Master Frames and Opinion Change

Dissertation

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State
University

By

Jess Goode, M.A.

Graduate Program in Political Science

The Ohio State University

2016

Dissertation Committee:
Kathleen McGraw, Advisor
Paul Beck, Co-Advisor
William Minozzi
Michael Neblo
c Copyright by

Jess Goode

2016
 Abstract

Can political elites use general frames to set the stage for political debate?
Most current political communication research focuses on the impact of
specific issue frames - but less on whether campaigns, parties and political
discourse as a whole can be framed. This dissertation presents and tests
a theory that elites use master frames, summaries of key ideological prin-
ciples, in order to make their subsequent campaign or policy arguments
more e↵ective. First, a content analysis of President Obama’s statements
leading up to the 2012 election provides evidence that he used a “fair-
ness” master frame. Second, results of a subsequent time series analysis
show that the president’s use of the fairness master frame was associated
with his reelection support. Third, the theory is tested in a series of three
experiments, two of which show master framing e↵ects. Experimental re-
sults from a nationally-representative sample show that exposure to an
equality master frame makes individuals more likely to support taxing
the wealthy and that exposure to an individualism master frame makes
subjects less supportive, but only for subjects who were also exposed to a
liberal tax frame. Results also show that exposure to an equality master
frame makes subjects support more liberal immigration framing. The first
two experiments find that exposure to individualism master frames polar-
ize views while equality master frames have more uniform e↵ects. The
third and final experiment failed to produce any master framing e↵ects.

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This is dedicated to the my wife, Jayne Goode, and my mother, Sharon Maloney

Kingan

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 Acknowledgments

This project would not have been possible without the advice, insight and support

of many. I’m deeply indebted to more people than I can possible list here, but I

would like to acknowledge and thank my fellow graduate students, my advisors and

my family.

First, this dissertation was expertly guided and greatly strengthened by each mem-

ber of my dissertation committee. I’m grateful to Kathleen McGraw, Michael Neblo

and William Minozzi for several years of thoughtful advice and encouragement. And

I’m deeply thankful to my advisor, Paul Beck, for his unparalleled advice and sug-

gestions, his good humor and his extraordinary mentorship.

Second, I had the great fortune to share my doctoral studies with an exception-

ally talented group of fellow students, many of whom o↵ered important suggestions

and constructive criticism. In particular, I would like to thank Paul DeBell, Jessy

Defenderfer, Nicholas Felts, Matt Hitt, Yalidy Matos and Katy Powers.

Finally, this would not have happened without the encouragement of friends and

family. I deeply value each of you and appreciate you more than I can say. In

particular, I want to thank my mother. None of what I’ve accomplished in life would

have been possible without your love, support and many sacrifices. Finally, but

certainly not least, I want to thank – from the bottom of my heart – my wife, Jayne,

and our two boys, Séamus and Isaiah. Because of you, I not only had the daily

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support needed to finish this dissertation, but I also woke up every day knowing I

was the luckiest husband and father in the world.

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 Vita

2001 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B.S. Journalism

2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M.A. Political Science

2011-2014 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Graduate Teaching Associate,

The Ohio State University.

Fields of Study

Major Field: Political Science

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 Contents

Page

Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

Dedication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv

Vita . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi

List of Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x

List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii

1. Theory and Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.1 Research Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Background and Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.1 Framing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.2 Issue Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2.3 Master Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2.4 Master Frames and Stage Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.2.5 Master Frames and Priming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.3 Model of the Master Frame E↵ect on Attitudes . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.3.1 Master Frame Adjusted E↵ect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.4 Equality and Individualism as Master Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.5 Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.5.1 Impact of Personality Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.6 Following Chapters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

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2. Master Frames at the Macro Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

2.1 Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.2 Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.2.1 Content Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.2.2 E↵ect of Measurement Error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.2.3 Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.2.4 Missing Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.2.5 Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.2.6 Interpreting Lags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
2.3.1 Additional Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
2.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

3. Experimental Evidence for Master Frame E↵ects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.2 Experiment 1: Immigration Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.2.1 Immigration Experiment Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.2.2 Immigration Experiment Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
3.2.3 Moderators of Master Frame E↵ect . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.3 Experiment 2: Tax Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
3.3.1 Tax Experiment Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
3.3.2 Tax Experiment Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
3.3.3 Personal Disposition as Moderator of Master Frame E↵ects
in Tax Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
3.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

4. Experimental Test of Repeated Master Frame Exposure . . . . . . . . . . 93

4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.2 Research Question and Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.3 Methods and Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
4.3.1 Equality Treatments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
4.3.2 Individualism Treatments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
4.3.3 Issue Frame Treatments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.3.4 Dependent Variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.3.5 Independent Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.4 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
4.5 Conclusion and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

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5. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

5.1 Master Frame Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

5.2 Review of Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
5.3 Theoretical Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
5.4 Implications for Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
5.4.1 Cynical View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
5.4.2 Optimistic View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
5.5 Future Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
5.5.1 Other Master Frame Conceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
5.5.2 Additional Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
5.5.3 Direct Master Frame E↵ects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
5.5.4 Long-Term Master Frame E↵ects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
5.5.5 Cognitive Roots of Master Framing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
5.5.6 Need for Replication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
5.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

Appendices

A. Immigration and Tax Experimental Treatments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

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 List of Tables

Table Page

2.1 Time Series Stationarity Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

2.2 Estimated E↵ect of President’s Daily Frequency Of Fairness Rhetoric

on 2012 Obama Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

2.3 Estimated E↵ect of President’s Daily Percentage Of Fairness Rhetoric

on 2012 Obama Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

2.4 Estimated E↵ect of Obama Fairness Rhetoric on Romney 2012 Support 53

2.5 Estimated E↵ect of Speech Proportion on Party ID . . . . . . . . . . 54

2.6 E↵ect of Dem. Party ID Moderated by Obama Fairness Rhetoric on

Obama Vote support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

2.7 Democratic Party ID Interacted with Fairness Percentage e↵ect on

Romney Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

2.8 Fairness Rhetoric Moderating E↵ect of Independent Identification on

Romney Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

2.9 Fairness Rhetoric Moderating E↵ect on Independent Identification sup-

port for Obama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

3.1 OLS Estimates of Master Frame E↵ect on Immigration Frame Support 75

3.2 OLS Estimated E↵ect of Master Frames on Support for Raising Taxes 84

4.1 E↵ect of Master Frames on Support for Raising Taxes on the Wealthy 100

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4.2 E↵ect of Master Frames on Support for Taxing the Wealthy, Moderated
by Openness to Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

4.3 CCES Tax Experiment: E↵ect of Master Frames on Support for Taxing
the Wealthy Among People 30 and under . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

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 List of Figures

Figure Page

1.1 Model of Master Framing E↵ect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

1.2 Experimental Expectations for Attitude Formation Hypothesis . . . . 26

2.1 Google Search Results for Obama Master Frame Sentence . . . . . . . 28

2.2 Daily Obama Fairness Sentence Frequency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

2.3 Daily Obama Fairness Sentence Percentage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

2.4 E↵ect of Fairness Percentage on Obama Support . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

2.5 Moderating E↵ect of Fairness Rhetoric by Dem. ID on Obama Support 58

2.6 Moderating E↵ect of Fairness Rhetoric by Dem. ID on Romney Support 60

2.7 Moderating E↵ect of Fairness Rhetoric on Independent Support for

Romney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

2.8 Moderating E↵ect of Fairness Rhetoric on Independent Support for

Obama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

3.1 Immigration Issue Frame E↵ects Stronger than Master Frames . . . . 72

3.2 Individualism Master Frame and Personality Create Strong Polariza-

tion E↵ect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

3.3 Mean Support for Raising Taxes on Wealthy, by Master Frame Condition 82

3.4 Master Frame Impact on Support for Taxing the Wealthy . . . . . . . 86

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3.5 Master Frame E↵ect on Support for Taxing the Wealthy, by Commu-
nity vs. Individualism Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

4.1 Neither Master Frame nor Issue Frame Treatments A↵ect Support for
Raising Taxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

4.2 Master Frame Treatments Have No E↵ect, even when Combining Lib-
eral and Conservative Treatment Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

4.3 Equality Master Frame Produces More Support for Taxing Wealthy
Among People Who Are Not Open to Experience . . . . . . . . . . . 105

4.4 When CCES Tax Experiment Was Restricted to Participants 30 and

Below, Master Frames Have Small E↵ect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

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 Chapter 1: Theory and Literature Review

1.1 Introduction

Prominent public opinion research asserts that the American electorate is neither

ideologically sophisticated nor politically attentive (Zaller 1992, Converse 1964). At

the same time, research finds that political elites are highly ideological and increas-

ingly polarized (Poole & Rosenthal 1984, Poole & Rosenthal 2007). But, of course,

elites cannot achieve electoral goals without building majority or plurality electoral

coalitions. This poses a puzzle. How do ideological elites engage and organize a

public that is not highly ideological? This dissertation proposes a novel solution:

elites use master frames – general summaries of key ideological principles – in order

to make subsequent policy and campaign arguments more e↵ective. If successful,

master frames give elites an efficient way to persuade a politically-disengaged public

to adopt ideologically-friendly political and policy attitudes.

1.1.1 Research Motivation

This subject is important for a few reasons. First, since the health of a democracy

is rooted in whether the government genuinely responds to the wishes of its citizens,

it’s important to explore how political elites influence public opinion change.

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 Is it possible for elite rhetoric to set the stage for future political discourse, tilting

the odds in individual campaign or policy disputes? If master frames do not have the

expected e↵ect, then some scholars may be more confident that mass opinion change

is rooted in the true desires and wishes of citizens. In contrast, if political elites

can subtly influence the pool of political considerations that citizens use to evaluate

specific policy and campaign arguments, those same scholars may be concerned that

the government will be more responsive to elite rather than mass public desires.

I advocate a more positive view of master framing. Master framing allows political

elites to communicate with the mass public while avoiding unnecessary technical

language and policy detail. In large part, my disagreement with the former view is

rooted in what is meant by “preferences.” Often ideological preferences are treated

as analogous to a collection of issue positions (Converse 1964). But that need not be

the case for citizens to have sensible influence on the democratic process. Instead, we

could see ideological sophistication as a dimension. On one end are individuals with a

set of deeply held general political principles, such as egalitarianism or individualism.

On the other end are individuals who connect those and other ideological principles

to hundreds of specific public policy positions. In between are those who connect

general ideological principles to individual issue positions that matter most to them.

Because master frames are rooted in fundamental ideological principles, they allow

those on the more “sophisticated” end of the ideological spectrum to have meaningful

political dialog with those on the other end of the ideological spectrum. In this way,

master frames act as a rhetorical bridge to help regular citizens connect their deeply

held values with everyday democratic decision making.

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 Second, much political rhetoric is devoid of detailed policy content. From hagiog-

raphy to character assassination, it’s important for scholars to understand how such

general rhetoric impacts the e↵ectiveness of more substantive policy arguments.

Finally, as mentioned earlier, recent framing research finds that some frames are

naturally more persuasive than others (Chong & Druckman 2007a). Master framing

provides an explanation for how political elites use general ideological rhetoric to

make specific policy frames more resonant and persuasive.

1.2 Background and Literature Review

1.2.1 Framing

Nelson, Oxley & Clawson (1997) characterize framing as a process in which an

individual or media outlet “defines the essential problem underlying a particular social

or political issue, and outlines a set of considerations purportedly relevant to that

issue.” Other prominent definitions (Druckman 2004, Chong & Druckman 2007b,

Entman 1993, Gamson 1989) similarly emphasize that frames characterize how issues

are viewed by making some aspects of issues more relevant than others. Frames

influence us by selectively focusing on specific parts of an issue, elevating some of

the issue’s features and, just as important, ignoring other features. As a result, as

Entman (1993) argues, frames not only identify important elements of an issue, but

also a↵ect the weight of those elements. In other words, frames not only abridge one’s

view of the world, they help one understand what’s important when considering the

world. Not only can frames influence attitudes, it’s also easy to see why they might

be attractive to citizens. Political matters are complex, and experts and novices alike

often need help narrowing down the possible ways of thinking about them.

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 Framing e↵ects are numerous in political science, communication and social psy-

chology. Experimental evidence has demonstrated that framing news stories in terms

of strategy rather than policy increases political cynicism (de Vreese 2004), that

group frames increase the e↵ect of subjects’ own group attitudes on related policy

positions (Nelson & Kinder 1996), that partisan voters are influenced by “conflict”

frames when they come from fellow partisans (Slothuus & de Vreese 2010), and even

that slight changes in language can significantly influence whether conservatives be-

lieve global warming is real (Schuldt, Konrath & Schwarz 2011).

Despite the profusion of framing scholarship, almost all of it focuses on how the

news media frames public policy issues. In contrast, this dissertation will explore how

elites use general frames to shape electoral campaigns as well as political discourse.

1.2.2 Issue Frames

While widely used, the framing concept means slightly di↵erent things to di↵erent

scholarly communities. For instance, Druckman (2004) argues that there is an impor-

tant distinction between issue frames studied in political science and communication

compared to the “equivalency” frames often studied in psychology and economics.

Framing rose to prominence in Tversky & Kahneman’s (1981) work on equivalency

framing, which demonstrated that presenting information in terms of loss or gain can

make people favor one of two mathematically equivalent options. In contrast, po-

litical scientists tend to focus on what Druckman (2004) calls “issue frames,” policy

arguments that provide qualitatively di↵erent ways of looking at a political issue.

For example, raising taxes can be framed as positive for the economy because

it could allow the government to buy goods and services in the private sector. On

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the other hand, raising taxes might be bad for the economy because it could reduce

individual income and limit consumer spending. Clearly, these arguments are not

mathematically equivalent, instead they emphasize conflicting viewpoints regarding

the wisdom of raising taxes. Since the 1980s, many influential studies have shown

that issue framing can significantly change political and policy attitudes (Druckman

& Nelson 2003, Chong & Druckman 2007a).

One important feature of issue frames is that they emphasize the stakes of specific

policy issues, such as whether to increase taxes on the wealthy or to o↵er amnesty to

the children of undocumented immigrants. Issue frames persuade by o↵ering concrete

arguments for or against specific policy questions. In contrast, master frames work

by invoking values or principles that imply the “correct” position on specific issues.

1.2.3 Master Frames

This paper focuses on the general frames that elites use: master frames. Although

most political communication scholarship has focused on issue framing, it should be

acknowledged that this dissertation is certainly not the first work to study general

frames. Iyengar’s (1994) groundbreaking work on policy framing and accountability

showed that thematic frames help members of the public hold government officials

accountable.

Likewise, de Vreese, Peter & Semetko (2001) argue that there’s an important

di↵erence between issue frames and what they call “generic” frames, such as those that

emphasize political conflict. While such work is informative, these studies concentrate

on news media-driven framing, not on how politicians, party leaders and their sta↵

use general frames to shape political debate to their advantage.

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 Some scholars argue that the term “frame” should only be applied to issue or

equivalency frames (Chong & Druckman 2007b). Chong & Druckman (2007b) in-

stead favor Entman’s (1993) use of the term “script” for general frames. I disagree

for the following reasons. First, general frames still may influence the weight of con-

siderations brought to bear on a particular issue, without literally mentioning the

issue. Arguments against “big government” are vague and general, yet many Amer-

icans can apply those arguments to a number of related policy issues. Second, even

a cursory review of campaign coverage reveals that candidate rhetoric is often vague

and general but aims to a↵ect political opinion regarding specific candidates and is-

sues. When President Reagan (1981) proclaimed “government is not the solution to

our problem; government is the problem,” he was making a (rhetorically brilliant)

argument against large government programs, which was clearly intended to under-

mine support for specific policies. In fact, directly preceding this famous phrase,

Reagan briefly mentioned no fewer than six issues: inflation, unemployment, taxes,

government spending as well as both public and private debt. Finally, using the term

“script” would obscure the common-language clarity of the term “frame.” Academics

and non-academics alike can easily grasp that “framing” something is to see a par-

ticular matter or issue in a certain way, most likely because almost everyone has had

the experience of framing something on a camera or smartphone.

Most important, a general framing concept already exists within sociology which,

though it is primarily used to explain how social movements organize around common

themes, could also apply to political elites and their campaigns. For the master

frame concept, I build on Snow & Benford’s (1992) social movement master frame

theory, which asserts that these general frames allow social movements to organize

6
and cohere. Specifically, they argue that master frames perform three functions: (1)

identifying the causes of (and assigning blame for) social problems (2) organizing

associated concepts and ideas and, relying on the first two functions, (3) facilitating

mass mobilization.

Entman (1993) defined frames as points of view that have moral claims, causal

structures and normative implications. Following Entman (1993), I define political

master frames as having the following features: (1) They are general frames for eval-

uating the political world, relying on just a few principles, values or metaphors to

structure those evaluations. (2) These evaluations lead to causal stories about how

the political-social world does and/or should work. (3) Those causal stories result in -

or influence - views that are then used to judge political issues, events and candidates.

In short, master frames are the messages that political elites use to communicate their

complex ideologies to a non-ideological public. Although the principles or constraints

that organize them may be the same as those that structure ideologies, master frames

are distinct from ideologies because they are merely abbreviated versions of the values

upon which ideologies are based.

To summarize, master frames are general frames that organize how individuals in-

terpret and evaluate the political world, determine what causes events and allow them

to judge issues, events and candidates as a result. If ideologies are collections of many

interconnected attitudes, master frames are general frames that strengthen multiple

attitudes consistent with either liberalism or conservatism. In essence, master frames

are the Cli↵sNotes version of ideologies.

To give a historical example, starting in the 1960s the conservative movement

organized around the principle of rational self-interest. This master frame asserts that

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the U.S. – both economically and politically – would be more prosperous if individuals

and corporations were free to seek their own self-interest, and it has implications at

the individual, economic and political levels. At the individual level, it implies that

people are and should be personally responsible for their lot in life; individual success

is rooted in individual e↵ort and individual loss is the result of one’s failure to work

hard. Following this logic, the government should not provide for a robust social

safety net because to do so would be to reward certain individuals for the failure

to take responsibility for themselves. Further, this master frame implies that the

economy will grow when economic actors are free to seek their own self-enrichment.

And, finally, this master frame means that government must be as limited as possible,

that it must get out of the way of individuals and companies as they seek their own

ends.

By communicating this master frame, conservatives may have structured the po-

litical discourse in a way that sets the agenda in favor of conservative policies and

candidates by strengthening conservative issue arguments (frames) in relation to lib-

eral issue arguments (frames), increasing receptivity to their ideology in general, and

causing the public to act in quasi-ideological ways, especially at the aggregate level. If

my theory is correct, I would expect that liberal periods, (such as the New Deal Era),

were also influenced by liberal master frames that structured the political discourse

then.

As they relate to political behavior, I define master frames as non-policy specific

communications that frame political campaigns, political debates or political discourses

in terms of fundamental ideological principles. For instance, positing that individu-

alism makes America strong might make voters more responsive to arguments for

8
lowering taxes and reducing government regulation. Likewise, emphasizing the im-

portance of equality might make voters more open to arguments for increasing Social

Security and education funding. If the public receives these general master frames on

a regular basis so that the associated concepts are chronically accessible, then a host

of specific liberal or conservative issue frames should be more e↵ective as a result.

Using the present presidential election as an example, Donald Trump’s “Make

America Great Again” meets the definition of a master frame. It’s a general frame

that invokes (nationalist and nativist) ideological principles and which is clearly meant

to set the stage for specific policy initiatives, such as building a wall between the U.S.

and Mexico.

