What I'm doing here

I have to come up with a presentation for my paper at the conference next week (I'll be presenting at 10am Saturday, Aug. 9), so to kick off the process I'll write here about what got me started down the road of graduate studies.

A couple of years ago when I was a copy editor at a large-ish newspaper in Texas, a story came across my desk with a turn of phrase that struck me as out of place. As I recall, it was a profile of a young woman who had gained recognition for her work in church groups. The phrase that jumped out at me was something like "when she was 14 she accepted Jesus as her personal savior".

Now, that's a perfectly normal things to say if you're a born-again or evangelical Christian, or if you're writing for a publication aimed at such folks. This newspaper, however, was at least nominally secular. The matter-of-fact adoption of sectarian language in a city full of not only born-agains but also Catholics, Mainline Protestants, Episcopalians, Muslims, Jews, and agnostics and atheists seemed to be taking a side, if you will, in the religious discussion that happens every day in the public sphere.

I wanted to discuss it with the city desk and maybe the reporter, but I realized I didn't even know how to start the discussion. Most working journalists can talk with ease about representing points of view and "balance" and so forth, but that sort of subtle framing isn't usually discussed in the newsroom. We lacked a common vocabulary for the questions the story raised.

So I decided to go back to school to learn more. I'm focusing my study on frames; a frame is the guiding idea or concept or structure behind most of the stories in the news, both in print and on TV as well as online. One example is "horse race" coverage of politics: How does (say) Obama's big speech help his chances to get elected? That's a different question from, What does his speech evoke in his listeners, what does it promise in policy terms, what does it suggest about how he would govern if elected? Those are all different ways to frame a political story.

A lot of framing happens unconsciously; working journalists tend to apply "default" frames that they carry around with them. A reporter who's on the cops or the City Hall beat for years may start unwittingly identifying with the people he or she covers, and frame stories from their point of view. A middle-aged white reporter will make different assumptions than a young black one will. Over time, the journalistic product will tend toward a certain sort of uniformity, as certain values of the news organization assert themselves.

This all requires not only journalistic but also sociological study to comprehend and bring together. I'm still in the early stages.

My conference paper is an early stab at collating and classifying the frames in common use, from the cultural and mythological (the "hero", the "good mother", etc.) to the specific. It is a beginning, not an end. I expect I'll be at this endeavor for some time yet.

Comments welcome, as always.