utah primaries. Trump has won 19 of the 29 states that have already held primaries or caucuses, giving him solid front runner status, but Cruz and Kasich have enough delegates between them to potentially keep Trump from reaching the necessary 1,237 delegates needed for the nomination. Though primarily focusing on the horserace frame, the article also has key elements of conflict and issue frames as it shows Cruz and Trump at conflict with one another, Trump at conflict with the GOP establishment, and also speaks to comments made by Trump and Cruz in the wake of the Brussels terrorist attack. Trump calls for “the return of torture to American policy” and poises himself as the candidate who can keep America safe by severely limiting immigration. Cruz, not wanting to be overshadowed again by Trump’s comments, calls for heightened police patrolling of Muslim neighborhoods.

This article similarly contains several frames, focusing mainly on candidate attributes and horserace frames between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. It discusses where the candidates land on attributes like empathy, honesty, experience, and having the “right personality.” These are all specifically related to the attribute frame, but in the article they pit Clinton and Trump against each other using poll results to display how each candidate compares to one another in these attributes, making it an example of the conflict frame as well.  

Depending on where the reader or audience falls, I feel the primary impact of horserace and conflict journalism frames as relates to the GOP candidates is to update the Republican voters on where everyone stands to help them make their decision. Many just want to pick a “winner” and thus align themselves with Trump, casting their votes there in an effort to help him secure enough delegates. Others simply do NOT want Trump—and this horserace style frame can show them where to strategically or tactically cast their vote in an effort to keep delegates away from Trump. 

Framing the presidential race

By THOMAS HARTWELL

The presidential race in any context is a media frenzy, but this race has been unlike any before it in many ways. As with any story, the media make choices as to how to approach the stories surrounding the presidential race, and there are four commonly used "frames" of presentation, all of which have been used to cover the year's campaigns.

Horse Race:


Horse race journalism in the political spectrum is the presentation of information as a contest or comparison of, in this case, presidential candidates. There's been a lot of talk about a possible convention contest for the Republican nomination this campaign season, and that has opened the door for A LOT of horse race journalism. With a race this close between Trump and Cruz and a candidate pulling delegates away from the two front-runners, many outlets are taking the opportunity to present some "who will win the sprint to 1,237?" stories. There has been some in regard to the Democrats' race as well, but with a race on the left seemingly more and more decidedly won by Hillary, there have been more stories about the change that Sanders' campaign has brought to politics than "who will win?"

From the Associated Press

Conflict:

Horse race and conflict presentation of the Republican race have gone hand-in-hand this campaign season. As the race has continued and candidates have dropped out, there has been more opportunity for conflict-frame journalism. For instance, this CNN article incorporates elements of the delegate race, but describes the race for the nomination between Trump and Cruz as a "duel." A search for stories about Trump on CNN and other news outlets provides a look at the presentation of Trump's campaign strategy: conflict frame and a "Trump vs..." mentality. 

From cnn.com search

Issues:

Candidates of the same party and especially opposite parties LOVE to slam each other on policy issues -- the presidential race produces plenty of these opportunities. While most attacks come on an opponent's stance on ongoing issues, current events also play a part. For example, Trump and Cruz chose to slam President Obama on immigration regulations and international terrorism in response to terrorist attacks in Brussels, Tuesday. Stories written on the issues provide voters and onlookers with the ability -- hopefully objectively, but we all know, not so much -- to make decisions based on those issues. Trump has also generated lots of attention and media spotlight for himself by making large and outrageous issue claims. He's actually winning in the presidential race on lots of the "important issues," because he has so much coverage out there on his policy on those issues.

From msnbc.com

Candidate Attributes:

Another frame of media coverage dominated by Donald Trump and, some may argue, Bernie Sanders. Trump and Sanders' revolutionary approach to U.S. politics has changed the race for good, and a lot of that focuses on their personal attributes. Plenty of stories have focused on Trump's deficiencies, outlining why he couldn't, shouldn't or wouldn't be President of the United States.

From toptens.com

This article even outlines ten reasons why Donald Trump should not be the next president, citing his past words, actions, claims, etc. 

Framing the 2016 Election

There are a number of ways in which news outlets frame their stories. This Politico article entitled “Sanders scrambles to keep pace with Clinton” illustrates one type of framing, horse race coverage, well. The article discusses Bernie Sander’s recent wins in Utah and Idaho, as well as the upcoming states his campaign expects to perform well in. The article also discusses Sander’s delegate count and the long odds his campaign has of overcoming Hillary Clinton. Framing the article by Sander’s position in the Democratic nomination race could cause voters to view the candidate negatively when confronted with the fact Sander’s will likely lose.