American political history is defined by periods when one party not only holds

more power in government, but in which its programmatic and ideological agenda also

dominates the political discourse. This paper seeks to determine whether defining the

political world through their use of appealing master frames allows parties to dominate

the political discourse by setting the terms of the political debate and automatically

activating surrogate ideologies in the minds of voters.

Converse (1964) famously found little evidence of ideological thinking in how

ordinary people described their support for candidates and parties. And he showed

that only a small percentage of the public (under ten percent) exhibited belief sys-

tems in which attitudes on one issue predicted attitudes on other issues as well as.

Similarly, Zaller (1992) reported that survey respondents tended to state opinions

based on the salience of many inconsistent considerations rather than use anything

resembling an ideology.

9
 While most individual Americans are not ideologically consistent or constrained,

aggregate public opinion does appear to be more ideologically consistent. Stimson

(1999) reports that public opinion is characterized by conservative or liberal moods

in di↵erent periods. Further, he and colleagues (Stimson, MacKuen & Erikson 1995)

demonstrate that these changes in mood precede partisan electoral victories for the

party associated with the dominant ideological mood. Similarly, Page & Shapiro

(1992) shows that collective opinion is generally coherent, stable and responds to

events.

One explanation for public mood swings is that individual voters are simply re-

sponding to specific life circumstances, such as job loss, and that idiosyncratic indi-

vidual opinion swings add up to changes in national political mood. Yet individuals

may also respond to elite messages. In particular, political mood changes might result

from political master frames communicated by ideological political elites. Given that

individual members of the public are rarely ideological, elites may have the opportu-

nity to influence the ideological mood of the country or a political campaign through

the master frames they use. The advantages of doing so are clear. Creating a more

friendly climate would make it easier to win elections and to pass important legisla-

tion. As Aldrich (1995) argues, structuring political parties as “long coalitions” o↵ers

politicians a way to escape collective action problems. Master frames may provide

elites a way to extend those long coalitions to the electorate.

Political elites want more than to simply win a majority of the public to their side

on particular issues, such as social security or defense or flood mitigation. They want

to build long-lasting political coalitions around their political philosophies. They

want supporters that will be there for their party and the party’s priorities over time

10
and across multiple issue debates. And, because time and money and organizational

capability are all limited, elites should want to build these long-term coalitions as

easily and as inexpensively as possible.

Several decades of political communication research has shown that individual

frames can strongly influence how individuals think about specific issues (Iyengar &

Kinder 1987, Nelson, Oxley & Clawson 1997, Iyengar 1994). (For a comprehensive

review, see Chong & Druckman (2007b)). But this e↵ect can be mitigated by exposure

to conflicting frames and also by how politically knowledgeable one is (Druckman

2004). My theory posits that political elites are aware of both the potential power of

framing, but also its limitations. Master frames, by being grounded in fundamental

moral values or ideologies o↵er a way of strengthening issue frames that are naturally

aligned with liberal or conservative ideologies.

Elites cannot expect most Americans to adopt full ideologies and related policy

constraints. Elites have neither the time, nor money, nor organizational capacity

needed to sufficiently educate each member of the voting public to act in ideologically

consistent and coherent ways. Neither do most members of the public have the time or

political interest to develop extensive ideologies, and they can act reasonably without

them. What elites can do, however, is structure their communications in a way so

that the public acts as if they were ideological on many issues. Therefore, this theory

predicts that as a particular master frame increases its proportion of the political

discourse, the public will move in the associated ideological direction and public

opinion on particular policy issues will move in the ideological direction of the master

frame, regardless of whether the master frame mentions those policy issues.

11
1.2.4 Master Frames and Stage Setting

More precisely, I expect master frames will make subsequent ideologically-friendly

policy arguments more persuasive by “setting the stage” of political debate. Like

a set design, master frames arrange the elements of political scenes, moving some

values and themes into the foreground while relegating others to the background (or

even o↵-stage). While similar to agenda setting, (McCombs & Shaw 1972), stage-

setting is distinct because it involves making values or organizing principles more

salient, not specific policy issues. At the individual level, following Zaller (1992), I

expect that master frames will change the proportion of general liberal or conservative

considerations, which will in turn change the weight one gives to a view regarding a

political issue.

At the mass public level, widely-embraced master frames structure political de-

bate, either assisting or constraining specific liberal or conservative messages regard-

ing policies, political figures or office holders. For example, if one frequently receives a

master frame arguing that equality leads to better government and a fairer economic

system, then equality will become more influential as that person evaluates policy or

campaign rhetoric.

As an example of how master frames may impact the persuasiveness of individ-

ual issue frames, Chong & Druckman (2007a) found that “strong” frames are more

compelling and have a greater impact on attitudes than “weak” frames. In a recent

review, they argue that “Strong frames rest on symbol, endorsements and links to

partisanship and ideology. . .” (Chong & Druckman 2007b). Master frames explain

how communicators use general political or ideological language to make some issue

frames stronger and others weaker. In other words, master frames form a connective

12
tissue between issue frames and political attitudes, allowing politically unengaged

individuals to approximate fully-fledged ideologies.

1.2.5 Master Frames and Priming

One might object that the master frame concept is not really di↵erent from prim-

ing. This is not true for several reasons. Indeed, Druckman, Kuklinski & Sigelman

(2009) argue that political scientists have not defined the priming process in way

that di↵ers from framing. Political scientists generally define priming as a process

that raises the cognitive accessibility of mental constructs (Kinder 1998, Krosnick

& Kinder 1990, Iyengar & Kinder 1987), resulting in political judgments based on

that more accessible information. As reviewed earlier, framing is usually defined as a

process in which communications selectively increase the weight of information used

to form political opinions. But the di↵erence between accessibility, (at least as it is

used in political science), and weight is illusory. A mental construct can’t increase

in weight without also being more accessible. Indeed, in reviewing both literatures,

Chong & Druckman (2007b) conclude that the two processes are the same. A more

theoretically clear approach to priming is the one used by Lodge & Taber (2013) in

which primes are conceived as stimuli registered at the unconscious level whose e↵ects

are most pronounced in automatic cognition. In this framework, priming is unique

from framing because it increases the weight of mental constructs at the unconscious

level and framing continues to define processes that include conscious political de-

liberation. As it stands, I believe master framing is the most conceptually distinct

way to describe how elites shape political discourse, not only because the term is

13
already widely used within sociology, but also because it identifies e↵ects that take

place during conscious deliberation.

1.3 Model of the Master Frame E↵ect on Attitudes

What is the formal process through which master frames impact political atti-

tudes? The following diagram makes the causal process in my theory explicit. To

do so it builds upon Nelson, Oxley & Clawson’s (1997) summative attitude model

of framing e↵ects, which itself derives from the expectancy value model of attitude

change (Ajzen & Fishbein 1980, Fishbein & Ajzen 1975).

The summative attitude model assumes that each attitude is the weighted sum

of views regarding di↵erent aspects of an object being evaluated. The most widely-

used model of framing (Nelson, Oxley & Clawson 1997, Chong & Druckman 2007b)

proposes that frames a↵ect attitudes by increasing the weight that particular views

have in an individual’s overall attitude toward an issue. For instance, a person might

have a variety of views that are relevant to the attitude of raising taxes on the wealthy.

On the one hand, they may believe that raising taxes will harm the economy by

limiting investment. On the other hand, they may believe that raising taxes would

be fairer for the middle class. The weight or importance that one gives to these

and other relevant views will dictate their final attitude toward raising taxes on the

wealthy.

Importantly, according to this model, individuals start with the original weight

that they give to di↵erent opinions. I assume that this original weight - or “old”

weight - is generated by the collection of ideological considerations one possesses.

Master frames influence the underlying collection of considerations that one has to

14
 Figure 1.1: Model of Master Framing E↵ect

Figure 1 shows the attitude formation process as proposed. First, individuals start with
the original weights that they give to views relating to a particular attitude. I assume
these weights are generated by an individual’s mix of political considerations. Issue frames
moderate one’s original weights by increasing weight for framed views and decreasing the
weight of other views. Master frames moderate the impact of issue frames, strengthening
their impact if ideologically congruent and weakening it otherwise. This results in new
weights which were generated by encountering an issue frame in the context of a master
frame. The master frame-adjusted weights then increase the influence of impacted views
when individuals form an attitude regarding a political question.

draw from, which in turn changes the weight that individuals apply to particular

views regarding a subject, making subsequent liberal or conservative issue frames

more – or less – e↵ective as a result.

15
 As mentioned earlier, Nelson, Oxley & Clawson’s (1997) model defines attitudes

as the weighted sum of an individual’s relevant opinions and how much weight is

given to each of those opinions. While framing need not always work by increasing

the weight of particular views,(for instance, frames may also add new information,

see: (Chong & Druckman 2007b), this is the most commonly used conception in

political science. In this section, I update the summative attitude model to include:

(1) the impact of issue frames and then (2) the impact of master frames. I begin

with the original summative attitude model as proposed by Nelson, Oxley & Clawson

(1997):

X
Aj = (vi )(wi ) (1.1)

Where A is a summative attitude toward object j (for instance, a policy issue,

candidate or political institution), vi is the view regarding one aspect of the object

being evaluated and wi is the weight or influence that each vi has in the summative

attitude. Importantly, wi sums to 1.

Since issue frames influence opinions by increasing the weight a particular view or

opinion has in the final summative attitude, it is necessary to formally incorporate

the issue framing e↵ect into equation (1.1). I propose:

X
Aj = (vi )(winew ) (1.2)

Where A and vi are the same as in equation 1.1 and wi new is a frame-adjusted

weight variable. Again, wi new sums to 1. It is calculated by increasing the weight for

those vi which are exposed to frames while simultaneously reducing the weight of vi

that don’t receive frames, (or for which a particular frame has no impact).

16
 More specifically, wi new is defined by the following:

wiold + fi
F (wiold , fi ) = P (1.3)
1 + fi

Where fi 0 and measures the impact of issue frames regarding each vi . The

denominator of equation (1.3) ensures that the resulting frame-adjusted weight sums

to 1, reducing the weights not impacted by the issue frame. For instance, if the

attitude reflects whether to raise taxes on households above $250,000 and v1 is the

positive view that doing so will spur economic activity through government stimulus

spending, an issue frame f1 persuasively making such an argument will not only

increase the weight of v1 but will also reduce the weight of other views one might

have regarding the wisdom of pursing such a tax increase.

1.3.1 Master Frame Adjusted E↵ect

In order to capture the e↵ect of master frames, equations 1.1 and 1.3 need to be

slightly modified. To incorporate master frames, it is necessary to adjust wi –the

original weight someone brings to a view– as the issue frame impacts it. In this

conception, wi represents the weight one would apply to a particular view as a result

of their political considerations. Because master frames are general simplifications

of elite ideologies and because I propose that they are frequently repeated in normal

political debate they strengthen or weaken the impact that issue frames have on the

original weight that people give to particular views.

More formally, I propose the following:

X
A= (vi )(wiMF ) (1.4)

17
 Where A and vi are the same as in equation 1.2 and wi MF is the master frame and

issue frame adjusted weight. It is calculated by slightly changing equation 1.3:

wiold + fi mi
F (wiold fi mi ) = P (1.5)
1 + fi mi

Where mi 0 and is the impact of receiving a master frame, which in turn either

magnifies or reduces the e↵ect of an individual issue frame. When a master frame is

congruent with a particular issue frame, the power of that issue frame compounds,

increasing the impact of the view being advocated and moving an individual’s attitude

in the ideological direction consistent with the issue frame. At the same time, if a

master frame is ideologically incongruent with a particular issue frame, then the

impact of that issue frame should be weakened.

As an example, consider an individual’s attitude (ATAX ) toward raising taxes on

the wealthy. In this example, the person has two views relevant to their attitude:

v1 is the positive (with respect to the attitude) view that raising taxes would boost

the economy through stimulus spending and v2 is the negative view that raising such

taxes would depress the economy by limiting consumer spending. If the individual

gives equal weight to both views, their attitude is: ATAX = 3(.5) + 3(.5) = 0. In this

case, the individual’s final attitude is neutral, a classical example of conflicting views

producing an ambivalent attitude. But what if this person hears an argument that

changes their reliance on one of those views? If they receive a compelling issue frame

that emphasizes the positive impact of raising taxes through more stimulus spending,

the attitude can calculated again using equation (1.2). If the issue frame has a
.5+2 .5+0
positive impact of 2, the person’s updated attitude is: ATAX = 3 1+2+0 + 3 1+2+0 =

3(.83̄)+ 3(.16̄) = 2.49 .48 = 2.01.The issue frame e↵ectively moved the individual’s

18
attitude from a neutral position (0) to a moderately supportive position (2.01). But

the individual’s support is still not as strong as it could be given their underlying

evaluation of the government stimulus viewpoint, (which is a 3). Equation (1.4)

allows one to calculate the impact of an equality master frame paired with a liberal

issue frame on raising taxes. If the equality master frame has a positive impact of 10,
.5+(2·10) .5+0
the individual’s attitude is: ATAX = 3 1+(2·10)+0 + 3 1+(2·10)+0 = 3(.98) + 3(.02) =

2.94 .07 = 2.87. In this case, both the issue frame and the master frame substantively

impacted the individual’s attitude toward taxing the wealthy, moving them from

neutral to solid support.

Given that both issue frames and master frames can change attitudes, why would

political elites bother to communicate master frames in addition to issue frames? Be-

cause by strengthening a range of ideologically-associated issue frames, master frames

reap benefit at a comparatively lower cost of time and money. And, because they are

general, master frames are not hard to incorporate into di↵erent rhetorical contexts.

By definition, issue frames are only appropriate when addressing a particular issue.

Master frames are simpler to communicate, easier to fit in a 30-second commercial

and are probably more comprehensible to many, if not most, voters.

1.4 Equality and Individualism as Master Frames

While some issue frames may directly appeal to certain values or political prin-

ciples, the master frame is distinct because it implies “correct” positions on a range

individual issues. This means that, in order to be e↵ective, master frames must con-

nect issues with “folk” ideologies. The most e↵ective master frames are likely to be

19
based on values already in the common culture. In America, that likely means either

equality (fairness) or individualism (liberty).

As the world’s first liberal democracy, some argue that the contours of American

political debate have always been defined by the tension between liberty and equality,

with conservatism generally being motivated by individualism and liberalism being

motivated by equity. McClosky & Zaller (1984) found that these values charac-

terize part of the American ethos that defines the common culture. More recently,

Kellstedt (2000) demonstrated that news media frames using equality or individu-

alism influenced public support for federal e↵orts to combat racial discrimination.

Since equality emphasizes re-distributive economics while individualism emphasizes

free-market economics and because each are so commonly used in American political

debate, I will focus this study on equality or individualism master frames.

1.5 Hypotheses

The foregoing specifies not only how issue frames can increase view weights, but

how those issue frame e↵ects are influenced by master frames. If master frames do

impact public opinion, both individual policy attitudes and issue frame agreement

should be a↵ected. More precisely, when master frames and issue frames are ideolog-

ically consistent they should move attitudes in their ideological direction. Assuming

that master frames are more influential because they are based on widely-understood

ideological simplifications - such as equality and individualism - gives rise to the

following hypotheses:

20
 Master Frame Stage-setting Hypothesis: Experimental groups exposed to a master

frame will show stronger support for ideologically-associated issue frames and less

support for ideologically-inconsistent issue frames.

The stage-setting hypothesis predicts that people exposed to an equality treatment

will be more supportive of liberal issue frames and less supportive of conservative issue

frames. Likewise, it predicts that people exposed to the individualism treatment will

be more supportive of conservative issue frames but less supportive of liberal issue

frames. If issue frame agreement is influenced by master frames, then that provides

evidence that public opinion and political discourse can be changed by appealing to

general ideological “stage-setting” frames. However, if issue frame agreement is not

influenced by master frames, then that suggests that public opinion and political dis-

course is mostly a function of those individual issue frames, (as well as environmental

factors such as the economy).

Master Frame Attitude Change Hypothesis: Similarly, experimental groups ex-

posed to a master frame and an ideologically-congruent issue frame will show stronger

support for the policy advocated by the policy frame and less support for policies op-

posed by the issue frame.

This hypothesis predicts that people exposed to equality master frames and liberal

policy arguments will adopt more liberal policy views and that those exposed to indi-

vidualism master frames and conservative policy frames will adopt more conservative

policy views. Similarly, this hypothesis predicts that when issue frames and master

frames are incongruous, the master frame will be more influential. In these cases,

an equality master frame paired with a conservative issue frame would result in a

more liberal attitude, (compared to those receiving only a conservative issue frame).

21
Likewise, an individualism master frame paired with liberal issue frame should result

in a more conservative attitude.

1.5.1 Impact of Personality Types

Because communication e↵ects emanate from sources outside the receiver, they

are inherently contextual. However, a growing body of research on motivated rea-

soning as well as personality traits demonstrate that individual predispositions have

powerful e↵ects on how political information is processed (Jost, Glaser, Kruglan-

ski & Sulloway 2003, Nyhan & Reifler 2010, Lodge & Taber 2013). Though social

psychology research frequently divides between personal and situational explanations

for human behavior, robust support for both suggest that scholars will find lever-

age by studying the interaction between the two. Lewin (2013) famously proposed

that human behavior can be summarized by B= f(P,E), where B is behavior and P

stands for personal dispositions or traits and E is environment or situational context.

As McGraw (2006) argues, research which aims to explain human behavior should

take into account the interaction between the individual and social context. Indeed,

early persuasion models posited that e↵ective persuasion was contingent on one’s pre-

dispositions along with other factors, such as mode, communicator credibility, and,

of course, the quality of the message itself (Hovland, Janis & Kelley 1982).

In light of the advantage in considering the interaction between situation (issue

and master frames) and personal predispositions, what predispositions should be con-

sidered? Jost’s (2006) work linking Big Five Personality traits to ideology suggests

that personality traits are a promising way to capture politically-relevant personal

predispositions. Given his consistent finding that conservatives are low in openness

22
to experience and while liberals are more open, this trait, in particular, should im-

pact how people respond to political messages. As a result, I will test the impact of

personality type using openness to new experience as a moderator. This is impor-

tant for three reasons: first, master frames could make supporters more loyal to the

ideological side associated with their personality disposition. Second, master frames

might serve to inoculate mass public members against the policy arguments of the

other side. And, as a result, such a moderating impact from personality would help

explain political polarization.

Personality Intensification Hypothesis: Other-directed master frames (equality)

will cause high openness people to be more responsive to liberal policy frames, whereas

self-directed master frames (individualism) will cause low openness people to be more

responsive to conservative policy frames.

Personality Backlash Hypothesis: Other-directed (equality) master frames will

produce a backlash among low openness people, making them take more conservative

positions. Self-directed (individualism) master frames will produce backlash among

high openness people, causing them to take more liberal positions.

Figure 1.2 shows experimental expectations under conditions in which the mas-

ter frames have no impact and also when master frames have their predicted e↵ect

under that attitude change hypothesis. If master frames have no impact, people in

the conservative issue frame condition will show less support for the liberal policy

position, but that lower support will be the same for all master frame and control

conditions. Likewise, exposure to a liberal issue frame will increase support for liberal

views, but that higher support level will be the same for all master frame conditions.

However, if master frames have their predicted impact, the pattern in the right panel

23
will be observed. For instance, equality conditions will show the most support for

raising taxes, control (no master frame) conditions will show middle support, and

individualism conditions show the least support. The gray line represents people who

also receive a liberal tax frame, (which should also produce more support for rais-

ing taxes) and the black line shows people who also receive a conservative tax frame

(which should produce less support for raising taxes).

1.6 Following Chapters

The following chapters test the master frame theory in three di↵erent sets of

studies.

