… Framing effects, while real, are not as powerful and omnipresent as people sometimes imagine. In experiments, framing in news reports and survey questions can change opinions. But while framing can change mass opinion on an issue, it often doesn’t in practice. The reason is that framing effects are much more likely to occur if only one type of frame is salient. If people are exposed to multiple frames, or if they are aware of other ways of looking at the issue from past news coverage or personal experience, frames are much less influential. The presence of competing frames is likely one reason that media effects tend to be larger in the lab than in the real world. CONT.
Jonathan Ladd (Georgetown), The Mischiefs of Faction