Chapter 24 Further Reading: Framing, Priming, and Persuasion

Foundational Framing Theory

Entman, Robert M. "Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm." Journal of Communication 43, no. 4 (1993): 51–58. The essential definitional essay for framing theory. Entman's four-function framework (problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, treatment recommendation) is the starting point for all systematic framing analysis. Brief, dense, and essential.

Iyengar, Shanto. Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political Issues. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. The landmark experimental study of episodic versus thematic framing in television news. Rigorous methodology, clear findings, and direct implications for understanding political accountability in the media age. One of the most important books in political communication.

Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011. The accessible synthesis of Kahneman's decades of behavioral economics research, including the foundational equivalence framing experiments with Amos Tversky. Chapters on anchoring, loss aversion, and cognitive ease are directly relevant to political framing.

Gamson, William A., and André Modigliani. "Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power: A Constructionist Approach." American Journal of Sociology 95, no. 1 (1989): 1–37. A landmark study tracing how media frames for nuclear power changed over decades and how those frame shifts correlated with changes in public opinion. Essential for understanding long-term frame dynamics.

Agenda-Setting and Priming

McCombs, Maxwell. Setting the Agenda: The Mass Media and Public Opinion. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014. McCombs's book-length development of agenda-setting theory, covering first-order effects, second-order (attribute) agenda-setting, and the relationship to priming. The best single-volume treatment of the agenda-setting research tradition.

Iyengar, Shanto, and Donald R. Kinder. News That Matters: Television and American Opinion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. Updated edition 2010. The experimental foundation for political priming research. The updated edition includes a new foreword addressing subsequent research. Still the best demonstration of the priming mechanism in a political context.

Scheufele, Dietram A., and David Tewksbury. "Framing, Agenda Setting, and Priming: The Evolution of Three Media Effects Models." Journal of Communication 57, no. 1 (2007): 9–20. An authoritative review article that distinguishes the three concepts clearly and traces their theoretical development. Essential reading for anyone confused about the boundaries between agenda-setting, priming, and framing.

Persuasion Research

Petty, Richard E., and John T. Cacioppo. Communication and Persuasion: Central and Peripheral Routes to Attitude Change. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1986. The original statement of the Elaboration Likelihood Model—the foundational theory of persuasion through which political communication's context-dependence can be analyzed. Technical but accessible.

Kalla, Joshua L., and David E. Broockman. "The Minimal Persuasive Effects of Campaign Contact in General Elections: Evidence from 49 Field Experiments." American Political Science Review 112, no. 1 (2018): 148–166. The landmark meta-analysis finding near-zero average persuasion effects for campaign contact in general elections. Essential reading for calibrating expectations about advertising and direct contact effectiveness. Read alongside subsequent critiques and responses.

Gerber, Alan S., James G. Gimpel, Donald P. Green, and Daron R. Shaw. "How Large and Long-Lasting Are the Persuasive Effects of Televised Campaign Ads? Results from a Randomized Field Experiment." American Political Science Review 105, no. 1 (2011): 135–150. The landmark field experiment in the 2006 Texas gubernatorial race establishing that advertising effects are real but decay rapidly. The decay finding is among the most strategically important in the political advertising literature.

Specific Frame Studies

Nelson, Thomas E., Rosalee A. Clawson, and Zoe M. Oxley. "Media Framing of a Civil Liberties Conflict and Its Effect on Tolerance." American Political Science Review 91, no. 3 (1997): 567–583. The Klan rally framing experiment demonstrating that free speech framing increases tolerance and public safety framing decreases tolerance for the same event. A clean, rigorous demonstration of emphasis framing effects.

Druckman, James N., and Kjersten R. Nelson. "Framing and Deliberation: How Citizens' Conversations Limit Elite Influence." American Journal of Political Science 47, no. 4 (2003): 729–745. The important finding that interpersonal deliberation reduces framing effects by introducing competing considerations. Has significant implications for how we think about deliberative democracy and the conditions under which framing manipulation can be countered.

Berinsky, Adam J., and Donald R. Kinder. "Making Sense of Issues Through Media Frames: Understanding the Kosovo Crisis." Journal of Politics 68, no. 3 (2006): 640–656. A careful examination of how framing effects vary with prior political knowledge and partisan identity. Qualifies simple framing effects with important heterogeneity findings.

Race, Framing, and Political Consequences

McGinty, Emma E., Webster Han Chien, Rachel Geller, and Colleen L. Barry. "Trends in News Media Coverage of Mental Illness in the United States: 1995-2014." Health Affairs 35, no. 6 (2016): 1121–1129. Documents how media framing of mental illness (and similar research on addiction) differs across demographic contexts. Important context for the Case Study 24.2 material.

Provine, Doris Marie. Unequal Under Law: Race in the War on Drugs. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Examines how the criminal frame for drug addiction was applied differentially across racial lines, with particular attention to the structural mechanisms through which the frame was embedded in policy.

Applied Methods

Matthes, Jörg. "What's in a Frame? A Content Analysis of Media Framing Studies in the World's Leading Communication Journals, 1990-2005." Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 86, no. 2 (2009): 349–367. A methodological overview of how framing content analysis has been conducted, with valuable synthesis of best practices and common methodological problems.

Neuendorf, Kimberly A. The Content Analysis Guidebook. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2017. The comprehensive methodological reference for content analysis, including framing analysis. Covers unit of analysis, sampling, codebook development, reliability testing, and analysis. The essential practical reference for researchers conducting framing analysis.

Practitioner Perspectives

Luntz, Frank. Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear. New York: Hyperion, 2007. Read critically as a primary source document on applied political framing by its most prominent practitioner. Luntz's empirical claims about message testing methods are less reliable than his reporting on which frames his research identified as effective, which provides a practitioner window on applied framing strategy.

Lakoff, George. Don't Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2004. The progressive political consultant's guide to framing strategy, drawing on cognitive linguistics rather than political science. Influential in Democratic political circles; the academic framing literature is more rigorous on mechanisms but less applied.