First, chapter two reports results of a content analysis of President Barack Obama’s

speeches and statements leading up to the 2012 election. In the chapter I measure

and test the e↵ect of the president’s fairness-based master frame using machine-coded

content analysis and time series regression. By coding and analyzing speeches and

remarks from 2011 through the 2012 election, I hope to show first that Obama used

a compelling master frame in his reelection campaign. Second, I estimate the daily

association that master frame message had with his support as well as support for

Governor Mitt Romney. Finally, I test the moderating impact of Obama’s master

frame usage on the e↵ect of Democratic Party identification on Obama and Romney

support.

By measuring Obama’s master frame usage and its e↵ect in the 2012 presidential

election campaign, I hope to show that not only do politicians’ regularly rely on

such generally messaging but that those general messages have real and measurable

associations with electoral support.

24
 Chapter three reports results of experiments that test master frame e↵ects at the

individual level. Chapter four attempts to replicate chapter three’s results as well as

test the e↵ect of repeated master frame exposure.

25
 Figure 1.2: Experimental Expectations for Attitude Formation Hypothesis

Figure 1.2 displays expected results if master frame treatments have their predicted e↵ect
under the attitude formation hypotheses. The left panel shows null findings: flat lines for
tax increase support across individualism, equality and control (no master frame) condi-
tions. This means that tax attitudes change only as a result of liberal or conservative tax
issue frames and not as result of equality or individualism master frames. The right panel
shows expectations if master frame treatments are e↵ective. In this case, equality conditions
show the most support for raising taxes, control (no master frame) conditions show middle
support, and individualism conditions show the least support for raising taxes. The gray
line represents people who also receive a liberal tax frame , (which should also produce more
support for raising taxes) and the black line shows people who also receive a conservative
tax frame, (which should produce less support for raising taxes).

26
 Chapter 2: Master Frames at the Macro Level

In September 2011, the Obama White House scrambled to recover from a series

of bruising budget battles with congressional Republicans. Weakened by massive

losses in the 2010 midterm elections, Obama and his budget negotiators spent most

of the spring and summer trying to get congressional agreement to raise the debt

ceiling, a budget technicality that had rarely generated partisan acrimony in the

past. By early August, Congress had agreed on a bill to expand the debt ceiling

and reduce the deficit. But in the aftermath opponents saw the president as a failed

leader (Adler 2011) and supporters saw him as perilously o↵-message (Tankersly

2011). Between May 2011 and August 2011 his disapproval rating rose from 45 to 52

percent (Huffington Post Pollster 2016a) and, despite the budget agreement, his job

approval failed to improve as fall began.

According to his memoir, former senior White House advisor David Axelrod

watched these events with increasing anxiety (Axelrod 2015). In his view, the pres-

ident risked losing the voters who had elected him in 2008. After a late August dis-

cussion with the president, Axelrod sent him a strategic memo diagnosing Obama’s

electoral problems and outlining a message to get back on track (Axelrod 2015). He

argued that Obama needed to return to the message of fairness and collective action

that Axelrod believed had worked for him in 2008:

27
 Your message ultimately carried for two reasons: One is that it was rooted
in the idea that we are a better and stronger country when everyone gets a
fair shot and a fair shake; when hard work and responsibility is rewarded,
and all of us are accountable. The second is that it recognized that there
are things we must do together as a country to ensure a brighter future.
(Axelrod 2015)

Axelrod’s insight formed the basis of the president’s economic address to Congress

later that September. It was in this address that the president first used the following

sentence, which summarized Axelrod’s proposed campaign message: “They [Ameri-

cans] believed in a country where everyone gets a fair shake and does their fair share

– where if you stepped up, did your job, and were loyal to your company, that loy-

alty would be rewarded with a decent salary and good benefits; maybe a raise once

in a while” (Obama 2011a). This sentence perfectly captures what I have defined

as a master frame in earlier sections of this dissertation: a general frame that pro-

motes core ideological values in order to create an ideologically-friendly campaign

debate. Shortly after this speech, the President began using the following refinement

of the same master frame: “I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets

a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, when everyone plays by the same

rules” (Obama 2011b). A Google search shows that slight variations of the latter

sentence were reported more than 500,000 times since September, 2011.

Figure 2.1: Google Search Results for Obama Master Frame Sentence

28
 Axelrod’s fairness master frame was not chosen carelessly. As journalist Wol↵e

(2013) recounts in his book on the 2012 Obama campaign, after leaving the White

House pressure cooker, Axelrod began refining a message that acknowledged middle

class Americans’ post-recession struggle: they were not getting a “fair shake” while

others were not doing their “fair share.”

As Wol↵e writes:
The fair shake and the fair share: it was a classic Axelrod turn of phrase.
A piece of writing that encapsulated a world-view more than a policy
prescription for hard economic times. To the right, it sounded faintly
socialist with its insistence on fairness. To the left, it sounded like justice.
And to the middle-class voters who would decide the election, it sounded
like their plight at a time when wages were getting pushed down and costs
were getting pushed up. (Wol↵e 2013)

Though political practitioners would likely refer to Axelrod’s work as a “campaign

message,” it more than meets my definition of a master frame: a general ideological

message intended to frame and strengthen the campaign’s subsequent, more specific,

policy and political arguments. Going forward, I will use the term master frame

rather than campaign message.

Although some of the president’s rhetoric would certainly include issue-specific

frames, Axelrod’s master frame formed the core reelection pitch. It was intended to

boost support for the president by strengthening support for his ideological beliefs:

equality, fairness (particularly economic fairness) and collective action through gov-

ernment intervention. If successful, the fairness master frame would strengthen his

electoral support by solidifying the liberal coalition and giving it a compelling general

message around which to organize.

Obama’s campaign master frame provides an opportunity to test the master frame

theory using real-world data. Though observational studies rarely provide the causal

29
identification found in experiments, they do make it possible to test a theory’s ecologi-

cal validity. Taken together with positive experimental results, observational evidence

of master frames would lend credence to the contention that master frames not only

a↵ect certain special experimental outcomes but that they also have a measurable

impact in modern American political campaigns.

Though the Obama master frame did not focus solely on one specific ideological

principle, it did fit well under the general rubric of fairness. And because of its

similarity to the master frame tested in experiments in chapters one and two, Obama’s

master frame provided a rare opportunity to test an experimental treatment in a real

campaign setting.

2.1 Hypotheses

The fairness master frame contained three related but distinct principles. First,

it argued that America is strengthened when everyone is treated fairly and equally.

Second, it contended that citizens should be rewarded for their hard work and ac-

countable when they don’t work hard. Finally, the message maintained that many

American problems can only be solved through collective action.

By simplifying and communicating ideological values in an appealing way, master

frames increase the e↵ect of ideologically-consistent policy frames as well as increase

support for ideologically-aligned candidates. The experiments reported in chapters

three and four will test the e↵ect of master frames on subsequent policy frames

on taxes and immigration debates. This chapter will test whether master frames

strengthen support for an ideologically-aligned candidates and whether support is

30
generated by strengthening the loyalty and support from a candidate’s ideologically-

aligned supporters – in this case its party members.

In this chapter, I test the following hypotheses, which are modified versions of the

general hypotheses presented in chapter one:

Hypothesis One: Increased Obama fairness master frame usage will be associated

with support for Obama’s presidential campaign.

If Obama’s campaign team was right about how to appeal to disa↵ected voters, the

fairness master frame should be associated with increased support for the president’s

reelection bid.

Hypothesis Two: Increased Obama fairness master frame usage will precede higher

Democratic Party identification.

Master frames should increase support for ideologically-aligned partisans partly by

increasing the number of people who identify with the party ideologically-associated

with the master frame. In this case, the fairness master frame is a distillation of liberal

ideological values and, if persuasive, should increase democratic partisan identification

as a result.

Hypothesis Three: Increased Obama fairness master frame usage will be associated

with a stronger relationship between Democratic Party identification and support for

Obama.

All things being equal, one would expect that increasing percentages of Demo-

cratic identification would be associated with more support for President Obama.

Because master frames distill and communicate general ideological principles, they

should be especially e↵ective among ideologically-aligned individuals. In campaigns,

31
a candidate’s master frame should increase her support by consolidating and intensi-

fying support among members of the candidate’s political party. In this case, I expect

that higher Obama fairness rhetoric will be associated with a larger positive impact

from national Democratic Party identification.

Hypothesis Four : Increased Obama fairness master frame usage will not increase

support for Romney nor will it a↵ect Democratic support for Romney.

Master frames should only increase support for ideologically-aligned policies and

candidates.

2.2 Methods

In order to test these hypotheses, it was necessary to construct a time series of

Obama fairness rhetoric as well as time series of party identification, Obama support

and Romney support. Because of the sheer volume of the President’s speeches, I used

text classification algorithms to code Obama speeches for fairness master frame sen-

tences, constructing a time series of daily Obama fairness rhetoric and then estimating

its e↵ect on presidential election and partisan identification time series.

2.2.1 Content Analysis

The content used in this analysis was a collection of published remarks on the

White House “Speeches and Remarks” web page (The White House 2015). Content

was web scraped with the assistance of the rvest package for R (Wickham 2015).

In addition to public speeches, the “Speeches and Remarks” web page also included

formal press conferences and presidential debates. After scraping content, text was

parsed by speaker to ensure that only speeches or statements by President Obama was

used for analysis. Finally, the collected text was separated into more than 108,000

32
individual sentences. Only content from September 2011 through November 2012 was

used for the time series analysis, a time period in which Obama introduced and used

his fairness master frame.

Sentences were used as the unit of analysis because they were more likely to

contain unique concepts compared to paragraphs or entire speeches. Though the

analysis might have been done with a dictionary method by counting word frequencies

associated with equality or fairness, I chose instead to classify sentences because

that approach allowed a more precise identification of the meaning of words in their

particular context. Of course, given the amount of information analyzed, such an

approach would not have been possible for one researcher without computer-aided

text classification.

Following is the procedure used to classify the corpus of Obama’s speeches and

statements. A random sample of sentences were first hand coded into two categories:

“Fairness” if they represented one or more of the three elements of the Obama fairness

master frame and “Non-Fairness” otherwise. The hand-coded data was then used to

train text classification algorithms to classify the entire dataset of sentences.

The following coding criteria was used to classify each hand-coded sentence and

to train the text classification algorithms. A sentence was coded as “fairness” if it

contained at least one of the three following themes:

1. Invocations of fairness and/or equality

2. Calls for collective action, and/or

3. Arguments for rewarding hard work as well as holding people accountable for

fair contributions to society. This included both policy or non-policy statements

33
 that made explicit or implicit arguments in favor of more equitable distribution

of income, wealth or other resources.

Rather than using a dictionary method or looking for key words, I read each

sentence in the sample used for hand coding. I then classified a sentence as “fairness”

if it matched at least one of the themes identified above and “non-fairness” if did

not meet those criteria. It’s important to note that some “fairness” sentences also

contained, usually brief, mentions of policy. Though I have conceived of master frames

as policy-free, general frames, the rambling nature of campaign speeches meant that

such a clear delineation wasn’t possible in this content analysis. As a result, I will not

investigate the e↵ect the president’s fairness rhetoric had on support for issue frames

and instead will focus on the e↵ect it had on his political support.

After hand coding more than 1,800 sentences, the hand-coded data was used

to train text classification algorithms to automatically code the full sentence dataset.

The RTextTools package was used to train algorithms and classify the full dataset (Jurka,

Collingwood, Boydstun, Grossman & van Atteveldt 2012). The package implemented

several supervised machine learning text classification algorithms which “learn” from

human coded sentences and attempt to apply the same human-coded criteria to un-

classified sentences. I trained and combined classification results from the following

classification algorithms: support vector machines, generalized linear models with

penalized maximum likelihood, maximum entropy, supervised latent Dirichlet alloca-

tion, boosting, bagging, Random Forests, and decision trees. Although each algorithm

provided a unique classification for each sentence, I followed common practice and

combined algorithm results into an ensemble classification. Recently, Collingwood &

Wilkerson (2012) found that classification accuracy was greatest when four or more

34
algorithms agreed on a particular classification. Following their advice as well as the

recommendation of Jurka et al. (2012), the final “fairness” or “not fairness” classifi-

cation of each sentence was determined by four or more ensemble agreement.

The specific procedure used for training and classification is as follows. A total of

1,864 sentences were hand coded. Of these, 1,264 hand-coded sentences we used to

train the algorithms, 300 hand-coded sentences were held back to test the accuracy

of the trained algorithms and an additional 300 sentences were held back to validate

the accuracy of the test data set. Because the proportion of “fairness” sentences

was lower than the non-fairness sentences in the hand-coded dataset, more fairness

sentences than average were included in the training set and were oversampled to

increase the proportion of fairness sentences used for training the algorithms.

After training and choosing the four ensemble agreement method, results were

verified using the test and validation datasets. The test data set showed 80.3 per-

cent agreement with hand-codes for the same sentences. Furthermore, agreement

between the machine coded sentences and hand-coded sentences produced a Cohen’s

Kappa score of .57 in the test data set. Cohen’s Kappa is a conservative inter-rater

reliability measure, which takes into account the probability of coding agreement by

chance (Landis & Koch 1977). There are no set rules for when Cohen’s Kappa should

be considered “significant,” though values above 0 indicate agreement greater than

what would be expected by chance. Landis & Koch (1977) suggest that values between

.40 and .60 be considered “moderate” and values between .61 and .80 be considered

“substantial.” The test data set’s Cohen’s Kappa .57 was on the very high end of

“moderate” agreement and bordered “substantial” agreement. For further confirma-

tion, I validated the text classification on a second dataset and in that dataset there

35
was 80 percent agreement between the machine codes and my manual codes. The

Cohen’s Kappa score for the validation data set was .56. The fact that the automatic

text classifications so closely matched my hand-coded data in two separate data sets

that were not used to train the algorithms and that they perform well even with

the more conservative Cohen’s Kappa provides confidence that time series calculated

from this data were an accurate measure of changes in Obama’s fairness rhetoric

throughout the campaign.

In addition to inter-reliability measures, machine learning classification results are

commonly evaluated by calculating precision and recall. Precision is defined as the

percentage of machine classifications that are accurate and recall is defined as the

percentage of human coded documents that are correctly identified by the machine

learning algorithm (Collingwood & Wilkerson 2012).

In this case, precision was the percentage of fairness-classified sentences that were

hand-coded as fairness sentences. Likewise, recall was the percentage of hand-coded

fairness sentences that the algorithms accurately identified as fairness sentences. In

the test dataset, precision was .71, meaning that 71 percent of sentences machine-

classified as fairness were actual fairness sentences. This means that 29 percent of

machine-classified fairness sentences were not actual fairness sentences. Recall was

.73, meaning that 73 percent of fairness sentences were accurately identified. However,

this also means that roughly 27 percent of fairness sentences were missed by the

machine classification. Taken together, the two results provide strong evidence that

classified sentences truly capture the president’s fairness message and that the vast

majority of the president’s fairness rhetoric was correctly identified.

36
2.2.2 E↵ect of Measurement Error

Unfortunately, the validation process made clear that there was at least some

measurement error in the study’s primary independent variable. As such, it was

important to explore the consequences of even a small amount of error. Though

dependent variable measurement error does not bias OLS estimates, it’s been es-

tablished that independent variable measurement error biases its estimate toward

zero (Greene 2008a). Though not ideal, such attenuation likely provided a more

conservative test for the e↵ect of Obama’s fairness master frame on Obama vote sup-

port. If variables originating from machine-coded data were positive – even after

downward bias– one could reasonably assume those coefficients would have been even

more positive without measurement error1 .

In this case, it was possible to check potential machine-coded bias in the key

independent variable by using the 600 sentences that were hand coded but reserved

for testing and validation. In this small dataset, the hand-coded fairness proportion

of Obama daily speech and daily Obama vote support were correlated at .13 (p <

.24). Likewise, the machine-coded daily fairness proportion produced a .04 (p < .67)

correlation with the Obama vote support time series. Though such a small sample

cannot supply much statistical precision for either correlation, it is reassuring that

the predicted data shows a positive but weaker correlation compared to the hand-

coded data. This dampening e↵ect is exactly what would be expected from random
1
However, as Greene (2008a) notes, the impact of measurement error on other variables in a
model is harder to predict. Blackwell, Honaker & King (2015) suggest using multiple imputation, or
what they call “overimputation”, to correct measurement error and outline such a procedure using
the Amelia package in R. I conducted a series of tests using a multiple imputation version of the
Obama daily fairness proportion variable and the results largely mirrored those reported later in
this chapter.

37
measurement error and supports the contention that any measurement error bias

produced a more conservative test for my primary hypothesis.

2.2.3 Variables

Dependent Variables: In order to test my hypotheses, I calculated a daily

time series of Obama vote support and a second daily time series of Romney vote

support. To construct these time series, I aggregated daily reported data from Hu↵-

ington Post Pollster, which cataloged 2012 survey results from more than sixty public

pollsters (Huffington Post Pollster 2012). I calculated the time series by averaging the

vote support using only polls of likely voters. Because surveys are typically conducted

over several days, each poll was averaged with all other polls that shared the same

last day of fielding. So, for instance, if a particular poll was fielded from January

1, 2012 through January 4, 2012, I averaged its results with all other polls that had

the same end date: January 4, 2012. Unfortunately, data was not available for every

single day in the time series, which resulted in irregular daily time series of 169 days

between September, 2011 and November, 2012.

Independent Variables: Using the automatic coding procedure described above,

more than 108,000 Obama sentences from September, 2011 through November 2012,

were classified as either “fairness message” or “non-fairness message” sentences. For

each day for which data was available, I then calculated both the proportion of fair-

ness message sentences and the frequency fairness sentences. As a result, I calculated

two di↵erent time series to be used as independent variables: first, a daily percentage

of Obama fairness rhetoric and, second, a daily frequency of Obama fairness rhetoric.

38
 The percentage and frequency time series each had advantages and disadvantages.

The proportion variable captured how much of the president’s daily speech was com-

posed of his fairness master frame, but it did not measure the daily communication

volume. The percentage time series had the advantage of gauging relative change in

fairness rhetoric and was a purer measure of changes in the president’s master frame

usage. On the other hand, the daily master frame percentage would not have been

likely to have an e↵ect if the amount of communication was not large enough to break

through to the public. For example, it is unlikely that a 50 percent fairness sentence

day with only one speech had as much e↵ect as a 50 percent fairness day in which 30

speeches were given. On the other hand, the frequency variable measured the daily

volume of fairness sentences, but was very highly correlated with the total number

of sentences used on a particular day (r = .97). Of course, this meant that its e↵ect

was hard to separate from total volume of the president’s daily communication and

was correlated with his other messages. (But that means that total Obama speech

volume was also a proxy for the fairness message volume). Because each measure had

its own advantages, I reported regression results using each proportion and frequency

message time series. However, I focused more on the percentage time series because

it was a more accurate measure of distinctive changes in Obama’s use of fairness

rhetoric over time.

Figure 2.2 displays the daily frequency of Obama’s fairness sentences from Septem-

ber, 2011 through the 2012 election. One can observe a series of high-fairness spikes

after the introduction of the message in September 2011. This is followed by a slight

lull around the holidays and the turn of the year before resuming a higher spikes in

the usage of fairness rhetoric. Starting in the summer of 2012, there is a noticeable

39
 Figure 2.2: Daily Obama Fairness Sentence Frequency

up-tick in fairness rhetoric, with typical fairness frequency rising from the mid-50s to

more than 100 fairness sentences per day. The graph also suggests that the time se-

ries may not be stationary because the variance appears to rise and fall over di↵erent

time periods and the mean appears to rise as the election draws near. This change

in volume makes sense as one would expect the president to give more speeches and

public statements as his electoral campaigning increases.

