Antecedentes históricos del proceso de comprensión y

Early studies in the communications field expected the news media to play a neutral role in the political process. Like a mirror reflecting events exactly as they happened, the news media were expected to pass information about government to the masses without distort- ing, altering or shaping it (Shoemaker and Reese 1998). Westley and MacLean (1957) are the architects of one of these early models, which conceived of the media as the agent of the public, “selecting and transmitting nonpurposively the information they require, especially when that information is beyond their immediate reach” (Shoemaker and Reese 1998, 33). Since those early works, studies in the fields of communication and mass media have explored the ways that professional norms and routines shape the work that journalists do. Many of these studies coveive of the news media as institutions (e.g. Carter 1959; Cook 1998 2005; Schudson 2002), and most of them acknowledge that the incentives and pro- fessional norms that govern the news industry shape the content of the news in meaningful ways.

One routine that shapes the news is the reliance of reporters on familiar frames. Me- dia frames “organize the presentation of facts and opinions within a newspaper article or television news story” (Nelson, Clawson and Oxley 1997). The handful of media frames that reporters regularly draw on—sometimes called “generic” or “journalistic frames”— provide reporters with a template for synthesizing complex information in a way that is manageable for both the writer and the reader. Neuman, Just and Crigler (1992) identify five such frames in an analysis of newspaper, news magazines and television news stories. Those frames are:

1. The economic frame, which “reflects the preoccupation with ‘the bottom line,’ profit and loss, and wider values of the culture of capitalism” (63).

2. The conflict frame, which focuses on “polarized forces—‘the two sides of the issue’ ” (64).

3. The powerlessness frame, which describes individuals or groups “as helpless in the face of greater forces” (67).

4. The human impact frame, which “focuses on describing individuals and groups who are likely to be affected by an issue” (69).

5. The morality frame, which generally contains indirect references to moral and cul- tural values (72).

Any given topic of societal concern could conceivably be presented using one of these five frames. In fact, Neuman et al. (1992) provide examples wherein a single issue is presented at different times with different frames. Yet the conflict frame is thought to be particularly associated with articles about politics and public affairs for a variety of reasons (e.g. Jamieson 1992; Patterson 1993; Rozell 1996). First, to survive, news outlets have to attract consumers and ultimately advertisers (Hamilton 2004). A great deal of evidence

suggests that what many consumers want is not “hard” news, but entertainment (e.g. Ben- nett 1996; Graber 1984; Iyengar, Norpoth, Hanh 2004; Neuman 1991; Zaller 1999). Zaller (1999) asserts that while journalists would prefer to provide high quality, in-depth news coverage of public affairs, the pressure of competition between news outlets forces them to provide a lower quality product. As competition increases, he argues, news reporting becomes more focused on entertaining than informing (Zaller, 1999). To attract readers, journalists have an incentive to highlight the element of controversy in public affairs (Nor- poth et al. 2004). This incentive is compounded by professional norms surrounding what it means to provide “balanced” news coverage.

News reporters seek to provide objective portrayals of the events and opinions they cover. To do so, they rely on professional norms and regularized procedures in gathering and reporting the news. One such norm, often referred to as indexing, is the practice of reflecting opinions in relation to how widely they are expressed by political elites (Bennett 1990; Hallin 1984; Kuklinski and Sigelman 1992). Objectivity is, therefore, predicated upon reporting all “sides” of an issue, not upon reporting the “facts,” as the relevant facts in a policy debate might be subjective.

Interviews with journalists support these assertions. When asked what they believe constitutes objectivity in news reporting, a plurality of American journalists (39%) stated “expressing fairly the position of each side in a political dispute” and another 10% stated “an equally thorough questioning of the position of each side in a political dispute” (Pat- terson 2007, 29). Together, 49% of the journalists surveyed stressed the importance of gathering and reporting information from elites on both sides of a political dispute. Just 28% stated that “going beyond the statements of the contending sides to the hard facts of a political dispute” constitutes objectivity, and 14% gave other responses (Patterson 2007, 29).

focusing on debate and on the conflicts that arise between elite actors. They are unlikely to present information about new policies as “fact,” and more likely to present information as the opinions of either policy supporters or detractors. Conversely, when an issue of societal concern is discussed outside the context of politics, the generic frame employed is less likely to be the conflict frame. For instance, articles about societal problems, like a rise in the rate of HIV infection, might lend themselves to the human impact frame. Articles focused on business or finance might lend themselves to the economic frame. Certain topics may simply be more associated with particular frames than are others. To date, a systematic examination of the prevalence of the conflict frame and the context in which it is most often employed has not been conducted. Yet such a study is warranted as the existing literature on framing effects and the work of Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (2002) suggests that this structure could have a meaningful impact on public opinion.