User:NickBlancoB/sandbox

The idea of political framing is derived from loss aversion. Politicians want to make their idea less of a risk to potential voters since “People pay more attention to losses than to gains, just as they tend to engage in particular behaviors in the face of losses. Specifically, people take risks when they believe it helps them avert a loss, but when they face again, they opt for risk-averse strategies that maintain status quo”. They will communicate it in a way that can convince themselves that they are not losing by agreeing with their ideology.

Political framing has also affected other policies besides climate change. Welfare, for example, has been subjected to political framing to shift public opinion on the implementation of the policy. The sheer flux of different frames is conducive to the change of public opinion throughout the years. It affects how people look at “deservedness” when it comes to welfare. One end can be seen as political credit, claiming where in-need citizens have a right to claim welfare as a necessity. It is framed as a duty from the government to citizens. The other side sees welfare retrenchment as necessary by using framing tactics to shift the blame and responsibility from the government to the citizens. The idea is to convince the public that welfare should be pushed back for their benefit. Contemporary rhetoric, championed by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, has made the idea of “hard work” their frame to say welfare wouldn’t be necessary if people “worked harder.”

Political communication scholars adopted framing tactics since political rhetoric was around. However, advances in technology have shifted the communication channels they were delivered on. From oral communication, written material, radio, television, and most recently, social media have played a prominent role in how politics is framed. Social media, in particular, allows politicians to communicate their ideologies with concise and precise messaging. Using emotional triggering words, focusing on eliciting fear or anger, to change the way the public feels about a policy is facilitated by the short attention span created by social media.