Figure 2.3 displays the daily Obama fairness percentage from the fall of 2011

through early November 2012. The pattern of Obama’s daily fairness percentage is

40
 Figure 2.3: Daily Obama Fairness Sentence Percentage

similar to the daily frequency variable in the beginning of the time series. There is

a rise in fairness rhetoric after the president’s September budget address and there

is a decline in early November. However, there is a rise in the percentage of fairness

rhetoric through the holidays, suggesting that the volume of Obama communication

dropped during this period but that the fairness proportion of that communication

rose. The fairness percentage drops o↵ somewhat through early spring before spiking

again in April and again in the run-up to the fall campaign. In the fall, Obama’s

fairness message largely stabilizes at close to the average of 28 percent per day. This

41
period has few spikes above 40 percent and few drops below 20 percent, suggesting

that the president was repeating the same message on the stump, a message which

had a fairly consistent fairness percentage.

Moderating Variables: In order to test hypotheses three and four, I created a

time series of daily national Democratic Party identification. Using Huffington Post

Pollster reported data of public polls, this time series represents the average percent

of Americans who said they identified as Democrats on a given day (Huffington Post

Pollster 2016b). (Due to a lack of data, I was not able to restrict this time series

to likely voters). As with the Obama and Romney support time series, the time

series averaged results on the last day a set of polls collected results, and data was

not available for every day in the time series. Although not needed for this chapter’s

initial hypothesis, a time series of national independent identification was also created

for analysis as a moderator.

2.2.4 Missing Data

As mentioned, daily data did not exist for every single day in each time series.

The Obama speech variables covered the most days because there few days in which

the president did not give a speech or release a statement. In all there were 334 days

in the Obama fairness master frame time series. There were more missing days in

the vote support and party identification time series because public polling was not

conducted on every single day between September, 2011 and November, 2012. In

total, there were 169 days in the two vote support time series and 140 days each of

the party identification time series. Since OLS commonly uses list-wise deletion when

faced with missing data, models could only be estimated using days in which each

42
time series had data. This meant that N-sizes for models were lower than the 400 or so

days that would be available if there was full data in each time series. This issue was

exacerbated somewhat by adding lags and moderators. However, because there was

no reason to believe that the missing data pattern in these variables was correlated

with observed data, I assumed the data was Missing Completely at Random (MCAR)

or Missing at Random (MAR) and were therefore ignorable (McKnight, McKnight,

Sidani & Figueredo 2007). The missing data did reduce N-size and statistical power,

but, once again, this limitation likely meant more stringent tests for most of my

hypotheses.

2.2.5 Estimation

I estimated results using OLS regression with lagged dependent variables as needed

to correct autocorrelation and lagged independent variables to estimate the e↵ect

of the president’s fairness master frame. Though there are abundant options for

modeling multivariate time series data, Keele & Kelly (2006) demonstrated that OLS

with lagged dependent variables performs better than other options when the data

generating process is strongly dynamic, or time dependent. In this case, it is quite

reasonable to assume that past values of Obama vote support or party identification

influence present values. Using lagged dependent variables also had the advantage

of controlling for all other expected e↵ects on the 2012 election, including campaign

spending, media coverage and organizing activity.

An important requirement for estimating OLS with time series variables is that

each variable must be stationary, i.e. have constant means and variances across

time. Regression with non-stationary variables can lead to spurious regression results,

43
correlations that appear strong and significant only because of an underlying shared

time trend. Because of this threat to validity, time series variables must be tested

for stationarity before estimating models. If non-stationarity is detected, taking the

di↵erence from the previous time period – 1st di↵erencing- is a common time series

transformation used to make the time series stationarity (Monogan 2015).

As suggested by Greene (2008b) and others (Cowpertwait & Metcalfe 2009), sta-

tionarity was tested using the augmented Dickey-Fuller and the Kwiatkowski-Phillips-

Schmidt-Shin (KPSS) tests. The Augmented Dickey-Fuller test is designed to detect

unit roots, or “long-memory” trends that violate stationarity and its null hypothesis

is that a unit root is present. The Kwiatkowski-Phillips-Schmidt-Shin (KPSS) tests

stationarity as its null hypothesis. Each tests’ null is the reverse of the other, so a

time series would need a significant ADF result but a non-significant KPSS result for

both tests to suggestion stationarity. Because of the danger that spurious regression

poses to causal inference, I di↵erenced time series that showed mixed results. For

robustness, I presented results using di↵erenced and non-di↵erenced time series for

hypothesis one, but after I focused only on di↵erenced time series models.

As the results in table 2.1 report, every time series except Obama’s daily fair-

ness rhetoric percentage needed to be first-di↵erenced to assure stationarity. The left

columns of the table show results for both ADF and KPSS tests before first di↵er-

encing and the right 3 columns show results for the same tests after first di↵erencing.

2.2.6 Interpreting Lags

Special care must be taken to properly interpret independent variable lags in

the models below. Because both the Obama vote support and the Democratic Party

44
 Table 2.1: Time Series Stationarity Tests
Time Series ADF KPSS Results ADF Di↵. KPSS Di↵. Results After Di↵.
Obama Vote Support 3.52⇤ 1.87⇤⇤ Mixed 7.34⇤⇤ 0.01 Stationary
Romney Vote Support 3.38 1.81⇤⇤ Not Stationary 7.31⇤⇤ 0.01 Stationary
Obama Fairness Freq. 6.57⇤⇤ 1.54⇤ Mixed 7.13⇤⇤ 0.10 Stationary
Obama Fairness Sent. Prop. 5.94⇤⇤ 0.31 Stationary n/a n/a Di↵erencing not necessary
National Democratic Party ID 4.08⇤⇤ 0.53⇤ Mixed 7.91⇤⇤ 0.01 Stationary
National Independent ID 4.66⇤⇤ 0.49⇤ Mixed 7.67⇤⇤ 0.01 Stationary

Identification time series were aggregated by the last day of each polls field period, any

independent variable lag of one to three days will generally not be before the polling

results were collected, but while they were being collected. If Obama’s average for a

particular day was 49 percent, the data for that day was most likely collected on that

day and the preceding two or three days, meaning that a speech frequency or speech

percentage lag of three days from the polls last fielding date most likely occurred

during the first day of data collection for a particular set of polls.

Since the dependent variable is not a complete daily time series, dependent vari-

able lags are not in days but in previous periods of available data. This means the

dependent variable lag coefficients should not be interpreted as the e↵ect of the previ-

ous days polling results but the previous period’s polling results, whenever they may

have been collected.

Because there was not a theoretical prediction for how long it would take for

Obama’s messaging to have the most impact, I estimated results with independent

variables lagged one through four days and kept those lags that were statistically

significant. Dependent variable lags were chosen by visually inspecting the variables’

autocorrelation plots, using the Breusch-Godfrey test to test autocorrelation and to

provide statistical precision for the variables of interest.

45
2.3 Results

Table 2.2 reports the estimated e↵ect of Obama’s frequency of daily fairness sen-

tences on his reelection support. Model one reports results for un-di↵erenced time

series variables and Model two reports results after the time series were di↵erenced

to ensure stationarity. Dependent variable lags were added to eliminate autocorre-

lation and to increase statistical precision for the independent variables. The high

Breusch-Godfrey p-values reported at the bottom of the table mean that a null of

no autocorrelation could not be rejected, suggesting there were no issues with serial

correlation.

Results for both models are quite similar. In Model one, each fairness sentence

used two days before the polling period ended was associated with a .006 rise in the

percent of Americans who said they would vote for Obama for president. Of course,

the e↵ect of each individual sentence is quite small. But another way to interpret

results would be to calculate the e↵ect of days in which Obama used a minimum num-

ber of fairness sentences (1) compared to days in which he used the maximum number

of sentences (319). Moving from the minimum to the maximum number of fairness

sentences results in the following simple calculation: 319-1= 318*.006 to calculate a

predicted 1.9 percent increase in Obama’s polling support. In model one, the e↵ect

of fairness sentences used on the last day of survey collection also had a significant

and positive estimated e↵ect on Obama’s presidential support. Specifically, each sen-

tence was expected to garner an additional .009 of a percent for Obama’s presidential

support. For this “same day” variable, the increase from minimum fairness sentence

to the maximum fairness sentences would garner a 2.82 percent rise in Obama’s sup-

port. The combined increase from minimum sentences used to maximum sentences

46
Table 2.2: Estimated E↵ect of President’s Daily Frequency Of Fairness Rhetoric on
2012 Obama Support
Daily Obama Vote Support Percentage Model 1 Model 2
(Intercept) 24.901⇤⇤⇤ 0.085
(5.539) (0.183)
Obama Vote Support - 1 Period Lag 0.070
(0.104)
Obama Vote Support - 2 Period Lag 0.118
(0.096)
Obama Vote Support - 3 Period Lag 0.039
(0.096)
Obama Vote Support - 4 Period Lag 0.203⇤
(0.094)
Obama Vote Support - 5 Period Lag 0.014
(0.088)
Obama Fairness Rhetoric (Daily Freq.) 0.009⇤⇤⇤
(0.003)
Obama Fairness Rhetoric (Daily Freq.)- 2 DL 0.006⇤
(0.003)
Di↵. Obama Vote Support - 1 Period Lag 0.774⇤⇤⇤
(0.097)
Di↵. Obama Vote Support - 2 Period Lag 0.587⇤⇤⇤
(0.126)
Di↵. Obama Vote Support - 3 Period Lag 0.489⇤⇤⇤
(0.132)
Di↵. Obama Vote Support - 4 Period Lag 0.214⇤
(0.097)
Di↵. Obama Fairness Rhetoric (Daily Freq.) - 3 DL 0.005⇤
(0.002)
2
R 0.375 0.470
2
Adj. R 0.321 0.436
Breusch-Godfrey 0.612 0.340
Num. obs. 89 84
RMSE 1.688 1.620
⇤⇤⇤ p < 0.001, ⇤⇤ p < 0.01, ⇤ p < 0.05

Ordinary Least Squares Regression. Coefficients followed by standard errors in parentheses.

Breusch-Godfrey statistic reports the p-value for the null that there is no autocorrelation.
“DL” stands for “Day Lag.”

47
used is a substantial 4.72 increase in Obama’s polling support. Of course, days with

the maximum number of sentences were very rare. To measure the impact of average

days, the average number of sentences (70.51) would be expected to garner .42 of a

percent increase for the two-day lag and .63 of a percent increase for the same day

variable. Combined, that means the e↵ect of any average “fairness sentence” day

would be a 1.05 percent increase on Obama’s presidential support.

Model two reports results for the estimated impact of the frequency of fairness

sentences after taking first di↵erences of both the daily Obama election support vari-

able and the daily frequency of fairness sentence variable. After di↵erencing, the

immediate e↵ect of sentence frequency was no longer significant below the traditional

.05 level and was dropped from the model. Instead, a three-day lag of the frequency

variable was positive and significant, although the coefficient reports little more than

half the total e↵ect as the e↵ect of the immediate frequency and 2 day lagged vari-

able combined2 . Specifically, the three day lagged Obama fairness sentence e↵ect is

estimated to be .005 increase in Obama support per each sentence. This means that

on days when Obama used 70 fairness sentences, his presidential support percentage

would be expected to rise .35 percent, all things being equal. The maximum e↵ect

of the three-day lag would be 318*.005, or a 1.59 percent increase in support for

president Obama.

As mentioned earlier, the Obama fairness frequency variable had the advantage

of measuring the e↵ect of master frame volume, but, because it is highly correlated

with Obama’s overall speech volume, it’s not the best test for the pure e↵ect of
2
A two day lag of the frequency variable was negative and borderline significant below the p < .10
level, but it lost significance and became positive when added to a model with a positive and
significant three day lag of frequency and therefore was dropped from the final model.

48
Obama’s fairness master frame. To more precisely estimate that e↵ect, I used the

daily percentage of fairness sentences as an independent variable and report the results

of those models in table two.

Table 2.3 reports results for the e↵ect Obama’s daily percentage of master frame

fairness had on his subsequent electoral support. Model 1 shows the e↵ect of Obama’s

daily percentage of the fairness master frame on his support for president. Model 1

reports results for an un-di↵erenced dependent variable and shows that a three-day lag

of Obama’s percentage of fairness rhetoric has a positive and but not quite significant

e↵ect (p < .06) on his subsequent vote support. (This e↵ect was only significant

when including period dependent variable lags). Specifically, model one shows that

for each percent increase in fairness rhetoric three days before a poll’s final day,

Obama’s vote support is expected to rise by .04. At the average 28 percent fairness

rhetoric, Obama’s vote support would be expected to rise 1.12 percent (compared to

no fairness rhetoric at all). At the maximum 55 percent fairness rhetoric, Obama’s

vote support would be expected to rise more than two percentage points.

Model two reports results with the dependent variable di↵erenced to ensure sta-

tionarity. The independent variable was not di↵erenced because it was deemed sta-

tionary by both the ADF and KPSS test without transformation. In this model, a

three-day lag of Obama fairness percentage has a positive and statistically significant

association with his subsequent vote support. The coefficient is slightly stronger than

model one and more significant. (The same coefficient is borderline significant below

the .10 level with only three dependent variable lags). In this model, an average

day of Obama fairness rhetoric at 28 percent would be expected to increase his vote

support rate by 1.34 percentage points.Though a little under 1 and a half percent

49
Table 2.3: Estimated E↵ect of President’s Daily Percentage Of Fairness Rhetoric on
2012 Obama Support
Daily Obama Vote Support Percentage Model 1 Model 2
(Intercept) 10.204⇤ 1.350⇤
(4.928) (0.636)
Obama Vote Support - 1 Period Lag 0.166
(0.086)
Obama Vote Support - 2 Period Lag 0.160
(0.083)
Obama Vote Support - 3 Period Lag 0.164
(0.087)
Obama Vote Support - 4 Period Lag 0.188⇤
(0.085)
Obama Vote Support - 5 Period Lag 0.078
(0.089)
Obama Fairness Rhetoric (Daily Percentage) - 3 Day Lag 0.040+ 0.048⇤
(0.021) (0.021)
Di↵erenced Obama Vote Support - 1 Period Lag 0.775⇤⇤⇤
(0.084)
Di↵erenced Obama Vote Support - 2 Period Lag 0.588⇤⇤⇤
(0.108)
Di↵erenced Obama Vote Support - 3 Period Lag 0.383⇤⇤⇤
(0.108)
Di↵erenced Obama Vote Support - 1 Period Lag 0.146
(0.086)
R2 0.337 0.447
Adj. R2 0.302 0.423
Breusch-Godfrey 0.525 0.231
Num. obs. 120 120
RMSE 1.710 1.744
⇤⇤⇤ p < 0.001, ⇤⇤ p < 0.01, ⇤ p < 0.05, +p < 0.10

Ordinary Least Squares Regression. Coefficients followed by standard errors in parentheses.

Breusch-Godfrey statistic reports the p-value for the null that there is no autocorrelation.

50
may not initially seem like a large increase, it is quite large considering that Obama’s

final winning margin was just under four percent (Leip 2012). Likewise, a day with

the maximum observed fairness rhetoric –54 percent –would be expected to increase

the rate of his vote support by 2.6 percentage points – a substantial amount in such

a closely fought election.

Figure 2.4 plots the predicted e↵ect of model two on the di↵erenced Obama vote

support variable, which is the rate of change in his vote support. Overall, it shows that

higher fairness speech percentages increase Obama’s vote support rate. In particular,

low fairness days pull his vote support down below average and high fairness days

push his support above his average rate of support. The most significant negative

e↵ects are at days in which fairness percentages were below 20 percent and the most

positive e↵ects were 40 percent or higher fairness days.

Tests using both the Obama fairness frequency and daily percentage variables

and using di↵erenced and un-di↵erenced variables all show a consistent positive e↵ect

from Obama’s fairness master frame. The results are robust to di↵erent ways of mea-

suring Obama’s fairness master frame and in models that make di↵erent stationarity

assumptions. However, significance of results were contingent on adding dependent

variable lags to remove autocorrelation and to act as controls. Taken together, these

results present strong evidence in support of my first hypothesis: all things being

equal, Obama’s fairness master worked just as he an his campaign intended. It set

the terms of campaign debate and had a substantial and positive e↵ect on his electoral

support.

Of course, because this analysis is based on observational data, it is possible that

the positive relationship between Obama’s fairness master frame and his electoral

51
 Figure 2.4: E↵ect of Fairness Percentage on Obama Support

Figure 2.4 shows the estimated e↵ect of increasing percentage of Obama’s master frame on
his electoral support. The x-axis is three-day lag of Obama’s daily percentage of fairness
rhetoric. The y-axis is the first di↵erence of Obama’s daily electoral support. The shaded
area is the regression line’s 95 percent confidence interval.

support is due to some other variable. What might that be? Though it is not possible

to verify with this data, it is plausible that increases in Obama’s fairness rhetoric also

52
Table 2.4: Estimated E↵ect of Obama Fairness Rhetoric on Romney 2012 Support
Daily Romney Vote Support Percentage Model 1
(Intercept) 0.14
(0.54)
Di↵erenced Romney Vote Support – 1 Period Lag 0.71⇤⇤⇤
(0.08)
Di↵erenced Romney Vote Support – 2 Period Lag 0.50⇤⇤⇤
(0.09)
Di↵erenced Romney Vote Support – 3 Period Lag 0.07
(0.08)
Obama Fairness Rhetoric (Daily Percentage) – 2 Day Lag 0.01
(0.02)
2
R 0.47
Adj. R2 0.45
Num. obs. 121
Breusch-Godfrey 0.486
RMSE 1.65
⇤⇤⇤ p < 0.001, ⇤⇤ p < 0.01, ⇤ p < 0.05

Ordinary Least Squares Regression. Coefficients followed by standard errors in parentheses.

Breusch-Godfrey statistic reports the p-value for the null that there is no autocorrelation.

coincided with campaign visits and with TV ad spending. In other words, it could

be that the associated increases with Obama’s fairness rhetoric are really the result

of e↵ective campaign stops and/or powerful TV ads. Indeed, Sides & Vavreck (2013)

found that Obama’s advertising generated an additional three-tenths of a percent in

vote share, but only when dominating Romney’s advertising volume by more than 3

ads per viewer. On the other hand, it is likely that Obama’s advertisements mirrored

his messaging on the stump, so its possible they were e↵ective because of the master

frame content they contained. Clearly, an additional content analysis of Obama’s ads

would be needed to settle that question.

53
 Table 2.5: Estimated E↵ect of Speech Proportion on Party ID
Di↵. Daily Nat. Dem Party ID Model 1
(Intercept) 2.25
(1.37)
Di↵erenced National Democratic Party ID – 1 Period Lag 0.55⇤⇤⇤
(0.08)
Obama Fairness Rhetoric (Daily Percentage) – 1 Day Lag 0.09⇤
(0.04)
R2 0.34
2
Adj. R 0.33
Num. obs. 107
Breusch-Godfrey 0.106
RMSE 4.25
⇤⇤⇤ p < 0.001, ⇤⇤ p < 0.01, ⇤ p < 0.05

Ordinary Least Squares Regression. Coefficients followed by standard errors in parentheses.

Breusch-Godfrey statistic reports the p-value for the null that there is no autocorrelation.