Another type of framing centers on conflict within a political race. The Politico article titled “Trump and Cruz shift to trench warfare” illustrates this, along with some horse race coverage. The article discusses recent attacks between the three remaining Republican candidates, including over the wives of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. In addition to this, the article talks of recent attacks on Kasich that he should drop out of the race. Coverage like this could make readers develop negative views of some candidates, depending on whether they agree with the criticisms or not.

Additionally, media outlets can frame stories by covering issues. “Ted Cruz: Police need to 'patrol and secure' Muslim neighborhoods,” an article from CNN, talks of recent statements made by Ted Cruz in regards to national security and religious liberty. The CNN article discusses Cruz’s support for increased policing of Muslim heavy areas within the U.S. This type of coverage could influence readers positively or negatively, depending on their beliefs in regards to the issue discussed.

Finally, news sources can cover elections through the lens of character attributes. This Washington Post article, “Again: Nothing is off limits for Donald Trump, including spouses,” looks at Trump through this lens, as well as through the lens of conflict. Trump’s insults and attacks on other politicians and public figures are discussed as a means of examining his character. This type of framing can paint the subject of the article in a negative light, highlighting the candidate’s negative attributes.

National News and Framing

By Branden Camp

I find it interesting that when you step back and analyze an article rather than just read it, you find that many articles are biased and have a strong elements of framing and agenda setting.

The Washington Post has written several articles focused on the negative attributes of Trumps personalities.  They have headlines like “To defend our Democracy against Trump….” Early in the article, they point out that the Republican Party should do everything they can to stop Trump.  This is an example of candidate attributes. They point out the flaws in the candidate’s character in this article.  In this same article they show how Trump is completely at odds with the Republican Party, which is a conflict frame.

The Washington Post also published an article that is clearly a horse race frame about Cruz and Trump in a race against each other.  The even say in the article that race has entered a “combative phase” between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.

The article “The Plausibility of Ted Cruz” by New York Times, Ross Douthat talks through Cruz’s policy issues on foreign affairs and economic stance.  This is a clear issues frame.  This article also focuses on comparing Cruz to Rubio, using words like “attacking” when discussing how Cruz and Rubio face each other.  So we see some horse race framing as well as conflict frames.  Many of the national news, especially New York Times and Washington Post, they will focus on one type of frame while at the same time including some if not all four frames in their articles.

Political Communication: Four Frames

The media is tasked with the job of presenting the news daily to its consumers. The way the media covers certain topics and events is key, especially during the time of the presidential election. The four frames that media outlets typically rely on during the elections is: horse race, conflict, issues, and candidate attributes. By going to news site such as CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and even Politico it is clear to see how different stations cover different events.

Horse Race: On CNN’s website they dedicate a certain domain to strictly politics. Within this domain is an area titled 2016 Election Center. Within this space the delegates are shown in a graph in a horse race type stance.  They are listed with the delegate count they have at this moment, and are displayed in order from greatest number of delegates to. This page displays a perfect example of Horse Race Journalism and how if someone were to stumble across this page they would instantly see that Trump and Clinton are in the lead. This kind of visual could lead them to voting for these two candidates since it appears neither of the other candidates have a chance.  http://www.cnn.com/election

Conflict: On Fox News website one of the first article’s posted talks about the conflict between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. The article goes on to discuss how both candidates made stabs at the other ones wife. This article is a perfect example of how news organizations buy into the candidate conflict and make it news worthy information. Someone coming to this website would see this article and read it thinking that both of these candidates are ridiculous for what they are doing. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/03/23/trump-lashes-out-over-hostile-ad-featuring-his-wife-vows-to-spill-beans-on-cruz-spouse.html

Issues: In an article on MSNBC an article posted talks about how Ted Cruz wants to handle the Terrorist attacks.  The article continues on to discuss how Cruz wants to propose the idea that law enforcement should patrol Muslim neighborhoods. This article is a perfect example of an issues frame on a news website. This article talks specifically of an issue that has been very present in the news lately and how Cruz plans on handling it. http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/cruz-proposes-law-enforcement-patrol-secure-muslim-neighborhoods-n543616

Candidate Attributes: In an article posted on Politico, the writer pays close attention to the candidate attribute of Ted Cruz. After Jeb Bush announced his backing of Cruz, it ran the perfect opportunity for a story aligning with this frame. The first quote and top line of the story is a catching quote from Bush stating, “Ted is a consistent, principled conservative who has demonstrated the ability to appeal to voters and win primary contests.”  This article catches the attention of people looking for candidate attributes. 

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/jeb-bush-endorses-ted-cruz-221140