Table 2.4 reports the estimated e↵ect of Obama’s daily fairness percentage on

Romney’s vote support. Because the Romney support time series failed both sta-

tionary tests, only a di↵erenced model was reported. In this model, none of the

lags of Obama’s daily fairness percentage were significant, but the two-day lag was

marginally stronger than the others. As demonstrated by its insignificant coefficient,

Obama’s daily percentage of fairness rhetoric had no e↵ect on Romney’s support. The

coefficient is slightly positive but not statistically di↵erent from zero. This null e↵ect

provides partial support for hypothesis four’s expectation that the fairness master

frame would not increase support for Romney. Paired with the strong evidence that

Obama’s fairness master frame increased support for president, this suggests that the

message worked as the campaign intended and as I predicted: it persuaded voters to

support the president without a backlash e↵ect in support of Romney.

54
 In order to test hypothesis two, I regressed daily national democratic party iden-

tification on the daily fairness percentage time series. Table 2.5 reports those results

and, once again, provides support for hypothesis two. In this case, a 1-day lag of

Obama’s daily fairness percentage is estimated to have a positive and significant e↵ect

on the percentage of voters who subsequently identify with the Democratic Party3 .

Indeed, this e↵ect is even stronger than the master frame e↵ect on Obama’s presiden-

tial support. For each percentage point Obama’s fairness rhetoric increases, national

Democratic Party identification is expected to rise by .09 of a percentage point. As

a result, an average fairness rhetoric day at 28 percent would be expected to increase

national Democratic Party ID by 2.5 percentage points. Even more, the maximum

percentage day – 55 percent – would be expected to raise national democratic party

identification by 4.95 percentage points. Just as predicted, the model reported in

table 2.5 provides strong evidence that Obama’s fairness master frame strengthened

and solidified the Democratic coalition. By increasing the number of voters who

identified as Democrats, one might expect that this is the source of Obama’s master

frames e↵ect on his vote support.

Unfortunately for my third hypothesis, that did not appear to be the case. Indeed,

as table 2.6 and figure 2.3 report, Obama’s use of the fairness master frame appears to

have no e↵ect on the impact national Democratic party identification had on support

for President Obama. One would expect that as the percentage of voters who identify

with the Democratic party rose, so would support for president Obama. If the master

frame increased Obama’s support by consolidating and intensifying the democratic

3
A two day lag of the proportion variable was negative and borderline significant below the
p < .10 level, but became insignificant when added to a model with the still positive 1 day lag and
was therefore dropped from the final model.

55
Table 2.6: E↵ect of Dem. Party ID Moderated by Obama Fairness Rhetoric on
Obama Vote support
Di↵. Daily Obama Vote Support Model 1
(Intercept) 0.67
(1.24)
Di↵erenced National Democratic Party ID 0.05
(0.24)
Obama Fairness Rhetoric (Daily Percentage) – 1DL 0.02
(0.04)
Di↵. National Dem. Party ID X Obama Fairness Rhetoric Perc. 1DL 0.00
(0.01)
R2 0.03
2
Adj. R -0.02
Num. obs. 59
Breusch-Godfrey 0.753
RMSE 2.34
⇤⇤⇤ p < 0.001, ⇤⇤ p < 0.01, ⇤ p < 0.05

Ordinary Least Squares Regression. Coefficients followed by standard errors in parentheses.

Breusch-Godfrey statistic reports the p-value for the null that there is no autocorrelation.
“DL” stands for “Day Lag.”

56
coalition, the positive e↵ect of national democratic party ID should grow as the

percentage of Obama’s fairness rhetoric increases. But as figure three makes clear,

the marginal e↵ect of Democratic Party ID is not significantly di↵erent from zero

at any Obama fairness percentage. In other words, regardless of how much fairness

rhetoric Obama used, the percent of national Democratic Party ID had no e↵ect on

support for president Obama.

Why might this be the case? It is possible that the highly polarized political

environment made it harder to consolidate and strengthen an already consolidated

liberal coalition. It could be that with such high levels of partisanship, not many more

people could have been persuaded to join the cause who were not already members of

the cause. On the other hand, it may be possible that Democratic party members and

“leaners” have already heard and been persuaded by the fairness message because its

distillation of fundamental liberal values in the United States. In other words, the

master frame may not have had an e↵ect because voters open to its argument had

already been persuaded by similar appeals to liberal values and have already joined

the Democratic coalition.

The evidence suggests otherwise, however. Table 2.7 and figure 2.6 demonstrates

that Obama’s master frame had the opposite than expected e↵ect on support for Rom-

ney. At higher rates of fairness rhetoric, democratic partisanship showed a positive

and significant e↵ect on support for Romney. Although for roughly eighty percent of

the days, Obama’s fairness master frame had no statistically significant e↵ect on sup-

port for Romney, days with more than 35 percent fairness rhetoric had a statistically

significant and positive e↵ect on the impact of Democratic partisanship on Romney

57
Figure 2.5: Moderating E↵ect of Fairness Rhetoric by Dem. ID on Obama Support

Figure 2.5 displays the statistically-insignificant marginal e↵ect of Democratic Party ID at

di↵erent levels of Obama’s daily fairness rhetoric. Put simply, the e↵ect of Democratic
Party ID on support for Obama does not change regardless of the intensity of Obama’s
fairness rhetoric. The shaded area is the marginal e↵ect’s 95 percent confidence interval.

support. In other words, days with a very high fairness rhetoric were predicted to in-

crease Democratic support for Romney. At high values the marginal e↵ect is roughly

.4, meaning that each percentage point in Democratic ID would be translated into a

58
Table 2.7: Democratic Party ID Interacted with Fairness Percentage e↵ect on Romney
Support

Daily Romney Vote Choice Percentage Model 1

(Intercept) 0.21
(1.20)
Di↵erenced National Democratic Party ID 0.46⇤
(0.22)
Obama Fairness Rhetoric (Daily Percentage) – 2 Day Lag 0.01
(0.04)
Di↵. Nat. Dem. Party ID X Obama Fairness Rhetoric Perc. – 2 Day Lag 0.02⇤
(0.01)
2
R 0.10
2
Adj. R 0.06
Num. obs. 64
Breusch-Godfrey 0.668
RMSE 2.29
⇤⇤⇤ p < 0.001, ⇤⇤ p < 0.01, ⇤ p < 0.05

Ordinary Least Squares Regression. Coefficients followed by standard errors in parentheses.

Breusch-Godfrey statistic reports the p-value for the null that there is no autocorrelation.

half a percentage point in support for Romney. This finding provides strong evidence

against part of hypothesis four and argues against hypothesis two as well. This result

suggests that the positive master frame e↵ect must have been carried by a mechanism

other than solidified partisan support.

What might cause this counterintuitive result? Data is not available to investigate

which Democratic voters might be shifting support for Romney after high fairness

days. It is possible that as the Democratic coalition has grown more professional and

less reliant on the working class that there is a certain subset of Democratic voters

who found the fairness master frame alienating and that caused a rise in support

59
Figure 2.6: Moderating E↵ect of Fairness Rhetoric by Dem. ID on Romney Support

Figure 2.6 displays the statistically-significant marginal e↵ect of Democratic Party ID at

di↵erent levels of Obama’s daily fairness rhetoric. Put simply, the e↵ect of Democratic
Party ID on support for Romney is positive two days after Obama’s fairness rhetoric was
particularly high. The shaded area is the marginal e↵ect’s 95 percent confidence interval.

for Romney. It is also possible that those high fairness days coincided with other

campaign events or rhetoric and they caused a small increase in support for Romney.

60
Table 2.8: Fairness Rhetoric Moderating E↵ect of Independent Identification on Rom-
ney Support
Di↵. Daily Romney Vote Support Model 1
(Intercept) 0.36
(1.15)
Di↵erenced National Independent ID 0.24
(0.13)
Obama Fairness Rhetoric (Daily Percentage) – 2DL 0.01
(0.04)
Di↵erenced National Ind. ID X Obama Fairness Rhetoric Perc. – 2DL 0.01⇤
(0.00)
2
R 0.16
2
Adj. R 0.11
Num. obs. 64
Breusch-Godfrey 0.961
RMSE 2.21
⇤⇤⇤ p < 0.001, ⇤⇤ p < 0.01, ⇤ p < 0.05

Ordinary Least Squares Regression. Coefficients followed by standard errors in parentheses.

Breusch-Godfrey statistic reports the p-value for the null that there is no autocorrelation.
“DL” stands for “Day Lag.”

2.3.1 Additional Analysis

Given these last set of results, what would help explain the increase in support

driven by Obama’s fairness master frame? One obvious place to look would be for

any e↵ect the master frame had among independents. By their very nature, we might

expect an increasing percentage of independents to have no e↵ect one way or the other

on support for president Obama. Although this was not included in the hypotheses

for this chapter, I estimated models to explore the relationship between increasing

the fairness master frame and support for Obama and Romney among independents.

Table 2.8 and figure 2.7 show that Obama’s fairness master frame produces a

negative e↵ect from national independent identification on Romney support. Indeed,

61
Figure 2.7: Moderating E↵ect of Fairness Rhetoric on Independent Support for Rom-
ney

Figure 2.7 displays the statistically-significant marginal e↵ect of independent ID at di↵erent

levels of Obama’s daily fairness rhetoric. The e↵ect of national independent identification
on support for Romney is negative two days after Obama’s fairness rhetoric was moderate
to high. The shaded area is the marginal e↵ect’s 95 percent confidence interval.

starting at just above the median for Obama’s fairness master frame percentage, the

marginal e↵ect from the national independent identification time series has a sig-

nificant and negative association with support for Romney. At the maximum of 55

62
percent fairness a two-day lag would be expected to produce nearly a -.3 marginal

e↵ect for each percentage point independents increased in the electorate. Based on

the estimates of this model, an increase of independent identification from the bot-

tom quartile of 18 percent to the average of 33 percent – following a 55 percent

fairness rhetoric period – would be expected to reduce Romney’s vote support by 4.5

percentage points.

Just as important, table 2.9 and figure 2.8 report results for the interaction of

a 2 day lag of Obama’s fairness master frame percentage and the e↵ect of the per-

centage of national independent identification on Obama’s support. Results of this

model make clear that increasing Obama fairness rhetoric produced a positive e↵ect

of independent identification on Obama’s support for president. Although the slope

of the marginal e↵ect is positive, the estimated e↵ect of independent identification

is not statistically significant until the two-day lag of Obama’s fairness percentage

reaches approximately 35 percent. At these higher values, however, increasing fair-

ness rhetoric in turn increases the positive e↵ect that independent identification has

on Obama’s vote support. At the extreme, a 55 percent fairness day is expected to be

followed two days later by a .3 increase in Obama’s vote support for each percentage

point national independent identification rises. In such a situation, an increase from

18 percent to 33 percent in independent identification would be expected to yield

more than a four percent increase in Obama’s vote support.

Since the data sets used for this analysis do not report leaners, it’s likely that

“independents” in most polls included Democratic and Republican leaning voters.

Though it is not possible with the available data to uncover which independents were

most responsive to the Obama fairness message, it’s plausible that leaning Democrats

63
Table 2.9: Fairness Rhetoric Moderating E↵ect on Independent Identification support
for Obama
Daily Obama Vote Support Percentage Model 1
(Intercept) 0.15
(1.25)
Di↵erenced National Independent ID 0.27
(0.14)
Obama Fairness Rhetoric (Daily Percentage) – 2DL 0.01
(0.04)
Di↵erenced National Ind. ID X Obama Fairness Rhetoric Perc. – 2DL 0.01⇤
(0.00)
2
R 0.09
2
Adj. R 0.04
Num. obs. 64
Breusch-Godfrey 0.412
RMSE 2.40
⇤⇤⇤ p < 0.001, ⇤⇤ p < 0.01, ⇤ p < 0.05

Ordinary Least Squares Regression. Coefficients followed by standard errors in parentheses.

Breusch-Godfrey statistic reports the p-value for the null that there is no autocorrelation.
“DL” stands for “Day Lag.”

64
were most a↵ected by the fairness message and more likely to support president

Obama and less likely to support Romney as a result. The fact that these particular

polls used the more expansive definition of independent suggests that many of the

measured “independents” likely had some latent political affiliation and were therefore

open to partisan persuasion. Furthermore, assuming that partisans are harder to

persuade because they are the most knowledgeable and therefore most fixed voters

on the issues, it follows that individuals who were truly independent might be most

responsive to a well-crafted master frame. The fact that the Obama fairness master

frame generated support for Obama and opposition to Romney among independents

suggests that this message was e↵ective among the most persuadable voters in the

electorate.

Given the accounts of the message development process that Axelrod (2015)

and Wol↵e (2013) both recounted, the fact that the Obama fairness master frame

was most e↵ective among independents fits perfectly with the campaign’s goal of

building a winning coalition in a very closely divided electorate. They sought a mes-

sage that would both motivate the base and persuade independent voters to reelect

the president. Taken together, these results suggest that the message persuaded in-

dependents, but it may not have worked as intended among some Democratic base

voters.

2.4 Conclusion

This chapter set out to test the master frame theory in the real-world context

of the 2012 presidential campaign. By using modern machine learning techniques,

65
Figure 2.8: Moderating E↵ect of Fairness Rhetoric on Independent Support for
Obama

Figure 2.8 displays the statistically-significant marginal e↵ect of independent ID at di↵erent

levels of Obama’s daily fairness rhetoric. The e↵ect of national independent identification
on support for Obama is positive two days after Obama’s fairness rhetoric was high. The
shaded area is the marginal e↵ect’s 95 percent confidence interval.

it was possible to construct a comprehensive time series of Obama’s changing fair-

ness rhetoric. Using time series analysis, this chapter provided strong evidence that

66
changes in Obama’s fairness master frame were associated by fairly rapid movements

in Obama’s presidential support.

Not only do the results in this chapter provide evidence that Obama used a con-

sistent and measurable master frame, but also that his master frame usage had a

positive and substantial association with his support for reelection. Of course, the

Obama campaign employed several strategies to persuade voters and rally support-

ers, including extensive field activities. But this chapter’s findings underscore that

messages matter in presidential elections.

In general, the results show strong support for the master frame theory at the

macro level. Obama’s fairness master frame increased his electoral support, boosted

Democratic identification and, perhaps most important, strongly influenced political

independents.

Just as the master frame theory predicts, frames that define the campaign can have

powerful impacts on ideologically-aligned candidates. Day-to-day changes in Obama’s

fairness master frame were not associated with support for Romney. Changes in

Obama’s master frame usage also had a strong and positive e↵ect on Democratic

partisanship. Put simply, when Obama used more fairness rhetoric, Democratic par-

tisanship rose in subsequent days.

However, the mechanism through which Obama’s master frame had its e↵ect

on his vote support was unclear. The master frame did not intensify the impact

of partisan support for Obama, instead it had no e↵ect on partisans support for

Obama. The master frame appeared to have the opposite e↵ect, boosting Romney

when fairness rhetoric made up a high percentage of Obama’s daily speeches. This

result suggests that, while master frames have the predicted e↵ect overall - boosting

67
support for ideologically aligned candidates and policies, it’s less certain how that

e↵ect is actually made real. It may be in some cases that master frames work by

intensifying partisan support. But it may also be that master frames work by more

heavily influencing persuadable voters or by turning out sporadic voters.

68
Chapter 3: Experimental Evidence for Master Frame E↵ects

3.1 Introduction

In the first chapter I proposed a theory that master frames set the stage for politi-

cal debate and that, as such, they should increase the e↵ectiveness of individual issue

and/or campaign frames. To test this theory, I conducted two sets of experiments:

one in a nationally-representative survey and another at a large Midwestern univer-

sity. The goal of these experiments was to test whether master frames indeed increase

or decrease the e↵ectiveness of specific ideological frames on immigration (study one)

and taxes (study two). I also explored the moderating influence personality disposi-

tions had on master frame e↵ects.

To test the four hypotheses in chapter one at the individual level, I conducted the

following two experiments.

3.2 Experiment 1: Immigration Experiment

3.2.1 Immigration Experiment Design

Experiment 1 was a 3x2 design in which subjects were first randomly assigned

to an equality master frame, individualism master frame, or no master frame (con-

trol). After the master frame assignment, subjects were randomly assigned to receive

69
either a liberal immigration frame or a conservative immigration frame. (Full word-

ing, including issue frame treatments, is in the appendix). The dependent variable

measured whether respondents agreed or disagreed with the liberal or conservative

immigration frame to which they were assigned. (Subjects were assigned only to one

master frame (or control) and one issue frame).

Subjects who received the equality master frame treatment were asked to read the

following:

Many Americans believe our country is strongest when everybody has a

fair opportunity and everyone is treated equally.

Subjects who received the individualism master frame treatment were asked to

read this passage instead:

Many Americans believe our country would be strongest if every individual

was fully free to pursue their own self-interest and profit from their own
e↵ort while accepting responsibility if they don’t work hard enough to be
successful.

Subjects

Experimental subjects were drawn from a sample of 277 students from a Mid-

western university. Students were given extra credit in return for participation. The

experiment was administered online using Qualtrics software. Students participated

in the experiment at a time of their own choosing and on a computer of their own

choosing. Most students completed the experiment within 15 minutes.

3.2.2 Immigration Experiment Results

For this analysis, the dependent variable is coded so that liberal positions take

positive values and conservative positions take negative values. In the liberal im-

migration frame conditions, positive values represent agreement with the frame, 0

70
is neutral and negative values represent opposition to the frame. For conservative

immigration frame conditions, positive values represent opposition to the frame, 0 is

neutral and negative values represent agreement with the conservative frame.

71
 Figure 3.1: Immigration Issue Frame E↵ects Stronger than Master Frames

Figure 3.1 shows means for each experimental condition. Bars are 95 percent confidence
intervals. Means are plotted first by whether subjects received a conservative (left panel)
or liberal (right panel) immigration frame. Within each panel, means of subjects who re-
ceived an individualism, equality or no (control) master frame are plotted. The y-axis is
the level of support for the conservative or liberal immigration frame. For ease of compar-
ison, the dependent variable is coded so that negative values represent either support for
the conservative frame or opposition to the liberal frame, zero is neutral and positive values
represent either support for the liberal frame or opposition to the conservative frame. The
plotted means show a strong e↵ect from issue framing, but a modest master frame e↵ect.
However, subjects who received an equality master frame and a liberal immigration frame
showed the strongest support for the liberal immigration frame. (The master frame e↵ect is
more notable when a personality moderator is taken into account - see figure 3.2).

72
 As is clear in Figure 3.1, the experiment appeared to resulted in a large issue

framing e↵ect. However, it is important to note that this dependent variable di↵ers

from the dependent variable used in the next experiment. The present dependent

variable measures the level of support for a immigration frame. In contrast, the

CCES experiment later in this chapter uses support for tax policy as its dependent

variable. In short, the first experiment measures support for an issue frame while

the second experiment measures attitudes regarding a policy issue. It is possible that

these issue framing results rose from a tendency among subjects to simply agree with

the one issue frame to which they’ve been exposed.

59 percent of participants who read the conservative immigration frame and were

in the control (no master frame) condition supported the conservative immigration

frame. In contrast, 70 percent of participants who read the liberal immigration frame

and were in the control (no master frame) condition supported the liberal position.

By emphasizing that undocumented immigrants are in the United States illegally

and that it’s important to follow the law, participants were more likely to support re-

stricting citizenship. At the same time, emphasizing that the people in question were

“undocumented” immigrations, (rather than “illegal”), and were taken to the United

States as children, participants were more likely to support expanding citizenship.

Though these issue frame e↵ects are relevant to understanding how policy argu-

ments shape immigration opinions, this experiment was conducted to test whether

master frames increase the e↵ectiveness of issue frames. In particular it was conducted

to test the stage-setting hypothesis, which predicts that exposure to the equality mas-

ter frame will increase support for the liberal immigration frame and that exposure to

73
the individualism master frame will increase support for the conservative immigration

frame.

As the means plotted in figure 3.1 show, the results provide conflicting evidence

for the stage-setting hypothesis. First, people who received both the equality master

frame and the liberal immigration argument were more supportive of the liberal frame.

The mean support for this group was 1.02, or “somewhat support.”

Participants who read an individualism message and the liberal immigration frame

also reported slightly higher, but statistically insignificant support. Compared to the

control group, people exposed to the individualism master frame and the conservative

immigration frame were not more likely to support the conservative view than people

who just heard the conservative frame by itself.

Table 1 reports OLS results testing the e↵ect of master frame treatments. For each

model the dependent variable was whether subjects supported either the conservative

or liberal immigration frames. Models 1 and 2 estimate the e↵ect of issue frames and

master frames on immigration frame support. In Models 1 and 2, Equality and

Individualism are coded “1” for those who received the treatment and “0” for those

who were in the control (no master frame condition). This allows a comparison

between either receiving an individualism or equality master frame and no master

frame treatment. The issue frame variable is coded “1” for those who received the

liberal immigration frame and “0” for those who received the conservative immigration

frame. Consistent with Figure 3.1, the positive interaction between receiving an

equality master frame and an liberal issue frame means that subjects in that condition

reported stronger support for a liberal immigration frame, compared to the e↵ect of

the equality master frame in the conservative tax frame condition. This interaction

74
Table 3.1: OLS Estimates of Master Frame E↵ect on Immigration Frame Support
Immigration Frame Support
Model Model Model Model
(1) (2) (3) (4)

Issue Frame .81*** .97*** - 1.32***

(.30) (.23) - (.40)
Individualism -.13 -.13 -.73** -.67a
(.31) (.25) (.29) (.48)
Control (No Master Frame) - - -.45a .08
- - (.30) (.50)
Equality -.20 -.27 - -
(.31) (.24) - -
Issue Frame X Individualism .30 .23 - -.11
(.41) (.34) - (.57)
Issue Frame X Control - - - -.61
- - - (.58)
Issue Frame X Equality .61a .62* - -
(.40) (.32) - -
Openness to New Experience - - -.17* -.12
- - (.09) (.14)
Open to New Exp. X Individualism - - .42*** .40*
- - (.13) (.19)
Open to New Exp. X Control - - .18a .05
- - (.14) (.22)
Issue Frame X Open to New Exp. - - - .04
- - - (.18)
Issue Frame X Ind X Open to New Exp. - - - -.02
- - - (.25)
Issue FrameX Control X Open to New Exp. - - - .03
- - - (.26)
Ideology - -.37*** - -
- (.12) - -
Gender - -.25* - -
- (.13) - -
Party - .58*** - -
- (.11) - -
Constant -20 -.34 .63*** -.18
(.22) (.50) (.20) (.36)
No. Observations 265 265 265 265
R-Squared .14 .43 .04 .20
a
p < .10, ⇤ p < .05, ⇤⇤ p < .01, ⇤⇤⇤ p < .001, one-tailed
75
is statistically significant below the p < .10 level (model 1, one-tailed) and below the

p < .05 level(model 2, one-tailed) when pretreatment covariates were added. Contrary

to the stage-setting hypothesis, subjects exposed to the individualism master frame

also supported the liberal immigration master frame at a slightly higher level than

the control group, but the di↵erence was not statistically significant.

3.2.3 Moderators of Master Frame E↵ect

However, results were more consistent when moderated by subjects’ openness to

new experience. Specifically, the individualism master frame did have a substantive

and significant e↵ect on support for both the liberal and conservative immigration

frames when moderated by personality. The personality measure itself - openness to

new experiences - was derived from the relevant questions on the Ten Item Person-

ality Inventory (TIPI), a shortened measure of the Big Five Personality Inventory

developed by Gosling and colleagues (Gosling, Rentfrow & Swann 2003).

Models 3 and 4 show the interaction between the individualism master frame and

subject’s personality. Model 3 tests for a two-way interaction between personality and

exposure to master frame treatments. Model 4 tests for a three-way interaction be-

tween personality, master frame treatment and issue frame treatment. In both models

the two-way interaction is positive and statistically significant. The three way inter-

action is not significant in model 4, though the plotted values in figure 4 show notable,

if subtle, di↵erences between people exposed to di↵erent immigration issue frames.

In both model 3 and 4, the individualism and the control variables are coded “1” if

subjects were in those respective conditions and “0” if subjects were in the equal-

ity conditions. This allows a comparison between receiving a individualism master

76
frame and an equality frame treatment as well as a comparison between exposure to

the equality master frame treatment and the control (no master frame) condition.

As already mentioned, the two-way interaction between openness and receiving an

individualism master frame is positive and statistically significant providing strong

evidence for the backlash and personality intensification hypotheses. Consistent with

the backlash hypothesis, figure 3.2 shows that receiving the individualism master

frame caused high openness subject to take more liberal immigration positions, not

less. Likewise and consistent with the intensification hypothesis, the same interaction

shows that exposure to the individualism master frame caused low-openness subjects

to take more conservative immigration opinions. However, exposure to the equality

master frame did not have backlash and intensification e↵ects. Instead, the e↵ect

of equality was relatively uniform across subjects’ level of openness. The fact that

equality does have significant tax-frame moderated e↵ects in models 1 and 2 while

individualism shows only openness-moderated e↵ects suggests that the e↵ect of some

master frames – such as equality – is consistent with the stage-setting and attitude

change hypotheses, while the e↵ect of other master frames – such as individualism

–is polarizing.

77
Figure 3.2: Individualism Master Frame and Personality Create Strong Polarization
E↵ect

Figure 3.2 shows the interaction between exposure to master frames and the subjects’ level
of openness to new experience, controlling for issue frame e↵ect. Predictions for the in-
dividualism master frame condition include a 95% confidence interval. On the y-axis is
support for liberal or conservative immigration frames. The x-axis is subjects’ level of open-
ness. It is not balanced at zero because more subjects had high open rather than low open
dispositions. Positive values represent support for the liberal frame or opposition to the
conservative frame. Negative values represent support for the conservative frame or oppo-
sition to the liberal frame. The x-axis shows subject’s level of openness to new experiences,
measured using the TIPI. Negative values represent less open dispositions and higher values
more open dispositions. The slope of the black line shows that as people are more more
open, they are more likely to backlash against the individualism master frame and voice
more liberal positions. Likewise, low-openness subjects are made even more conservative by
exposure to the individualism master frame. In short, the individualism master frame has a
polarizing e↵ect depending on one’s personality type. In contrast, the equality master frame
e↵ect is relatively stable across all personality types. Though the equality master frame slope
is clearly di↵erent from the individualism slope, the equality condition isn’t significantly dif-
ferent from control condition. Thus, the moderating e↵ect of personality is largely a function
of how people react to the individualism master frame.
78
 Figure 3.2 makes the 3-way interaction between master frames, issue frames and

openness more clear. Though the coefficient for the 3-way interaction is not sig-

nificant, it is well established that interaction coefficients often do not provide full

information regarding moderating e↵ects (Brambor, Clark & Golder 2006). Plotting

predictions by experimental conditions and subjects’ level of openness does reveal

important di↵erences. First, as is clear from combining the appropriate coefficients

in model 4, receiving an individualism master frame polarized subjects by their per-

sonality predispositions. This strong polarizing e↵ect was observed both for subjects

were also received a liberal immigration frame and those who received a conserva-

tive immigration frame. As expected, exposure to the liberal immigration frame (left

panel) produced higher overall liberal positions and exposure to the conservative im-

migration frame (right panel) produced more conservative positions. Among subjects

in the liberal immigration frame condition, low-openness subjects who received the

individualism master frame took a neutral position while high-openness subjects in

the same conditions voiced solid support for the liberal immigration frame. Like-

wise, low-openness people in the conservative immigration frame condition and who

received the individualism master frame, voiced support for the conservative frame

while high-openness people expressed slight opposition. The figure shows that the

predicted e↵ect of individualism is di↵erent from the equality and control conditions

for most values of openness, but particularly for the 74 percent of subjects who were

at the high or low end of the spectrum. Figure 3.2 also shows that, interacted with

openness, the e↵ect of the equality master frame was the same as control for people

in the conservative immigration condition, but di↵erent for those who also received a

79
liberal immigration frame. Specifically, low-openness subjects who received an equal-

ity master frame on top of a liberal immigration frame took more liberal positions

than those in the control (no master frame) condition. Overall, these results suggest

that equality and individualism master frames produce di↵erent e↵ects. Equality

master frames either overwhelm personality dispositions or are not a↵ected by them.

In contrast, individualism master frames activate and strengthen predispositions. Put

simply, equality has more universal appeal while individualism polarizes. This same

divergent pattern between equality and individualism is seen again in the next study,

using a di↵erent moderator for personality disposition.

3.3 Experiment 2: Tax Policy

3.3.1 Tax Experiment Design

This study was conducted as a part of the Cooperative Congressional Election

Study several days after the November 2012 election. Though the complete study

was larger, the experiment itself was conducted on a nationally-representative sample

of 806 respondents. The analysis was conducted using the provided sample weights

to ensure representativeness.

Experiment #2 was a 3x2 design in which subjects were first randomly assigned to

an equality master frame, individualism master frame, or a control (no master frame)

treatment. After the master frame assignment, subjects were randomly assigned to

receive either a liberal tax frame or a conservative tax frame. The dependent variable

was the extent to which respondents supported raising taxes on households that earn

more than $250,000 per year. Subjects were assigned only to one master frame (or

control) and one liberal or conservative issue frame. (Full wording, including issue

80
frame treatments, is provided in the appendix).This experiment was designed to test

the attitude change hypothesis. Unfortunately, the survey did not include the TIPI,

so was I unable to replicate the moderating e↵ect of openness tested in experiment #1.

Instead, I use a pretreatment measure of subjects’ orientation between communitarian

and individualism as a moderator.

People assigned to the individualism treatment were asked to read the following:

Many Americans believe our country would be strongest if every individual

was fully free to pursue their own self-interest and profit from their own
talent and hard work while accepting responsibility if they don’t work hard
enough to be successful. Do you agree with this point of view?

People assigned to the equality treatment were asked to read this statement:

Many Americans believe our country is strongest when everybody has a

fair shot and plays by the same rules and that we need to work together as
a community so that everyone can reach their full potential. Do you agree
with this point of view?

3.3.2 Tax Experiment Results

First, the experiment showed no issue frame e↵ects. This is particularly important

because a typical framing study would make this comparison and perhaps falsely

conclude that it is not possible to change subjects tax attitudes. Subjects exposed

only to liberal or conservative tax frames showed roughly the same level of support for

raising taxes on households with incomes above $250,000. Among subjects who didn’t

get a master frame, there was .58 mean support for raising taxes in the liberal tax

frame group and .51 mean support in the conservative tax frame condition. In other

words, both groups voiced moderate support for raising taxes. However, among those

who received the liberal tax frame, as predicted by the attitude change hypothesis,

81
the equality master frame increased support for raising taxes on the wealthy and the

individualism master frame decreased support for such tax increases.

Figure 3.3: Mean Support for Raising Taxes on Wealthy, by Master Frame Condition

Figure 3.3 shows mean support for taxing the wealthy by experimental condition. Bars are
95 percent confidence intervals. The left panel reports mean support for subjects who also
received a liberal tax frame and the right panel reports mean support for subjects who also
received a conservative tax frame. The left panel perfectly matches the attitude change hy-
pothesis. People who received the equality master frame voiced the most support for raising
taxes, control (no master frame) subjects voiced middle support and people in the individ-
ualism master frame conditions were the least supportive of raising taxes. Means in the
conservative tax frame condition were not statistically di↵erent from each other.

82
 Figure 3.3 shows the means of support for taxing the wealthy by condition. Op-

position to taxing the wealthy was coded with negative values and support for taxing

the wealthy was coded with positive values, with neutral coded as zero. In the liberal

tax frame condition, as predicted, subjects exposed to the individualism master frame

were less supportive of raising taxes while people exposed to equality were more sup-

portive. Mean support for taxing the wealthy among those exposed to the equality

master frame was .87 while mean support among those exposed to the individualism

master frame was .28, the di↵erence of which is a treatment e↵ect of .59 and in a t-test

is statistically significant below the standard .05 level (p< .003, one-tailed). In the

conservative tax frame conditions, exposure to both the equality and individualism

master frames resulted in slightly increased, but statistically insignificant, support

for raising taxes. Mean support for increasing taxes in the conservative tax frame

conditions among those exposed to the equality master frame was .72, a treatment

e↵ect of .21. Likewise, the treatment e↵ect for subjects exposed to the individualism

master frame was .17.

Table 3.2 reports results from four OLS models that test the e↵ect of master

frame treatments on support for taxing the wealthy. In both models Equality is

coded “1” if subjects received an equality master frame and “0” if they received an

individualism master frame. Control is coded “1” of subjects received no master frame

and “0” if they received an individualism master frame. Equality is interacted with

a dummy variable which is coded “1” for people who received the liberal tax frame

and “0” for those received the conservative tax frame. In model 3, the master frame

treatment variable is interacted with pretreatment measure for subjects’ individualism

83
Table 3.2: OLS Estimated E↵ect of Master Frames on Support for Raising Taxes
Tax Increase Support Model Model Model Model
(1) (2) (3) (4)

Control -.17 -.10 .52a -.55

(.24) (.19) (.35) (.46)
Equality .03 -.08 .44a -.30
(.21) (.17) (.32) (.44)
Tax Frame -.40* -.43** - -.02
(.23) (.18) - (.47)
Control X Tax Frame .47a .39a - .12
(.33) (.26) - (.69)
Equality X Tax Frame .56* .64** -.23
(.30) (.24) (.64)
Community/Ind. Orientation - - -.20*** -.19***
- - (.05) (.05)
Control X Community/Ind. Orientation - - .10a .09
- - (.07) (.09)
Equality X Community/ Ind. Orientation - - .13* .08
- - (.06) (.08)
Tax Frame X Comm./Ind. - - - -.02
- - - (.09)
Tax Frame X Equality X Comm./Ind. - - - .11
- - - (.12)
Tax Frame X Control X Comm./Ind. - - - .007
- - - (.13)
Married - -.34*** - -
- (.10) - -
Gender - .22* - -
- (.10) - -
Ideology - -.22*** - -
- (.04) - -
White - -.19a - -
- (.13) - -
Party - -.30*** - -
- (.03) - -
Constant .68*** 2.69*** 1.64*** 1.62***
(.15) (.23) (.24) (.27)
No. Observations 803 741 799 799
Adj. R-Squared .02 .45 .08 .08
a
p < .10, ⇤ p < .05, ⇤⇤ p < .01, ⇤⇤⇤ p < .001, one-tailed

84
vs. community orientation. Model 4 includes a three-way interaction between master

frame, tax issue frame and individualism vs. community orientation.

As in figure 3.3, model 1 and 2 show that the interaction between receiving the

equality master frame and receiving a liberal tax frame is positive and significant,

meaning that receiving an equality master frame compared to an individualism frame

was associated with more support for taxing the wealthy when subjects also read a

liberal tax frame. In model 2, marital status, gender, partisan identification, ideology

and race were added as covariates, which yielded a more precise estimate of the e↵ect

of the receiving an equality master frame compared an individualism master frame.

As predicted, when people received an equality master frame in addition to a liberal

tax frame they were more likely to support the liberal tax position. And when people

received the individualism master frame in addition to the liberal tax frame they were

less influenced by the liberal tax frame and voiced less support for raising taxes as a

result.

85
 Figure 3.4: Master Frame Impact on Support for Taxing the Wealthy

Figure 3.4 shows the e↵ect of master frames on tax views for comparison with figure 1.2.
When compared to experimental expectations, its clear that the liberal tax frame conditions
closely match figure 1.2 while the conservative tax frame conditions does for all but one
condition.

These results provide compelling evidence that simply exposing people to a short

statement about equality or individualism can have meaningful e↵ects on whether

86
they will support or oppose and import policy issue such as tax policy. As the theory

predicts, these results show that political elites have much to gain by emphasizing

ideological principles – they make later arguments more e↵ective. Comparing figure

3.4 to expectations in figure 1.2, the overall pattern in the CCES tax experiment’s

results closely match experimental expectations. In general, subjects in the liberal

issue frame conditions reported higher support for taxing the wealthy. The support

was greater among people who also received an equality master frame and was weaker

among people who received an individualism message. Likewise and also consistent

with experimental expectations, people in the conservative tax frame conditions were

generally less supportive of raising taxes. However, the pattern of results in the

conservative tax frame conditions was not entirely consistent with predictions.

To better understand the practical e↵ect of these results, it’s helpful to explore the

percentage of support or opposition by experimental condition among people exposed

to the liberal tax frame. The starkest di↵erence is among people citing strong support

for taxing the wealthy. Among the equality group, 45 percent of subjects reported

strong support for increasing taxes on households above $250,000. In contrast, only

31 percent of the individualism group and 35 percent of the control group expressed

strong support. The percentage of subjects expressing strong opposition was higher

among those exposed to the individualism master frame. 20 percent of the individ-

ualism group was strongly opposed, while only 8 percent of the equality group was

strongly opposed. Overall, 66 percent of the equality group supported raising taxes on

the wealthy, compared to 60 percent of the control group and only 48 percent of the

individualism group. The practical e↵ect is that master frames moved support from

a strong majority (equality condition) to under 50 percent (individualism condition).

87
3.3.3 Personal Disposition as Moderator of Master Frame
E↵ects in Tax Experiment

As hypothesized earlier, personality dispositions are expected to either intensify

or reverse the e↵ect of master frames, depending on whether the master frame and

particular disposition are congruent or incongruent. Unfortunately, the 2012 CCES

did not include a measure for openness to new experience, so it was not possible to

test for whether it had the same e↵ect as in the immigration experiment. However,

the experiment did include a pretreatment measure of subjects’ individualism vs.

communitarian orientation, which is, of course, the same value dimension the master

frame treatments are intended to magnify. For this reason, I estimated the interac-

tion between master frame exposure and subjects’ individualism vs. communitarian

orientation as another way of capturing the moderating e↵ect of personality. The in-

dividualism vs. communitarian variable is coded so that lower values represent more

community-oriented people and higher values represent more individualistic people.

The key coefficient in model (3) is the interaction between master frame exposure

and individualism vs. communitarianism. The interaction is significant and posi-

tive. Therefore, the equality and individualism master frame slopes were di↵erent

across values of self-other orientation. The three-way interaction in model (4) is not

significant, but, as with study #1, there are subtle di↵erences between the liberal

and conservative tax frame conditions. Most notably, the interaction between master

frames and disposition is stronger in the liberal tax frame condition. For this reason,

marginal predictions for all conditions are plotted in Figure 3.5. As the graphs re-

veal, exposure to an individualism master frame interacted with personality creates a

polarizing e↵ect. In the liberal tax frame condition, the individualism master frame

88
made individualistic people less supportive of taxing the wealthy while it made com-

munitarian people more supportive. The same pattern for individualism is observed

for subjects in the conservative tax frame condition, but the interaction is weaker.

Also similar to study #1, receiving a liberal tax frame and an equality master frame

overwhelmed individualistic subjects’ natural tendency – making them more likely to

support raising taxes. However, individualistic subjects who got a conservative tax

frame and an equality master frame showed roughly the same opposition as people

in the control conditions, meaning equality appeared to have little e↵ect.

89
Figure 3.5: Master Frame E↵ect on Support for Taxing the Wealthy, by Community
vs. Individualism Orientation

Figure 3.5 shows the moderating e↵ect of subjects’ individualism vs. communitarian ori-
entation on master frame treatments. The interaction is shown for subjects exposed to a
liberal tax frame (left panel) as well as subjects exposed to a conservative tax frame (right
panel). The interaction is strongest in the liberal tax condition, but in each individualism
tends to polarize participants making their predispositions stronger. In the left panel, mod-
erate to high individualists take even stronger conservative positions when exposed to an
individualism master frame. At the same time, high communitarians take more liberal posi-
tions after receiving an individualism master frame, but those positions are not statistically
di↵erent from control and equality treatments. Also among people in the liberal tax fame
conditions, high individualist subjects became more liberal after receiving an equality master
frame, overwhelming their predispositions. The same general pattern can be seen in subjects
exposed to the conservative tax frame, but the di↵erences between conditions do not reach
statistical significance at the standard p<.05 level.

90
3.4 Conclusion

Though not conclusive, results in this chapter suggest that master frames can

have powerful e↵ects on both support for subsequent policy arguments and on policy

attitudes themselves. However, those e↵ects are not uniform nor are they universal.

The immigration experiment demonstrated that the e↵ect of individualism messages

are strongly moderated by one’s personality type. People who are less open to new

experiences appear to be made more conservative after receiving individualism mas-

ter frames and people who are more open appear to be more liberal. At the same

time, both the immigration and CCES tax experiments showed that equality master

frames can cause people to adopt more liberal positions regardless of - or despite of

- personality type.

Furthermore, the e↵ect of master frames in the CCES tax experiment is conse-

quential for policy outcomes because it shows that master frames can either generate

majorities for or against raising taxes. Since the experiment was conducted on a rep-

resentative sample of Americans, these results show that elites can build or destroy

majority policy coalitions simply by mixing certain issue frames with master frames

that summarize key ideological principles. This demonstrates that elites can swing

support for or against important policy arguments – not through issue arguments

alone – but also through separate stage-setting appeals to key ideological values.

Even with these results, some might wonder if opinion change was due to a

“double-framing” e↵ect rather than a master framing e↵ect. However, it’s not likely

that this is the case. A double framing e↵ect would need to mention the specific

policy question in both frames. For instance, two separate frames favoring increased

taxes on the wealthy could each influence tax views, but it’s not clear why a general

91
frame that makes no mention of taxes would have any e↵ect at all. Such a general

frame does not directly frame the issue because it does not mention the issue. On

the other hand, such a general master frame could have an e↵ect if, as hypothesized,

it increases the e↵ectiveness of congruent issue frames or by raising the salience of

ideological principles that subjects can relate to taxes.

Future research should extend these findings by testing for the moderating e↵ect

of personality in other combinations of issue frames and master frames. Second,

future experiments should test whether master frames might a↵ect policy attitudes,

regardless of whether individuals receive a specific policy argument. Finally, the next

chapter will investigate whether repeated master frames increase their e↵ect and

might explain how certain issue frames seem to be naturally stronger than others.

92
 Chapter 4: Experimental Test of Repeated Master Frame
Exposure

4.1 Introduction

Experimental evidence from the last chapter suggests that master frames signif-

icantly a↵ect policy views on taxes and immigration, particularly when paired with

liberal issue frames. This chapter contains a conceptual replication as well as an

extension of those experimental designs. First it replicates the spirit of the CCES

experiment by testing master frame e↵ects on tax policy views using a di↵erent set

of participants. Second, it again tests whether master frame e↵ects are moderated

by personality. And third, it extends the original experimental design by evaluating

whether master frame e↵ects are magnified by repeated treatments.

4.2 Research Question and Hypotheses

There were two primary research questions investigated in this chapter: first, just

as with the preceding chapter, I sought to answer whether master frames can a↵ect

policy attitudes by increasing or decreasing the e↵ect of issue frames. Second, since

political practitioners attempt to intensify communication e↵ects through increasing

message repetition and volume, it was important to investigate whether repeating

93
a master frame increases its e↵ect. In addition, multiple scholars have shown that

repeated messages have a persuasive impact (Hasher, Goldstein & Toppino 1977,

Begg, Anas & Farinacci 1992).

This led to the following hypotheses:

Master Frame Attitude Change Hypothesis: As in chapter 3, subjects who receive

an ideologically-congruent master frame will show more support for the position ad-

vocated by the issue frame.

Master Frame Intensity Hypothesis: Exposure to repeated master frame treat-

ments will increase master frame e↵ects relative to only receiving one master frame

treatment as in chapter 3.

Finally, I will also test the two personality moderation hypotheses in chapter three.

Personality Intensification Hypothesis: Master Frames that emphasize community

will make openness-oriented people more a↵ected by liberal issue frames, whereas

master frames that emphasize the individual will make avoidant personalities more

responsive to conservative issue frames.

Personality Backlash Hypothesis: Master Frames that emphasize community will

make less open personalities more likely to support conservative positions and master

frames that emphasize individualism will make openness-oriented people more likely

to support liberal positions.

4.3 Methods and Variables

The foregoing hypotheses were tested in an experiment at a large Midwestern

university. Experimental participants were recruited from undergraduate political

science classes, and they were o↵ered extra credit for participation. Extra credit was

94
given regardless of whether participants completed the experiment. Participants took

part in the experiment by taking an online survey, which consisted of demographic

and pretreatment items, randomized treatments and then a measure of support for

taxing the wealthy.

After pre-treatment items, participants were first exposed to either repeated equal-

ity, individualism or a control (no master frame) condition. After the master frame

or control treatments, participants were randomly assigned to either a liberal or con-

servative tax frame treatment. Participants who received the equality master frame

treatment were asked to read the following statements in succession, each in its each

own individual screen. After each statement, participants were asked to describe

what they just read in their own words to encourage them to pay attention to the

statement.

4.3.1 Equality Treatments

• America is strongest when we recognize that we are greater together than when

we are on our own.

• We are all Americans and it’s our responsibility to help our fellow Americans

when they need help.

• American democracy depends on everyone having an equal voice and an equal

vote.

• Our country is at its best when we treat each fellow American the way we would

want to be treated if we were in their position.

95
 • America can only grow and prosper if all of its people have a fair and equal

chance to seek opportunity and succeed.

• Our country is strongest when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does

their fair share, and when everyone plays by the same rules.

4.3.2 Individualism Treatments

Likewise, participants who received the individualism treatment were asked to

read the following six statements in succession and were asked to summarize each

statement in their own words.

• Our country is strongest when individual entrepreneurs are freed to unleash the

power and opportunity of our free-market economy.

• America is strongest when people don’t get handouts, but instead profit from

their own individual hard work.

• All Americans should accept responsibility for themselves and not expect help if

they make the wrong decisions or don’t work hard enough.

• American democracy depends on the leadership and guidance of the most tal-

ented, hardest working citizens.

• Being an American means having the freedom to follow your dreams and build

your business the way you want.

• America can only grow and prosper when individuals and businesses have the

freedom to seek success without government interference.

96
4.3.3 Issue Frame Treatments

Finally, those in the control (or, no master frame) condition did not receive either

equality or individualism statements. After reading master frame treatments, all

participants were then randomly assigned to either a liberal tax frame treatment or

a conservative tax frame treatment.

Following was the language for the liberal tax frame:

Some argue that we should raise taxes on people making more than $250,000
per year because we need the money to pay for essential investments in ed-
ucation, health care and economic development.

And this was the language used in the conservative tax frame:

Some argue that we should not raise taxes on people making $250,000
per year because doing so would be punishing success and that instead we
should encourage the entrepreneurship and risk-taking that drive economic
growth.

4.3.4 Dependent Variable

The dependent variable for the experiment was whether participants supported

raising taxes on the wealthy. After exposure to experimental treatments, participants

were asked whether they would favor raising taxes on households with incomes above

$250,000. Responses were coded so that opposition to raising taxes on the wealthy

took negative values and support for raising taxes took positive values. Neutral

responses were coded “0.”

4.3.5 Independent Variables

Equality Master Frame – This treatment variable records whether a participant

was exposed to the repeated equality master frame treatment, it was coded “1” if a

97
participant received the equality treatment and “0” if one received the individualism

treatment.

Control – This variable records whether a participant was exposed to the no-

treatment condition. It was coded “1” for those in the control condition and “0” for

those in the individualism condition.

Liberal Tax Frame – This dummy variable measures whether a participant was

exposed either to the liberal tax frame, which was coded “1”, or the conservative tax

frame, which was coded “0.”

30 or under – This is a dummy variable which designates whether an individual

in the chapter three CCES tax experiment was 30 or under years of age, coded “1”,

for 30 or under, and coded as “0” otherwise. The variable was used to reexamine the

CCES tax experiment in light of experimental results in this chapter.

4.4 Results

The first hypothesis was tested by observing the impact experimental conditions

had on participant’s support for taxing the wealthy after receiving either a liberal

or conservative tax frame and an equality or individualism master frame treatment.

In keeping with master frame attitude change and intensity hypotheses, I expected

that exposure to a particular master frame would cause tax attitudes to move in the

ideological direction of that master frame and that the master frame would intensify

the e↵ect of an ideologically-consistent tax frame. For example, the master frame

attitude change hypothesis predicts that exposure to the equality master frame treat-

ment would increase support for taxing the wealthy and the master frame intensity

hypothesis predicts that receiving an equality master frame will increase support even

98
more than simply receiving one master frame treatment and a liberal tax frame by

itself. Experimental e↵ects were estimated using OLS regression using support for

taxing the wealthy as the dependent variable. Table 4.1 reports results of two models,

first the e↵ect of master frame treatments interacted with the tax frame treatment,

and, second, the direct e↵ect of master frame exposure on participants’ support for

taxing the wealthy.

Unfortunately, neither model produces statistically significant results. Model two

demonstrates that exposure to master frames when paired with an ideological tax

frame failed to change participants’ tax views. The interaction between exposure to

the equality master frame treatment and exposure to the liberal tax frame treatment

is not significantly di↵erent from zero, suggesting that neither the individualism nor

the equality master frame treatments produced meaningful changes in tax attitudes

when paired with the liberal tax frame. The equality master frame coefficient is

positive both in model one and in model two, suggesting a positive relationship be-

tween support for raising taxes and receiving the equality master frame treatments

both in the conservative tax frame condition and in combined issue frame conditions.

Unfortunately, this equality treatment variable is also insignificant in both models,

meaning that tax views among people who received the equality master frame treat-

ment were statistically indistinguishable from those who received the individualism

master frame treatment.

Figure 4.1 displays means and 95 percent confidence intervals for each experimen-

tal condition. As is readily apparent, none of the master frame conditions produces

tax views that are meaningfully di↵erent from the others. Comparing the control

conditions for the two ideological tax frames, it’s equally clear that there were no

99
Table 4.1: E↵ect of Master Frames on Support for Raising Taxes on the Wealthy
Support for Raising Taxes (1) (2)
Model Model

Control (no master frame) 0.00469 -0.109

(0.217) (0.313)

Equality 0.0753 0.216

(0.218) (0.313)

Liberal Tax Frame -0.168

(0.306)

Control (no master frame) ⇥ Liberal Tax Frame 0.221

(0.436)

Equality ⇥ Liberal Tax Frame -0.277

(0.437)

Constant 0.209 0.295

(0.153) (0.220)
Observations 268 268
Adjusted R2 -0.007 -0.009
OLS Regression. Standard errors in parentheses
⇤
p < 0.05, ⇤⇤ p < 0.01, ⇤⇤⇤ p < 0.001

100
tax frame e↵ects. The equality treatment in the conservative tax frame condition

did appear to produce slightly higher support for taxing the wealthy compared to

participants who received the equality master frame and the liberal tax frame, but

the .44 mean di↵erence was not statistically significant (se = .31, p < .15).

Figure 4.1: Neither Master Frame nor Issue Frame Treatments A↵ect Support for
Raising Taxes

Figure 4.1 displays means and 95 percent confidence intervals for each experimental condi-
tion. Neither issue frames nor master frames appear to have significantly a↵ected support
for taxing the wealthy.

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 Figure 4.2 compares support for taxing the wealthy in di↵erent master frame

conditions, combining participants who received a liberal or conservative tax frame.

(i.e., the “Equality” condition reports the mean support for taxing the wealthy among

people were received the equality master frame including both liberal and conserva-

tive tax frame participants). As in figure 4.1, support for taxing the wealthy was

indistinguishable regardless of which master frame message participants received.

Figure 4.2: Master Frame Treatments Have No E↵ect, even when Combining Liberal
and Conservative Treatment Groups

Figure 4.2 displays means and 95 percent confidence intervals for combined master frame
conditions.

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 Taken together, these results fail to support either of the first two hypotheses.

Master frame treatments did not change participant’s tax views, much less move

them in the same ideological direction as the master frame treatment. Similarly,

master frames failed to increase the e↵ectiveness of ideologically-aligned tax frames

or decrease the e↵ectiveness of ideologically un-aligned tax frames. In short, this

experiment failed to o↵er any support for the master frame theory or its primary

hypotheses.

In table 4.2, I report results testing the personality intensification and the person-

ality backlash hypotheses. Model one estimates the e↵ect of receiving a master frame

treatment compared to the control condition, moderated by the Big Five personality

item openness to experience. (The same item was used to test personality modera-

tion in chapter three). Neither the interaction with the individualism nor the equality

master frame treatment produced significant moderating e↵ects. In short, the e↵ects

of master frame treatments do not change, regardless of participant’s openness to

experience predisposition.

However, model two does reveal a significant three-way interaction between the

equality master frame treatment, liberal tax frame and openness to experience. In the

liberal tax frame condition, openness to experience does moderate the e↵ect of the

equality master frame treatment, but in the opposite direction predicted by the per-

sonality intensification and backlash hypotheses. If the hypotheses were correct, one

would expect the coefficient for the three-way interaction to be positive, meaning that

when openness to experience increases, the equality master frame treatment drives

higher support for raising taxes. In other words, we should expect that people who

are other-directed would be more responsive to equality arguments that emphasize

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Table 4.2: E↵ect of Master Frames on Support for Taxing the Wealthy, Moderated
by Openness to Experience
Support for Raising Taxes (1) (2)
Model Model
Individualism -0.121 -1.128
(1.085) (1.424)

Equality 1.087 -1.282

(1.134) (1.748)

OpentoExperience 0.373 0.138

(0.195) (0.269)

Individualism ⇥ Open to Experience 0.0416 0.331

(0.280) (0.371)

Equality ⇥ Open to Experience -0.264 0.386

(0.289) (0.436)

Liberal Tax Frame -1.951

(1.544)

Individualism ⇥ Liberal Tax Frame 2.311

(2.201)

Equality ⇥ Liberal Tax Frame 4.893⇤

(2.356)

Liberal Tax Frame ⇥ Open to Experience 0.503

(0.393)

Individualism ⇥ Liberal Tax Frame ⇥ Open to Experience -0.645

(0.569)

Equality ⇥ Liberal Tax Frame ⇥ Open to Experience -1.374⇤

(0.598)

Constant -1.220 -0.332

(0.767) (1.034)
Observations 268 268
Adjusted R2 0.012 0.018
OLS Regression. Standard errors in parentheses
⇤
p < 0.05, ⇤⇤ p < 0.01, ⇤⇤⇤ p < 0.001

104
public policy that benefits the greater good rather than the individual. Likewise, the

hypotheses predict that people low in openness would backlash against arguments

that emphasize the common good and downplay the role of the individual. This

experiment generated the opposite e↵ect.

Figure 4.3: Equality Master Frame Produces More Support for Taxing Wealthy
Among People Who Are Not Open to Experience

Figure 4.3 predicted e↵ects of master frames by subjects’ openness to experience. The shaded
area is the 95 percent confidence interval for the equality master frame treatment. The
pattern in this graph is the opposite of what the personality hypotheses predicted.

105
 Figure 4.3 more fully demonstrates the relationship between the master frame

treatments and openness to experience in the liberal tax frame condition. Both the

individualism and control (no master frame) conditions follow the same general pat-

tern. Subjects low in openness oppose raising taxes on the wealthy and those high in

openness to experience support taxing the wealthy. The individualism treatment and

the control treatment groups are not significantly di↵erent from each other, meaning

there was no master frame e↵ect for the individualism group. However, subjects in

the equality master frame reported starkly di↵erent views on raising taxes from the

control group. Specifically, equality master frame subjects who were low in openness

show much stronger support for taxing the wealthy than those in the control condition.

Indeed, the e↵ect of the equality master frame is to nearly reverse support for raising

taxes compared to the individualism and control conditions. Control subjects with

the lowest level of openness strongly opposed raising taxes, but equality treatment

subjects with the lowest level of openness supported raising taxes on the wealthy.

The di↵erences appear starkest among subjects who were low in openness, but only

2.96 percent of subjects scored a two or lower on the openness measure. Nearly ten

percent of subjects scored a 4.5 or higher on the openness measure and therefore –

though the di↵erences are smaller between the control and equality treatments – the

interaction had the greatest practical e↵ect among high openness participants.

The bottom line conclusion from figure three is that the personality intensification

and backlash hypothesis could not be confirmed as they were in chapter three. Indeed,

at least among participants who also received a liberal tax frame, the results directly

contradict the hypotheses.

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 Taken as a whole, results from this experiment provide no support for the master

frame theory or for the personality moderation predictions. If these were the only

experimental results, one might be comfortable dismissing the theory altogether. Yet,

the CCES tax experiment and the immigration experiment reported in chapter three

imply strong support for the theory. This raises the reasonable question of why the

present results fail to replicate earlier results.

Three explanations are most compelling. First, it’s certainly possible that the

CCES and immigration experiments’ results were simply statistical artifacts that co-

incided with expectations. After all, even in those experiments not every treatment

produced statistically significant results. On the other hand, the CCES experiment

used nearly three times the number of participants and had more statistical power as

a result. Furthermore, since the CCES experiment used a nationally-representative

sample, it certainly had greater external validity than either the immigration experi-

ment or the experiment reported in the present chapter. A second explanation is that

the present experiment was not actually a strict replication of the CCES experiment,

but rather a conceptual replication instead. It may have failed to strictly replicate the

CCES experiment because it included repeated treatments, multiple separate equality

or individualism sentences rather than one concise statement summarizing equality

or individualism.

Though counterintuitive, the experiment’s master frame repetition may not have

validly reflected how messages are repeated in political campaigns in which the rep-

etition takes places over days rather than a span of minutes. This could be the case

for two reasons. First, by asking participants to read a series of statements, one

right after the other, the experiment may have alerted participants to the purpose

107
of the experiment and encouraged them to consciously stick to their previously held

opinion on tax policy. Similarly, repetition in such a short period of time may have

caused participants to think more critically about the treatment information, making

its influence weaker as a result. In contrast, political advertising that repeats over the

course of a few days might garner advantage from repeated exposure without risking

backlash. A final explanation is that di↵erences between the CCES and the present

experiment’s participants muted master frame e↵ects.

Though random assignment ensures that control and treatment groups are roughly

similar on average, it may also be the case that separate experimental groups can dif-

fer in how they are impacted by treatments, especially if demographic di↵erences

might make them more or less likely to respond to treatment. The most striking dif-

ference between this experiment and the CCES experiment was age. In this chapter’s

experiment, which was conducted among college undergraduate students, more than

95 percent of subjects were 30 years old or younger. In contrast, only 14 percent of

the CCES subjects were thirty years old or younger. Because young people are still in

the process of developing a set of political beliefs and, in some cases, systematic ideo-

logical thinking, it is reasonable to believe that master frames would a↵ect them less

because they were less able to comprehend and apply a master frame to subsequent

issue frames. If this is true, master frame e↵ects observed in the CCES experiment

should be attenuated when tested among subjects who were 30 years old or younger.

Table 4.3 reports results of the e↵ect of master frame treatments in the CCES

experiment interacted with a dummy variable that identifies subjects were 30 years

old or below. The interaction e↵ects themselves are not significant and neither were

simple e↵ects. Figure four plots the means and 95 percent confidence intervals for

108
the support for taxing the wealthy by each experimental conditions. As is readily

apparent by visual inspection, almost all the experimental conditions produced the

same support for taxing the wealthy among people 30 or below. The one exception

is the individualism condition among people who also received the liberal tax frame.

Though support for taxing the wealthy is not significantly di↵erent from people in

the equality master frame/liberal tax frame condition, it is statistically di↵erent from

people who only received a liberal tax frame (p < .03, se = .33). This result notwith-

standing, master frame e↵ects among people 30 years and younger were smaller and

less robust compared to the whole sample of experimental participants. Though ex-

ploratory, this suggests that chapter four’s null results were due to the experiment’s

much higher proportion of young people.

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Table 4.3: CCES Tax Experiment: E↵ect of Master Frames on Support for Taxing
the Wealthy Among People 30 and under
(1)
Support for Raising Taxes

Control -0.225
(0.266)

Equality 0.0738
(0.235)

Liberal Tax Frame -0.388

(0.271)

Control ⇥ Liberal Tax Frame 0.485

(0.377)

Equality ⇥ Liberal Tax Frame 0.574

(0.345)

Under30 0.296
(0.365)

Control ⇥ 30 and Under 0.359

(0.562)

Equality ⇥ 30 and Under -0.157

(0.498)

Liberal Tax Frame ⇥ 30 and Under -0.138

(0.501)

Control ⇥ Liberal Tax Frame ⇥ 30 and Under 0.101

(0.708)

Equality ⇥ Liberal Tax Frame ⇥ 30 and Under -0.0649

(0.714)

Constant 0.624⇤⇤⇤
(0.168)
Observations 803
Adjusted R2
OLS Regression. Standard errors in parentheses
⇤
p < 0.05, ⇤⇤ p < 0.01, ⇤⇤⇤ p < 0.001
110
Figure 4.4: When CCES Tax Experiment Was Restricted to Participants 30 and
Below, Master Frames Have Small E↵ect

Figure 4.4 means of CCES tax experiment conditions for just subjects under 30.

Beyond this, it is likely that there were other di↵erences between the CCES pop-

ulation and the experimental group. The experiment was conducted among political

science students at a major public university. It is possible that students were resis-

tant to treatment for two reasons. First, they may have been more aware of ideological

arguments that are similar to the master framing treatments used and may have dis-

counted them because they knew they were intended to have a persuasive e↵ect. It is

also possible that, because the students were taking the experiment for extra credit,

111
students skimmed treatments but didn’t consider them with as much care as survey

respondents did in the CCES. Unfortunately, because of a lack of data, I was not able

to investigate these two possible explanations.

4.5 Conclusion and Discussion

The foregoing chapter had three goals: first to provide a conceptual replication

of the tax experiment using CCES data in chapter three, second to test the e↵ect of

repeated master frame treatments and third to test the impact of personality when in

the context of repeated master frame messaging. The results in this chapter did not

replicate the core findings of chapter three, namely that master frames can increase or

decrease subsequent issue frames and that those e↵ects can themselves be enhanced or

mitigated by one’s openness to experience. Neither did this chapter’s results support

the hypothesis that repeated master frame messages would increase the e↵ect of

master frames. But, as already explored, these results are at odds with the first set of

experimental results and with the macro-level master frame e↵ects reported in chapter

two. Which set of results provide the most credible test of the master frame theory

and which should guide our conclusions? I believe the CCES experiment provides

more information. First, the sample size was larger, providing more statistical power.

Second, the CCES experiment was conducted using a representative sample, providing

external validity and overcoming the potential limitation of muted e↵ects among

college-age subjects. However, even though it is justifiable to place more confidence

in the CCES results, the failure to replicate in the present experiment means that

support for the master frame theory is weaker than it first appeared. In the following

112
chapter, I will o↵er concluding thoughts in light of these conflicting results and how

those results point to further avenues of study.

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 Chapter 5: Conclusion

5.1 Master Frame Theory

This dissertation has attempted to explain how political elites use general ideo-

logical frames – master frames – to strengthen their policy arguments and win elec-

tions. The theory argues that political elites use these general ideological frames in

order to pull the political discourse in their ideological direction, strengthening con-

gruent policy messages and political candidates as a result. Specifically, the theory

predicts that using ideologically-aligned master frames will strengthen the e↵ect of

ideologically-aligned policy frames on policy views. Further, the theory predicts that

master frames will increase the relevance of ideologically-friendly concepts that set

the stage for political debate, giving advantages to allied candidates. The theory

predicts that political elites use master frames because doing so is an efficient use

of their time and resources. Put simply, it is much cheaper and takes less campaign

time to communicate one general message than multiple specific policy messages.

The theory was investigated in a series of studies, an exploratory content analysis

and three sets of experiments.

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5.2 Review of Results

At the macro level, results in chapter two provide evidence that President Obama’s

fairness master frame increased his vote share, often by more than a percentage

point. Not only did his master frame message fail to e↵ect Romney’s vote share,

it increased Obama’s support among independents and decreased Romney’s support

among independents. In contemporary America’s evenly divided national political

campaigns, such vote share swings can mean the di↵erence between winning and

losing an election.

However, while suggestive, observational studies can only go so far in identifying

causal e↵ects. To provide causal evidence, chapters three and four both tested master

frames in experimental settings. In general, chapter three also found strong evidence

for master frame e↵ects, particularly when paired with a liberal immigration or tax

frame. In additional, the experiments in chapter three also confirmed that person-

ality disposition - either openness to experience or one’s individualism orientation –

influenced how master frames a↵ected subjects. Equality master frames tended to

overwhelm dispositions, pulling people in a liberal direction regardless of their per-

sonal orientation. On the other hand, individualism master frames tended to polarize,

causing people to more strongly support the ideological position more aligned with

their disposition.

Unfortunately for the theory, the experiment in chapter four did not replicate the

results found in the first set of experiments. The experiment was not an exact repli-

cation of the CCES tax experiment, so it was possible that null e↵ects were due to the

di↵erences in design. It is also possible the age or other characteristics of participants

in the final experiment made them resistant to master frames. Exploratory analysis

115
suggests this may be the case because CCES experiment master frame e↵ects were

less apparent among people age 30 and younger.

5.3 Theoretical Contributions

Master frame theory is useful to the discipline for three reasons. First, it explains

how highly-ideological elites communicate with a public that is not as ideological or

interested in politics. As a result, master framing provides clarity on how ideological

behavior, and eventually polarization, can arise among a mass public that not as

politically engaged as politicians, advocates and lobbyists. Second, the theory allows

us to better understand how campaigns efficiently organize their messaging strategy.

Put simply, it just isn’t possible to communicate a compelling argument on every

single issue. Campaigns don’t have enough money, candidates don’t have enough

time and the public doesn’t have enough attention to give. Master frames allow

campaigns and activists to efficiently move the discourse in their ideological direction

and strengthen their subsequent arguments as a result. Finally, the theory advocates

studying general frames in addition to issue frames. Though political science has

made great progress by documenting the e↵ect of issue frames on public opinion,

a deeper understanding of American political dynamics would include the powerful

general frames that politicians and their supporters use. This, of course, implies that

in those general frames exist hierarchically above individual issue frames, influencing

many specific issue arguments by framing political debate in terms of fundamental

values and principles.

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5.4 Implications for Democracy

5.4.1 Cynical View

What does this mean for democracy? Some could argue that any communication

from political elites is inherently manipulative. If the public is not as ideological or

politically-sophisticated as politicians, lobbyists and other elites, then are they more

easily swayed from what’s in their best interest by compelling - but inherently simple

– messages. The danger of such an outcome is that citizens are removed from steering

the ship of state and are instead only proxies for power.

5.4.2 Optimistic View

That need not be the case. All in all, I think the optimistic view is more warranted.

Master frames rooted in ideological values may actually help citizens by making elec-

toral choices clearer and more relevant. In national elections, citizens likely benefit

when campaigns place their arguments in terms of their general vision for the country.

Because the United States lacks the institutional coherence of a parliamentary sys-

tem, consensus must be forged between factions and branches of government. Master

frames should make it easier for citizens to choose sides.

Despite the stress polarization places on American institutions, particularly Congress

and the presidency, citizens presently have the opportunity to participate in political

parties that are ideologically distinct from each other. While this has undoubtedly

increased partisan warfare, it has also made government action responsive to popular

will. Ideological master frames, by arguing in favor of fundamental principles, gives

the public simple guideposts to decide, based on the principles they value, which side

they want to stand on. The normative challenge going forward is to craft avenues

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for compromise between two coalitions that are increasingly estranged. Nevertheless,

master frames could give everyday citizens a way to act as rational actors without

having to invest the time political elites put into learning the issues.

Additionally, master frames may give citizens avenues to join the political dis-

course with fellow citizens. While this dissertation has focused on how master frame

a↵ect opinion change, one can imagine that master frames help people deliberate with

one another. If they share agreement on individual master frame values, then those

master frames likely help citizens branch out from common agreement on principles

to discussions of specific policy. If they don’t share such agreement, master frames

at least give citizens the opportunity to have productive, or respectful, disagreement.

Disagreement that participants recognize as rooted in value conflict at least gives

people the opportunity understand why they disagree.

5.5 Future Research

5.5.1 Other Master Frame Conceptions

Although this dissertation dealt with master frames that simplify ideological prin-

ciples, there are certainly many other types of general frames. It is possible that

master frames could have similar e↵ects without necessarily appealing to ideological

principles. Following are several other master frame types which are promising for

study.

Candidate-As-Message: Political candidates often campaign on the strength of

personal stories that are meant to exemplify characteristics that the public finds

attractive. Many of those traits, such as strength and integrity, don’t have ideological

connotations. Though it’s not likely that these kind of master frames would influence

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policy debates, they may very well have an impact on elections by framing the debate

in advantageous ways for particular candidates.

Metaphors: Lako↵ & Johnson (2008) argue that most of our conceptual thinking

regarding politics is structured though metaphors. In the political context, Lako↵

(1997) argues that Americans see politics through the metaphor of family, and that

conservatives rely on a “strict parent” metaphor while liberals rely on a “nurturing

parent” metaphor. To my knowledge, this theory has not been tested empirically and

experiments could test the e↵ect of such master frames on both issue frame strength

and partisan candidate support.

Of course master frames as metaphors may have fewer obvious connections to

ideologies so the e↵ect on policy frames is harder to predict. However, there are

common political metaphors that seem to have implications that could be tested. For

instance, it’s often asserted that “government should be run like a business.” While

it does not appeal directly to ideology, this metaphor implies that government should

do “business-like” things such as make decisions based on the bottom line, efficiency

and frugality. At the same time, adopting such a view precludes other “non-business”

goals such as promoting the common good, (even if it costs more), debt for public

investment and value-based decision making.

Non-dominant Ideologies: This dissertation studied master frames as simplified

versions of America’s most dominant ideologies: liberalism and conservatism. And

while the primary cleavage in American politics is between liberals and conservatives,

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign raises the possibility of other organizing ide-

ologies, such as right-wing populism or nativism, which more closely mirrors persistent

European right-wing movements. Testing such a master frame is not as clear cut as it

119
is not immediately apparent which issues should naturally align with emerging Amer-

ican populism. But, at the very least, one could imagine testing the e↵ect of Trump’s

“Make America Great Again” and “America First” rhetoric on strengthening specific

policy frames that advocate immigration limits or trade barriers.

Trump’s extraordinary rise and the chaos he’s riven in the Republican party makes

such a study justified. If Trump wins election, he will have a powerful position to

pull the Republican party into a more nativist direction. If Trump does not win the

election, he may still leave behind a potent nativist faction in the Republican Party.

Whether such a movement would split the party and the conservative movement is

unclear. In any case, Trump’s success at distilling his core principles into a compelling

master frame may well determine his movement’s unity and permanence.

5.5.2 Additional Studies

5.5.3 Direct Master Frame E↵ects

Though master frames are expected to increase the e↵ectiveness of policy frames,

nothing in the theory would prevent master frames from having direct e↵ects on

policy views. Just as master frames are predicted to a↵ect the extent to which issue

frames influence one’s previous views, master frames could a↵ect one’s original set of

views or considerations regarding a policy question. This suggests that master frames

would be most e↵ective among people who had previous views regarding a particular

issue, so one would expect that political knowledge would moderate any master frame

e↵ects. The set of experiments presented in this dissertation were not designed to test

that particular hypothesis, but additional experiments could be conducted in which

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participants are exposed to master frames and then asked opinions on issues such as

taxing the wealthy or immigration without being exposed to issue frames.

5.5.4 Long-Term Master Frame E↵ects

Chapter two explored estimated master frame e↵ects over the course of a year, but

the theory suggests that sustained ideological master frame usage could help explain

even longer term political changes. Though realignment literature is now in disrepute

in some quarters (see Mayhew (2002)) it is still clear that there are di↵erent ideological

eras in American political history. The New Deal Era and the Reagan Revolution are

partly distinct because they seem to have been dominated by di↵erent master frames

regarding the proper use of government power. To investigate such long-term master

frame e↵ects would be a massive undertaking, however. Rather than analyzing one

public official’s speech, one would need to collect a sizable portion of news coverage

through the twentieth century, hand-code for competing master frames, (perhaps

equality vs. individualism), and train machine learning models to code the entire,

massive dataset. From a technical standpoint, such a project would be ambitious.

However given time and resources, it would help answer whether shifts in general

rhetoric lead to shifts in ideological periods.

5.5.5 Cognitive Roots of Master Framing

Assuming master frames e↵ects are confirmed in additional studies, it would be

important to study more deeply how they arise from the attitude formation process.

Several theoretical possibilities present themselves. First, rather than impacting the

weights of views which are then individually stored in memory, it could be that that

master frames weight the influence of positive or negative information as it is added

121
to a summary attitudes produced in the online process proposed by McGraw, Lodge

& Stroh (1990). If so, e↵ects should be more durable than one might suspect. One

promising way to test this possibility would be to expose subjects to master frames

and measure any e↵ect on opinion change over several weeks. If the master frames

influence long-term attitudes, one would expect that those e↵ects would be sustained

over a several week period compared to a control group. Secondly, one would expect

that those e↵ects would persist even while subjects remember little about the master

frame and issue frame they received at the time of treatment.

5.5.6 Need for Replication

Finally, the null results in chapter four underscore the need to test and replicate

the positive results found earlier in the dissertation. Scientific confidence should be

based on how well results hold up over time. While promising, the master frame

findings here should encourage studies to confirm these results as well subsequent

investigations to understand the mechanisms of master framing e↵ects if they are

indeed confirmed.

5.6 Conclusion

Democratic politics relies on the competition of ideas, but not all political ideas

deal with specific policy issues. Indeed, even those who know the most about policy

are often more concerned with which fundamental principles frame political debate.

Is America stronger if everyone is treated equally and everyone is “given a fair shot,”

or is it stronger if individuals are expected to make their own success? These views

may be easy to communicate, but they can have profound implications on which

policies and goals we pursue.

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 The most memorable part of the Declaration of Independence is not a specific

complaint levied against the king. It’s an assertion of “self-evident” truth that leads

to fundamental rights: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are

created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,

that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” (Congress 1776)

Seen from perspective of this dissertation, the Declaration contains a powerful

master frame about what a proper government should protect and promote. It prob-

ably is not a coincidence that the contemporary liberal-conservative debate revolves

around equality and liberty. Both of these values are embedded in the nation’s found-

ing and, though they are not necessarily in conflict, they can lead to implications that

are difficult to reconcile.

While framing researchers have made great strides in explaining how issue debates

are influenced by news coverage, we can extend and expand that research by studying

the general frames that political elites use to shape discourse. As noted several times

already, there are advantages for political elites to use arguments that are both simple

and appeal to broadly shared principles. Master framing explains how elites can

build coalitions of regular people while influencing policy attitudes and support for

candidates.

While master frames certainly are not the only arrow in a campaign’s quiver,

they are essential for organizing both internal strategy and supporters and allies. As

the results in this dissertation suggest, master frames can have meaningful impacts

on public opinion and candidate support. Master frames are by no means the only

way to influence the public, but I hope this dissertation demonstrates the promise of

further exploring master frame e↵ects in ongoing pubic opinion research.

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Appendix A: Immigration and Tax Experimental Treatments

Impact of Master Frames on Support for Liberal or Conservative Im-

migration Issue Frames

First, subjects are randomly assigned to one of two groups: Individualism master

frame (Group A) and a Equality master frame (Group B).

[If Group A, read the following:] 1. “Many Americans believe our country
would be strongest if every individual was fully free to pursue their own
self-interest and profit from their own e↵ort while accepting responsibility
if they don’t work hard enough to be successful.”

[If Group B, read the following:] 2. “Many Americans believe our country is strongest

when everybody has a fair opportunity and everyone is treated equally.”

[Liberal Immigration Policy Argument] [If AL, BL, read the following:]
5. “Some argue that the U.S. should provide a path for citizenship for
undocumented immigrants who came here as teenagers or who have not
broken any additional laws and who will pay fines and back taxes. Overall,
do you support or oppose this approach? ”

<1> Strongly Support <2> Slightly Support <3>Slightly Oppose <4>Strongly Op-

pose <5> No Opinion <6> Neutral

[Conservative Immigration Argument] [If AC, BC, read the following:]

6. “Some argue that the U.S. should not allow illegal immigrants to become
citizens, making sure our immigration laws are strictly enforced and that
people can only become citizens if they come here legally. Overall, do you
support or oppose this approach? ”

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<1> Strongly Support <2> Slightly Support <3>Slightly Oppose <4>Strongly Op-

pose <5> No Opinion <6> Neutral

Master Frames Impact on support for Raising Taxes on Wealthy

Subjects were randomly assigned first to one of two groups: Individualism master

frame (Group A) or a Equality master frame (Group B).

[If Group A read the following:] 1. “Many Americans believe our country
would be strongest if every individual was fully free to pursue their own
self-interest and profit from their own talent and hard work while accepting
responsibility if they don’t work hard enough to be successful. Do you agree
with this point of view?”
[If Group B read the following:] 2. “Many Americans believe our country
is strongest when everybody has a fair shot and plays by the same rules
and that we need to work together as a community so that everyone can
reach their full potential. Do you agree with this point of view?”

[Liberal Tax Argument] [If AL, BL, read the following:]

5. “Some argue that we should raise taxes on people making more than
$250,000 per year because we need the money to pay for essential in-
vestments in education, health care and economic development. Overall,
do you support or oppose raising taxes on people who make more than
$250,000 per year?”

<1> Strongly Support <2> Slightly Support <3>Slightly Oppose <4>Strongly Op-

pose <5> No Opinion <6> Neutral

[Conservative Tax Argument] [If AC, BC, read the following:]

6. “Some argue that we should not raise taxes on people making $250,000
per year because doing so would be punishing success and that instead we
should encourage the entrepreneurship and risk-taking that drive economic
growth. Overall, do you support or oppose raising taxes on people who
make more than $250,000 per year?”

125
<1> Strongly Support <2> Slightly Support <3>Slightly Oppose <4>Strongly Op-

pose <5> No Opinion <6> Neutral

126
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